A heavy fog smothers my senses, trapping me in a netherworld between dreams and nightmares. Did I fall asleep? Am I awake? Why do I feel so uncomfortably warm and fuzzy?
I struggle to understand, my brain sluggish and not cooperating. Somewhere in the distance, the sound of a heartbeat whooshes a muffled rhythm.
My heartbeat?
Slowly, softly, my hearing clears. Then silence.
Something isn’t right. I was outside just a second ago, freezing my tits off. Wasn’t I in my car?
Think, Danni. Think.
I blink, and blink again. Why am I lying on my back staring at a ceiling I’ve never seen before?
Memories blur to the surface, each one spooling in a drunken ribbon of confusion. The car wouldn’t start. I climbed out to call a tow truck. Lost my balance. Ate the pavement. Then everything starts to warp—the buzzing in my ears, tunnel vision, disorientation. Shouldn’t I be in pain from the fall?
I lift my hands toward my face, and my fingers contort in front of me, familiar yet strange. A piece of medical tape peeks around the base of my thumb, and I turn my wrist, following it to a white bandage on my palm.
Only one hand is wrapped. Did I catch myself on the driveway? With one arm?
I was holding a coffee cup.
As if a switch is flipped in my head, my senses snap online, launching me into a coherent state of realization.
Cole or Trace left coffee on my doorstep.
The car engine wouldn’t turn over.
I fainted.
The coffee.
Oh my God, there was handwriting on the bottom of the cup.
It’s not over.
What’s not over? Cole’s secret job? The revenge attempts against him? Whatever it is, I’ve been pulled into it.
A jolt of adrenaline spikes through me, energizing every muscle in my body. I lurch into a sitting position, swaying with wooziness.
Where am I?
The large bed beneath me sits across from an open doorway that leads to a dark hallway. Sheer drapes cover two perpendicular walls of the bedroom, filtering what appears to be full-length windows and a gray sky. If the sun is setting, I’ve been unconscious for hours.
Panic rises, chopping my gasps. Whose house is this? How did I get here?
I force myself to go still, listening.
Dead air.
It’s so quiet the hairs lift on my nape, and every breath I take sounds like a hurricane. I need to get the hell out of here.
I need a weapon.
A round glass lamp sits on the side table. No clock or phone. But the massive bedroom reeks of wealth, from the opulent crown molding to the intricately carved wood-burning hearth.
My attention locks on the fireplace tools that hang on a stand. The wrought-iron poker looks heavy. And sharp enough to stab someone.
I shove a fleece blanket off my legs. I’m dressed in jeans, a sweater, and socks—everything I put on this morning. My knee-high cognac boots sit on the floor beside the bed.
No coat, which is where I stored my phone. Fuck.
Slipping off the bed, I yank on the boots and tiptoe toward the fireplace. Every step creaks the wood floors, shattering the stillness and chilling my spine in a cold sweat. I feel weak, unsteady, and slightly buzzed.
Someone delivered my favorite coffee to the back door of my house.
I was drugged.
It’s the only explanation for my blackout and transport to…wherever this is. Neither Cole nor Trace would do this to me, but their enemies would. The sort of enemies who get their throats cut in my house and leave devastating photos in my car.
My heart rate explodes as I run the final few feet to the fireplace and snatch the poker. It won’t stop a bullet, but it’s better than nothing.
Cole and Trace would go ballistic if they knew someone touched me, let alone sedated and kidnapped me. Is that what this is? A kidnapping? I’m not tied up or beaten, and the bedroom door is open. But I didn’t consent to this.
Full-body tremors lock my joints and quiver my chin. Why am I here?
Ransom?
Torture for information?
I lift my wrapped hand and peel off the bandage. A few minor scrapes redden my palm, nothing deep enough to warrant first-aid. If someone intends to harm me, why bother mending me at all?
None of this makes sense. I’m so out of my league and terrified it’s crippling. I need to do something before they come in to check on me.
The curtained windows loom at my back, pulling me in that direction. Maybe there’s an exterior door?
I step toward it, keeping an eye on the ominous hallway while fighting to silence the heaving of my breaths. Everything inside me wants to curl up and hide, but I keep moving until I reach the closest exterior wall.
Wrestling with the linen curtains, I find the seam, pull them open, and choke on a sharp inhale.
Gray leafless trees bristle like spines on hillsides that ripple toward the horizon. The woodland surrounds a calm inlet of water and a well-kept private dock. I’ve vacationed in southern Missouri often enough to recognize the vista of forest, high bluffs, waterways.
Given the position of the sun behind the lake in the distance, I must’ve been unconscious for four or five hours. Long enough to make a drive from St. Louis to the lower part of the state.
Someone carried and transported my limp body. Anything could’ve happened to me while I was dead to the world. My skin crawls, and I jump at the sound of an air vent clicking on.
