Page 144 of Unseen Danger

Nevaeh had been taken. By the man of her nightmares. The brute who’d caused all her pain, her fear, her PTSD. A monster who’d tried to kill her with his bare hands.

He would show her no mercy. He’d try to kill her again.

Rage burned through Branson. But not all of it was aimed at Nevaeh’s abductor.

Branson had left her unprotected. The woman he’d sworn he would keep safe no matter what.

The woman he loved had been taken on his watch. And now she was in the hands of a killer.

Forty

Blackness surrounded her. She was shaking.

No. Something was shaking her. Pushing her.

Nevaeh opened her eyes.

To a nightmare.

Walter’s face—the bulky features, the scar across his forehead, the sloppy sneer she could never forget—loomed above her.

She must be lying on the ground. A floor, since there was a dark ceiling above made up of exposed boards. The floor was hard and cold beneath her shoulders. Like concrete.

Where had he taken her? A basement somewhere?

Like it mattered.

Walter was here. And she was at his mercy. That might be the last thing to ever matter in her life.

“Bet you thought you’d never see me again, huh—”

She tried to keep her face blank as he called her the degrading name. She’d been used to that at the prison. The taunts and insults from the inmates. She’d barely noticed them after a while.

But Walter hadn’t actually called her names or slurs. He’d acted friendly and polite. Almost sweet at times.

Until the day he’d tried to kill her.

“Ain’t you gonna talk to me?”

“Ain’t you gonna help me?” The words he’d shouted when he first attacked her at the prison ricocheted through her memory.

The feel of his fist crashing into her face. Her bones crunching as he kicked her.

The fierce pain seared her like it was happening now, accelerating the fear pumping through her body.

She pushed the memory away. She couldn’t get consumed by it.

But her fear was supposed to help her.

Use it as a tool. Phoenix’s voice sounded in Nevaeh’s ears.

The fear had primed her nervous system. She was ready for fight or flight.

She moved her fingers and hands slightly, feeling the grit on the cold floor.

He hadn’t tied her up. Must’ve drugged her or knocked her out with a choke hold. The last thing she remembered was being pushed onto the floor of his pickup truck.

“Don’t tell me you shy now?”

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