Page 243 of At the Edge of Surrender

My knees wobbled, and I swallowed around the torment that threatened to gush out.

“Then we’d better hurry,” I told her as I took her hand and hurried with her downstairs. Revulsion crashed through me when I peered out through one of the big windows and saw Otto out in the distance, his phone pressed to his ear, the man laughing as he paced back and forth.

How?

How could they ever laugh after the things they had done?

“This way,” I told her, the words barely audible.

“Is it a secret?” Maci whispered too as I all but ran with her into the kitchen.

“Yes. A fun game. We have to be really quiet.”

“Like hide and seek?” She squeaked it low, her green eyes so bright.

“That’s right. In case Otto or Kane try to find us.”

My purse and phone were on the counter, and I turned the location off on it before I tucked it into my purse and slung the strap over my shoulder.

We moved to the back door, then I pulled in a steeling breath before I unlocked it and cracked it open.

We slipped through, and Maci followed my lead as I kept my footsteps light, barely breathing as I hurried with her across the deck and down the steps and out onto the rambling lawn.

Fear pummeled me since we were right out in the open, and I ducked down as I gripped Maci’s hand and dashed with her toward the bank of trees that loomed off to the side of the house.

Praying that we could disappear into their cover before someone noticed.

That I could make it into town and get to the police station before they began to track me.

Maci giggled quietly. “We’re so fast and sneaky, Auntie Em.”

“You’re doing a great job, sweetheart,” I rasped, the words quaking as my breaths spasmed violently from my lungs.

I nearly gasped out in relief when I made it to the yard’s perimeter where we ran into the hedge of pine trees, then a shout of horrified surprise jolted out of me when an arm suddenly looped around my neck and dragged me back. The other hand clapped over my mouth to suppress my scream.

Malice rode out with the words he tsked in my ear, “It’s about time you came out to play. He can’t protect you now.”

FIFTY-TWO

KANE

“Is all that inventory accounted for?”From where I stood in the stockroom at Kane’s, I gestured with the end of my pen at a crate. I’d spent the last thirty minutes jotting notes on the inventory sheet attached to my clipboard, trying to catch up on some of the tasks I’d been neglecting since Maci and Emery came into my life.

Not that I was regretting a single second that I’d spent with them.

Mallory sent me a grin. “It is…as you would know if you checked the inventory on your tablet.”

I chuckled a low sound as I crossed the crate of vodkas off my list. “Hey, now, you know I like to do things old school.”

“I don’t even know how you function half the time.”

Mallory was my lead bartender, and she basically ran the place. She was the one woman we rescued who had stuck around. It’d been risky, allowing her to remain here in Moonlit Ridge. We’d set her up with a new identity in Virginia, but three months later, she showed back up here.

She’d become a part of the mold of this place.

Keeping an extra eye.

She mostly kept to herself while always being right out in theopen. Raven had tried like mad to bring her into the fold. Make her a real part of our family, but Mallory had claimed being here was enough.

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