The windows appear to slide open like doors along a track. When I pull on the handles, they don’t budge. A keypad on the wall requires a code to open them. Shit.
I test the weight of the poker in my hand. If I swing it at the glass, it’ll only jar my arm and alert whomever is here. I need to find another way out.
The 180-degree view gives me a decent layout of the back of the house—a massive one-story manor veneered in stone that wraps around several outdoor living spaces with walkways that lead into the woods. From the largest terrace, a bridge arches over a ravine, providing access to the covered dock on the lake.
I bet there’s an enclosed slip at the dock. Maybe several. With boats. I’ve never operated any kind of watercraft, but I’ll figure it out if it’s a means to escape.
First, I need to leave this room, and the hallway is my only exit.
I feel like I’m going to throw up with every step toward the door. My heart is a booming drum, my insides frozen and trembling. At the threshold to the hall, I tighten my grip on the poker and strain my hearing.
The faint vibration of rock music thumps from somewhere at the other end of the house. It doesn’t sound far away. More like the volume is set on low.
A knot of nerves strangles my throat as I creep along the hallway, following the random-sized pieces of slate that tile the floor. Some of the doors I pass are locked with keypads. Others are open, revealing more large bedrooms, each vacant and tidy, with the same natural hues and picturesque windows.
Whoever owns this place is wealthy and wouldn’t need to capture a woman for ransom. Unless the payment for my release isn’t related to money.
Trace could afford this property, but the modern design isn’t his style. I can’t picture him hanging out in a huge contemporary mansion in rustic-nowhere Missouri away from his work. Besides, if he wanted me here, he wouldn’t drug me to make it happen.
Holding the poker out in front of me, I sneak around a corner and stop.
The corridor descends down a gradual slope of stairs that spill into a brightly-lit living room. Brown leather furniture occupies the center, and it isn’t empty.
Someone’s sitting on the couch.
I press my back against the wall and hold my breath. I can only make out a man’s denim-clad legs, bent at the knees where he reclines. Did he see me? My heart hammers so loudly he can probably hear me freaking the fuck out.
The low rumble of a rock song drifts along the blond maple flooring and echoes through the soaring ceilings. The sound is coming from the TV on the wall beyond the sitting area. I know the melody—the dynamic vocals over electronic and heavy metal instrumentation. I squint at the song title on the bottom of the screen.
Go To War by Nothing More.
A chill trickles down my spine. I’ve heard Cole play that song while working out. Maybe it’s just a coincidence.
I tighten my grip on the poker and fix my attention on the man’s legs. Frayed jeans, tanned bare feet, spread knees. I can’t see the rest of him, but it looks like Cole.
That can’t be right. Why would he be sitting here while I’m passed out and left alone in a strange house? Is he in trouble? Was he kidnapped, too?
With my back pressed to the wall, I gulp down my terror and edge forward on shaky legs. Every step down the long stairs requires stealth, vigilance, and a plan—none of which I possess. All I want to do is run back to the bedroom and hide under the bed.
When I reach the bottom stair, I see him.
Cole.
Stubble darkens his handsome profile, his brown hair tousled and physique seemingly stronger, bulkier, than the last time I saw him.
It’s been five weeks.
My pulse slams into overdrive, and a sharp pain stabs my chest.
I kicked him out. Changed my number. Sold my house. I never thought I’d see him again.
And here he is.
He doesn’t look at me, his attention transfixed on something I can’t see. But I’m in his periphery. Experience tells me he’s far more observant than he’s letting on. He knows I’m here.
My stomach hardens as I watch him, waiting for a sign, a verbal cue, anything to clue me in on how to proceed.
Seconds pass like hours. My shoulders tighten, my heart rate reaching dangerous levels. Why isn’t he speaking or moving? I need to know what he’s looking at.
With the poker gripped in a clammy hand, I lean forward, stretching as far as possible while remaining hidden. When the width of the room comes into view, my heart slams to a stop.
Trace.
He stands behind a second couch, his arctic blue eyes and angry scowl trained on Cole. The sight of him in a t-shirt and dark denim jeans is arresting, but that isn’t what holds my breath hostage.
He’s aiming a handgun, finger on the trigger, directly at Cole.
“How are you feeling, baby?” Cole doesn’t take his eyes off Trace.
I jerk my head back, and a sudden coldness hits my core. Cole’s talking to me? Why is his tone so casual? Like he’s not staring down the barrel of a gun. Like I wasn’t drugged and kidnapped and dropped in the most fucked-up situation imaginable. What the fuck is going on?
“Danni.” Trace cuts his eyes to me and returns to Cole. “Put down the poker and come sit down.”
This isn’t happening. They wouldn’t have done this.
“Please tell me you’re not responsible for drugging and kidnapping me.” My voice is reedy, halting, disbelieving.
They continue to stare at each other in silence, with that damn gun hovering between them.
