Page 64 of Montana Silence

“Assume.” His voice was low. “Please assume.”

So many unsaid things hung in the air between us, neither of us ready to take the leap, both of us feeling the exhilaration of walking up to the edge.

“Let’s go,” he said. “Quickly. Because I need to get you back here.”

“Okay.”

“And we can look at the package.”

My stomach tumbled. There was nothing I liked about that. The last time was the veil. What would it be this time? I hoped I was overthinking and it was harmless.

But luck hadn’t exactly been on my side lately.

Liam grabbed his keys, and we kept touching on the drive, despite my having to keep my seat belt on this time.

The sun was almost gone by the time we pulled up to my house. Just as Daniel said, a box sat on my front doorstep. I stared at it like it was a snake.

“I’ll grab the box,” he said. “You get what you need.”

His words released the tension freezing my body. I got out of the truck and waited until he picked it up to unlock the door and go inside. “I can’t do anything else without knowing,” I said. “I wish I could.”

“It’s okay,” Liam said. “Do you want me to open it?”

Taking a breath, I focused on the cardboard in his hands. “No, I’ll do it.”

Liam handed the box to me and walked with me to the couch. “I’m here with you.”

I put the box on the coffee table.

No chance the contents were good. I knew they weren’t. I could feel it. What I really wanted was to light a fire in the hearth and burn it without opening it. But if there was something inside that could keep Malcolm in jail? We needed to see it.

With one hand, I pried up the piece of packing tape holding the box closed. Liam’s hand rested on the center of my back, a comforting presence.

At first, it didn’t look like anything. Like a box of cut-up paper, scraps, and trash.

It wasn’t that.

“Flowers?” I asked.

Carefully reaching inside, I lifted up a handful of destroyed flowers. Pretty blues and yellows, some shades of purple and pink. Exactly like the flowers outside my house. I moved suddenly, digging through the box in a frenzy. It held more than flowers. At the bottom was fabric. Pale and pearlescent. It, too, was shredded.

I barely had to touch it to know what it was. It was what was left of the wedding dress that had been made for me. I’d seen the designs more than I’d ever wanted to. The way it was torn looked like a wolf had run its claws through it.

Springing to my feet, I rushed outside.

“Mara,” Liam called.

Spinning, I looked at my garden and the vines on my house. I knew these flowers like I knew my own body. Nothing was missing. A quick circuit of the house confirmed nothing had been touched. No one had been here cutting my flowers and dumping them into a box.

But the flowers were still the same.

Liam stood in the middle of the living room, paper in his hand. The expression on his face—

I took the paper and read the scrawled words.

You will always belong to The Family.

“Oh god,” I whispered, dropping the note. “Ohgod.”

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