Page 9 of My Three Mountain Men

All the blood drained out of my face. “How do you know my name?”

“Smart, Ryder,” the nameless one grunted.

Ryder gave him a scathing look over his shoulder, and he shut up.

“You’re a famous influencer,” Ryder told me. “Simone Summers.”

I wasn’t sure if I believed him, but they weren’t coming any closer, each of them staring at me like I was a loose cannon, ready to explode any second.

And maybe I was.

“What’s the last thing you remember?” Brooks asked warmly, keeping his voice even and placating, like he was talking to a hysterical child.

My eyes became slits as I glared at him, but suddenly, I wasn’t sure he was my enemy at all. None of what had happened made sense. I recalled being out in the cold and transported. I definitely remembered being in the tussle with Aimee. What they were saying was more logical than what I had initially thought: that they were in cahoots with her. Otherwise, why would I have been transported to different places?

But then again, what wasthisplace?

I still wasn’t ready to trust them.

“I want to call the police,” I insisted, my mind racing for some kind of out to this whacked-out situation. “I-I’ll talk to the police.”

“You can’t!” Ryder exploded, his patience expiring entirely as he threw his hands up, and any trust I’d felt forming evaporated.

“Why not?” I barked back defiantly. “You don’t want to go to jail for kidnapping?”

“We didn’t kidnap you, you ungrateful brat,” the nameless one growled, folding his arms over his chest. “You really should have left her there, Brooks.”

Brooks shot him a scathing look and took a tentative step closer as my hands whipped up higher in defense. “Simone, I get that you’re really freaked out right now, but you have to understand—”

I didn’t let him finish, my feet kicking off before my brain registered what I was doing. I darted past the two scowling men and out the open door, into a huge, dim hallway, head whipping both ways until my eyes fell on the stairs. Without stopping, I rushed toward them, ignoring the exclamations of surprise behind me.

“Simone!”

“She doesn’t even have shoes on!”

My legs wobbled, but I refused to let my weakened body betray me, hands curling around a lovely, ornate banister that led to an open concept foyer, the front door directly in front of me.

Escape was just in sight.

“Simone!”

Peeking over my shoulder as my bare feet hit the bottom of the steps, I saw the trio halfway down, each of them shaking their heads pityingly, but none of them in a particular rush to catch me as I hurried to throw one of the double doors open.

A gust of wind and snow drove me back instantly, a gasp falling out of me as cold pierced my lungs. White covered the entire landscape, my eyes blinking wildly as I tried to make sense of what I was seeing.

The door slammed shut, and Ryder towered over me.

“You can’t go anywhere,” he grouched. “Literally. We’re snowed in.”

“We’renot keeping you here,” Brooks added quickly, joining his side, putting himself between me and the huge, irritated man comfortingly. “The snow is coming down hard, and you won’t get anywhere on foot.”

I scoffed in disbelief, a shiver rushing through me.

“No,” I muttered, looking from one to the other. “You managed to bring me here. There must be a way out of here, too!”

“I barely got you back here in the truck from the snowmobile when I was checking the traps. There’s no way the trucks are leaving the property again until spring now. There’s just too much snow.”

“You shouldn’t have even taken it out today,” the nameless one growled.

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