Page 95 of Captive Souls

My plans for revenge were cut short by a cool barrel against my temple. I hadn’t even noted that someone had entered the cabin. Clumsy, too fucking clumsy of me. Not that I was afraid of death, but if whomever this was pulled the trigger, Piper would be fucking doomed.

And that was unacceptable.

“You better be ready to die,” I said to the person holding the gun to my temple. “Because I sure as fuck am not.”

Nothing, not even a bullet, would stop me from getting to my woman.

Piper

They’d come in the night.

I hadn’t been sleeping. I hadn’t slept well since Knox left. Couldn’t sleep in the bed that smelled of us. Of him.

I’d been waiting for him to come back. He hadn’t left me. Of that I was sure, once the sting of abandonment had worn off. What was between us was real. Was solid.

There was no acting there, there was no escaping or running from it.

Knox had left because he had to. For whatever reason, I didn’t know.

What I did know was that he was coming back. I had to trust in him. I’d forced myself to go about my days, not wallowing, not crying. Tending to the garden, cooking, reading, cleaning.

I hadn’t thought he’d be gone for long. We had enough food and supplies for about another week. He would likely not push it that far. Three days, maybe four was what I’d guessed.

Despite my certainty—in the daylight, at least—that he was coming back, night brought with it doubts. Doubts about his nobility, thinking that if he left me, I’d be better off. But those thoughts quickly evaporated. Knox wasn’t noble. That’s what I loved about him, his villainous soul. And even if he had decided to be noble, he wouldn’t have left me alone in a remote cabin with limited supplies and no vehicle.

So that was out.

The more likely reason was that he was off on some sinister, dangerous task. My fear came out of the worry that whatever task he was completing had gone wrong somehow, that he’d been hurt.

The thought of it had my heart hammering, my breath shallowing. Knox was like a marble man, unbreakable in my eyes, his skin too thick, impenetrable, to wound.

But he bled. I’d seen it.

I had not forgotten that we were in the midst of a bit of a pickle with the Italian mafia. If weweregoing to be together, it was infinitely dangerous for us. I didn’t think Stone would casually step aside and just let Knox have me.

‘No hard feelings. I tasked you with breaking the woman I wanted to forcibly marry, and she fell for you instead. It’s not a blow to my masculinity at all.’

Yeah, right.

People would need to die for us to be together.

Stone likely needed to die for us to be together.

That didn’t bother me. I thought it might have, but the people who had to die were the same people who were part of the plot to force me to marry a man decades older than me who just so happened to be the head of a major crime organization and likely was responsible for the deaths of hundreds of people.

I’d lose no sleep over that.

It was Knox.

He was powerful. But he was one man against … however many were in the mob. Fifty? A hundred? More?

He already told me he didn’t have friends, allies. He’d have to take them on alone.

So that’s what kept me up at night, him going to battle for me, for us, alone.

And when I heard the crunch of tires against gravel, I lost all sense. I leapt out of bed, not even bothering to put on shoes or pants then sprinted out the door in nothing but his tee and my panties.

I immediately knew it wasn’t Knox.

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