Page 104 of Recurve Ridge

“You always did have a potty mouth when others weren’t looking,” a smooth American voice that was neither Robe’s nor Miller’s drawled above me.

I know that voice.

I stumbled backward, my heel catching on a heavy tree root as I stared at the man who orchestrated my abuse at the seat of his personal power through watering eyes and landed on my ass. My mouth popped open on a scream, but the sound I needed refused to exit my throat, strangled by a resurgence of world-ending terror that shifted the ground sickeningly beneath me.

“Shhh.” Gideon Blackthorne, ex-boss and personal pimp-slash-abuser, crouched before me, one manicured finger pressed to his pouty lips.

Dark eyes surveyed me with a touch of amusement at seeing me all sprawled out and panicked before him. In another life I might have found him attractive. Once. Now the only emotions I experienced upon staring into his aquiline face were terror and disgust.

“Get away from me,” I whispered, my voice ragged, like I’d run for hours through the forest, sucking at air that wouldn’t let me breathe.

Again.

“Mmmm. I think we need to have a little talk first, don’t you?” Gideon’s head tilted to one side. “You have let yourself go. Huntingdon isn’t caring for you,” he tsked.

I managed a hollow laugh. “You think it’s okay for men to gang-rape a woman, and then she should be able to get up and walk away to live a normal fucking life?” I whisper-shrieked the words, unable to call on the volume I needed.

My heart thrummed heavy in my chest, rising to my throat. If I could have puked it out, I would have on the spot.Anythingto prevent the rush of renewed memories coiled invisibly beneath my skin. So many hands, mouths, theteeth?—

“You’re not worthy of being called a human,” I forced out between numbed lips.

“Perhaps not. It makes no difference. You can tell him, by the way. He already worked it out.”

“I know.” I scooted back a pace, scraping my heels through the mulch to expose dirt beneath. “He’ll come for you.”

Gideon waved a hand as though Robe’s history meant nothing to him, though I didn’t miss the dark flash in his eyes when his jibe elicited no damage.

I tipped my chin back, trying to suck in a big enough breath to scream. Where the hell were my boys?

“Make sure you don’t incriminate yourself at the same time. Will he want you when he knows what you used to do for me?” He leaned closer, looming over me, obliterating all light above and around us. “What you’re doing for me now? You’re never alone.”

Two fingers brushed the bump inside my arm where a small scar lay, healed at the same time as the rest of the damage from that day. His face blurred.

“No,” I breathed, horror squeezing my heart. I swore it jumped a beat. “No, that’s not true.”

“Isn’t it? Don’t his men get hurt? His… friends?”

My throat closed, the forest wavering.Brandon.Was I solely responsible for the old man’s horrific death? “You didn’t?—”

He shrugged. “Perhaps. Perhaps not. Will you take that risk?”

I shook my head, unable to answer him. “No.”

Time stilled as my stomach flipped over on itself. I turned my head to one side, taking my eyes off the demon predator before me for a half second.

I can’t stay.

My new truth, the one that ruined me. I was the danger Robe always believed me to be, and now my borrowed time had run out.

“Occasionally they ask about you. Your parents. Friends….” He smiled, a slow taunt that unwound like a mechanical beast with a target in its sights.

“My what?” I blinked at his drastic change in pace. But that was Gideon’s best negotiation tactic—pulling the rug out from beneath his opponent. I didn’t know if that meant me or Robe or if I was just an incidental pawn in a larger war. “You?—”

“I watch what you do. I talk to your mother. Your old professor. The friends who think you’ve dropped off the map. Oh, and we’re fucking. At least, according to the group chat.” He pulled my old phone from his leather jacket, the device charged and filled with active messages that scrolled through in regular, recent conversations.

“I’m not missing.” My hands were numb. And my tongue.

“Not in the least. Alive and kicking. You won an award at work last week.” He flicked me a lazy smile, so similar to Robe’s that my insides revolted.

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