Page 75 of Zeke

I hate the idea of possibly choosing the wrong place and not being there to grab her back to safety when we rescue her, but know that as long as sheisrescued, I will be happy because she’ll be able to come home to me.

“Yeah,” I say, standing up and flexing my hand. It hurts, but right now, the pain helps me to focus. “Let’s do this.”

CHAPTERTHIRTY-SEVEN

Kira

Ican’t stop my entire body from shaking. My fingers sweat, and no matter how much I rub them on the dirty mattress beneath me, they never seem to get dry. I’m not sure how long I’ve been sitting here—hours, at least—but the stained fabric is soaked on either side of me from where I tried to get rid of the moisture on my hands.

I’m not the only one who’s nervous, either. Steve paces the kitchenette on the other side of the cabin. He keeps looking at me, then out the window, gripping his gun like it’s going to be the thing that saves him when Zeke comes.

Because he will come. I’m sure of it. Eli will figure out where I am, and Zeke will come in, guns blazing, to rescue me.

I just hope I’m still alive by the time that happens.

Something cracks outside, and Steve jumps, staring out the little kitchen window to see what it was. My heart pounds in anticipation. Have they really found me this fast? Before Steve had a chance to hurt me?

He stands there, tense for a moment, then relaxes, lowering his gun, and my heart sinks. It was just a branch or something. Maybe an animal. It wasn’t the Kings. It wasn’t Zeke.

“What are you going to do to me?” I ask, my voice quivering as much as my hands. I dread the answer, but I feel like if he tells me, I can build up an emotional defense before it happens.

Steve looks at me, his eyes wide and searching. “What do you think I’m going to do to you, girlie?” he asks, casually pointing the gun in my direction, which causes me to shrink back against the wall.

A million scenarios run through my head, each one more horrible than the one before it. The sick truth is that he can do anything—literallyanything—to me out here, and I’d be powerless to stop him unless I’m willing to take a bullet to save myself from whatever fate he has in store.

“I… I don’t know,” I say. “You took me at gunpoint. You left me threatening notes. I didn’t even know—”

“Yes, you did!” he shouts, silencing me in my surprise. “You’ve known it was me all along, and you ignored me in favor of that biker trash who likes to hang around you. Well, that’s not going to fly with me, girlie. You’re done with them. Forever. That’s why I’m taking you away from here as soon as I can figure out where we can go.”

Away. He’s taking me away. I have no way to contact Zeke or anyone to let them know where I’m going to be. Even if I could, I have no idea where he’s planning to take me because he doesn’t even know yet. A part of me wants to laugh at the idiocy of his plan, but I’m too terrified about what’s going to happen to find it truly funny.

“Why are you doing this?” I ask.

“Because I’m the one you should be listening to. The one who actually cares about you. Even your father. He wouldn’t let those scumbags anywhere near you if he really loved you. He would have thrown their asses out of the bakery the first time they looked at you.” He takes a step closer, and I shrink back against the wall. “I’m the one who loves you. I’ve loved you since I saw you. You’ve been mine since then, and you’ve been flaunting the way you cavort with those lowlifes for months to make me mad. Well, it finally worked, girlie, and this is the punishment.”

He is severely unhinged. I thought it when he took me, but the more he talks, the more obvious it becomes that he is insane, well beyond what I imagined.

Steve’s chest rises and falls as he breathes heavily, staring at me with wide, wild eyes. My gut twists into knots. I realize he is so wound up, anything could be a catalyst for him to go from pacing nervously to actually hurting me. I need to keep him calm, make sure he doesn’t snap. Maybe I can get through to him, make him understand he’s done something really, really wrong, and convince him to take me home if I can guarantee his safety.

“Steve,” I say quietly. “It means a lot that you have been so worried about me. I can’t thank you enough for watching over me. You’ve been keeping an eye on me for… years, it sounds like.”

“Since you first started at the bakery,” he says, nodding.

Acid rises in my throat. I started at the bakery when I was fourteen, and he said that I was “his” since he first saw me. It’s so disgusting and creepy that I want to throw up, and I have no idea how I’ll manage to keep calm long enough to reason with him. Not that I’m convinced he can be reasoned with at all. He might be too far gone for anyone to get through to him. He might not do the right thing and let me go.

“Wow,” I say, though my teeth are gritted from holding in a scream. “That’s a long time.”

“Yeah. It is. I’ve been taking care of you since then, coming in to talk to you and check on you, to make sure you were okay, that you were doing well in school. You got off track for a while with boys who shouldn’t have dared to touch my things, with friends who encouraged you to be a bad girl for a while… drinking, smoking, seeingboys. But you got back on track. Until those damn Ruthless Kings set their sights on you. I knew I would lose you if I didn’t get you out of there.”

God. He’s really been watching me since I was essentially a child. In his mind, I belonged to him since I was a freshman in high school, and he’d been keeping tabs on things I did that he deemed punishable offenses, like he couldn’t decide if he wanted to be my father or if he wanted to be my lover. Not that it matters. He’s neither. As much as I want to shout that at him, I know doing so would likely make him snap, so I try to go for sympathy again.

Even if it’s the fakest thing I’ve ever done.

“So, you did this to protect me?” I ask. “Because you wanted to keep me safe?”

“Safe and behaving the way a good girl should. Not running around with those fucking biker trash idiots. I know why you do it. Because you know it’ll get my attention. Well, it worked, girlie. You have my attention. Youmademe do this.”

“I what?” I ask, stunned that he’s not implying it was my fault, but outright blaming me.

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