At this very moment, he might be devising some new, exotic torture for me, something spectacularly horrible that somehow involves coffee.
My eyelids droop again, and I rub my hands over my face, trying to keep my eyes open. I know I’m not thinking straight, but I can’t go to sleep without making this decision.
Do I call the FBI or not? And if not, do I actually go to that Starbucks?
A violent shudder ripples through me as I try to picture meeting my husband’s murderer for coffee. I don’t think I can do it. Just the idea of it makes my insides somersault. But what would I do instead? Hide in bed all day and then go to my parents’ house for dinner with the Levinsons as promised? Pretend the monster who destroyed my life isn’t after me?
It’s the thought of my parents that decides it. If I were on my own, I might chance the FBI’s dubious protection, but I can’t endanger my parents that way. I can’t force them to leave their house and everyone they know on the unlikely possibility that Ryson and his colleagues would be able to protect us better than they’ve protected the others. And leaving my parents behind is out of the question; even if their age wasn’t an issue, I can’t risk Peter interrogating them like he interrogated me about George.
There’s only one thing I can do.
I have to meet my tormentor tomorrow and hope that whatever he does to me won’t extend to the rest of my family.
When I finally close eyes and pass out, I dream of him again. Only this time, he’s neither torturing nor fucking me.
He’s sitting on my bed and watching me, his gaze warm and strangely possessive on my face.
14
Sara
By the time I pull up to the Starbucks at noon, the stabbing pain in my skull has quieted to a dull throb, and my stomach doesn’t threaten to revolt every second. However, my palms are damp with anxiety, and my hands shake so much I almost drop my keys when I come out of the car.
I cross the parking lot, feeling like I’m going to my execution. Fear pulses through me with every rapid heartbeat. He could kill me at this very moment, just take me out with a sniper rifle. Maybe that’s why he lured me here: to murder me in a public place and leave my body to terrorize everyone.
But no bullet finds me, and when I come into the coffeeshop, I see him right away. He’s sitting at one of the empty tables in the corner, his big hand wrapped around a Starbucks cup.
I meet his gaze, and everything inside me jolts, as though I got shocked with a defibrillator. For the first time, I see him in the light of day without alcohol or drugs in my system.
For the first time, I fully comprehend how dangerous he is.
He’s leaning back in his chair, his long, jean-clad legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles under the small round table. It’s a casual pose, but there’s nothing casual about the dark power that rolls off him in waves. He’s not just dangerous; he’s lethal. I see it in the metallic ice of his gaze and the coiled readiness of his large body, in the arrogant set of his jaw and the cruel curve of his lips.
This is a man who lives and breathes violence, an apex predator for whom rules of society don’t exist.
A monster who’s tortured and killed countless people.
The surge of anger and hatred that comes with the thought cuts through my fear, and I take a step forward, then another and another until I’m walking toward him on almost steady legs. If he wanted to kill me, he could’ve already done it in a million different ways, so whatever he wants today must be something different.
Something even more evil.
“Hello, Sara,” he says, rising to his feet as I approach. “It’s good to see you again.”
His deep voice wraps around me, his soft Russian accent caressing my ears. It should sound ugly, that voice from my nightmares, but like everything else about him, it’s deceptively appealing.
“What do you want?” I’m being rude, but I don’t care. We’re long past politeness and good manners. There’s no use pretending this is a normal get-together.
The only reason I’m here is because not showing up could endanger my parents.
“Please, sit.” He motions to the chair across from him and sits down. “I took the liberty of ordering a cup of coffee for you. Black, no sugar… and decaf, since you’re not working today.”
I glance at the second cup—prepared exactly the way I would’ve ordered it—then meet his gaze again. My heart drums in my throat, but my voice is even as I say, “You have been watching me.”
“Yes, of course. But you figured that out last night, didn’t you?”
I flinch. I can’t help it. If he saw me try to make that call, then he saw me stagger drunkenly into the bathroom and come out naked.
If he’s been watching me for a while, he’s seen me in all sorts of private moments.
“Sit, Sara.” He gestures at the chair again, and this time, I obey—if only to give myself a chance to calm down. Rage and fear are a tangle of live wires in my chest, and I feel like I’m one deep breath away from exploding.
I’ve never been a violent person, but if I had a gun on me, I’d shoot him. I’d blow his brains all over the trendy Starbucks wall.
“You hate me.” He says it calmly, as a statement of fact rather than a question, and I stare at him, caught
