Page 72 of Rugged

“Fifteen, twenty minutes.”

“You drive a blue pickup?”

“Yes.” I shared the make and model.

“We saw it in the driveway. She’s here.”

I was relieved and panicked at the same time. Gunned the engine on Boyd’s truck.

“Okay, listen. We’re gonna shift and get onto the property in wolf form. We’ll sniff around and get intoposition near the house. You drive right up and knock on the door, and we’ll be there to back you up.”

“Understood.”

I ended the call and gripped the hell out of the steering wheel. I’d deal with Boyd later and the fingerprints I just bent into it.

34

LYSSA

“I can handle Mitch,”I told Emma. “You go into my bedroom. No sense in him knowing there are two of us if we can help it.”

She didn’t seem too thrilled about us separating, especially knowing what Mitch was capable of. The creep.

“Are you sure?”

I nodded. “Yes–go,” I gave her a shove in the direction of my quarters and sashayed to the front door to greet my employer.

We’d met at an art opening in Santa Fe–I was screwing the artist–a sexy sculptor I’d met in Aspen. Mitch had flirted. I flirted back because, duh. Billionaire.

He’d asked me what I did for a living. I’d told him I’d done a bit of everything, from modeling to event planning. I’d said basically I looked for jobs that kept me in the lifestyle and crowd I liked to mingle with, and did he have one in mind?

He’d loved my answer and offered me this position on the spot.

Now, in retrospect, I saw that it all happened far too easily. The six-figure salary for doing nothing. The overly generous offer to allow me to stay at his beautiful yet remote ranch.

I’d thought he probably wanted sex. For some reason, I hadn’t been interested, but felt confident I could have warded him off when he made his move.

But now to find out the guy was a sex trafficker!

And I might be his next victim. With clarity, I’d been dumb. Reckless. Why couldn’t I have had some of Emma’s wariness about life? Maybe we wouldn’t both be in a sex trafficker’s house.

He’d literally lured me here with a well paying, fake job.

I’d been in dangerous spots before and always managed to get myself out of them. This time would be no different. Except I had to keep Emma safe, too.

I threw open the front door. “Mitch! You didn’t tell me you were coming.” I smiled broadly.

He scowled at me and stomped past me into his house.

Gone was the charming man who hired me.

Really, should I have taken a live-in job with a man I’d only met once. I felt ashamed of myself.

“I shouldn’t have to give notice,” he snapped. “You should always be ready for me.”

“Oh, I am.” I was nothing if not very good at remaining poised.

“Good. Get my bags.”

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