“Is anyone else here?” I grip the wall and scan the living room and open kitchen on the far end.
“Just the three of us.” Cole stretches his arms across the back of the couch, making his chest a bigger target for Trace’s bullet. “One big happy family.”
I have so many questions, and my composure is eroding by the second. Fear from moments ago, grief from the past five weeks, the devastation of their betrayal, the utter shock and relief in seeing them both again—all of it churns into a cauldron of bubbling, maniacal emotions. My throat swells. My eyes burn, and the fireplace poker trembles so violently in my hand I can’t hold onto it.
“Trace?” I set the poker on the stairs and take a cautious step forward, tears welling. “Did you do this? Did you kidnap us?”
It kills me to think he might’ve resorted to this level of madness, but he’s holding a gun. I didn’t even know he owned one.
He laughs, a cold cavernous sound. “Explain to me why you think I’m the bad guy.”
I open my mouth to mention the weapon, but my assumption might be wrong. What if Cole kidnapped me and Trace showed up to save me?
That doesn’t feel right, though. This entire situation is fucking with my head, but there’s one thing I know for sure.
“You like to have the upper hand.” I swallow, eyes on Trace. “When I left you, I took away your control over me. Is that what this is? Are you taking the control back?” I pause behind the chair that sits crosswise between them. “Please, put down the gun.”
“Or shoot me already.” With a humorless grin, Cole softly sings along with the vocals of the song, taunting Trace with an arrogant lack of concern.
His beautiful voice is unnervingly distracting. Deep and seductive, he carries a humming tune, mouthing the aggressive lyrics about corrosion of trust, loss of security, and the total breakdown of love.
The song pretty much sums up the state of our ruined relationships. We circled an unsolvable problem, inadvertently tangling a web around us. Lies, jealousy, resentment, stubborn love, all of it spinning us into a vicious spiral. The more we struggled, the stickier and tighter the web became. So I walked away, gave up everything I loved, before it was too late to escape.
Or so I thought.
“I have more control than you know, Danni.” Trace holds the gun steady, arm stretched and trained on Cole. “But that’s not what this is about.”
“You’re holding Cole at gunpoint, and that has nothing to do with me?” I feel sick to my stomach with anxiety.
“We’re just settling a disagreement.” Trace scans my hunched, swaying stance. “Sit your ass down before you pass out.”
“I’m not moving until you put away the gun.”
“She’s not impressed with your weapon, asshole.” Cole smirks. “No wonder she left you.”
“I left you, too,” I whisper.
A dismal cloud darkens Cole’s expression, and his hands clench on the back of the couch.
“Have you both lost your minds?” I stab a shaky finger between them, my voice rising to a teary shrill. “I quit this and moved on. I’m supposed to be on my way to a new life right now. A new life without you. So I’m struggling to understand why I’m here, knee-deep in your toxic, manipulative bullshit.”
“How’s that going for you?” Cole tilts his head, giving me the full brunt of his gaze.
“What?”
“Your life.” His jaw sets. “Moving on. Without me.”
It’s only been five weeks, and I feel like a severed, broken sliver of the person I was. I’ve lost weight, lost energy, lost the will to do anything. The move to Florida is supposed to be a change of scenery, a way out of this miserable goddamn rut. But I’m not telling him any of that.
“Which one of you drugged me?” My throat scratches, my eyes gummy with hot tears.
Trace regards me for a moment, his brows pulling in and expression pained. Then he lowers the gun and releases the magazine into his hand.
“Do you have any idea how scared I was?” The muscles in my neck strain to the point of pain. “I woke alone, in a strange room, thinking the worst. I didn’t know who took me, why I was here, or what would happen to me.”
“I know my apology has no weight under the circumstances.” Trace empties the chamber on the gun and sets the pieces on the sofa table before him. Then his blue eyes lift to mine. “But I’m sorry. We stepped out of your room to settle a dispute.”
“It was a lapse in judgment.” Cole bends forward, elbows on his knees, and regards me with shadows in his gaze. “We’re both at fault. I’m sorry, too.”
They’re apologizing for leaving me unattended? What about the whole damn kidnapping thing? Maybe it’s the drugs, but I’m having a really hard time understanding what the living fuck is going on.
“Why did you do this?” I hug my waist, working to keep my blubbering emotions under control. “Why am I here?”
“You haven’t danced since you left,” Trace says softly.
I look away and grind my teeth. “You were watching me?”
“Always.”
“My house is still bugged?”
My old house. The reminder that I sold it makes my chest hurt.
“I reinstalled the cameras the day I moved out.” Cole studies me intently.
“It was all an illusion then.” My voice rasps, thick with resentment. “I was never free of you.” A hollow laugh bubbles up, choked by a sob. “You let me walk out of the penthouse that day, with every intention of monitoring me? That’s so fucking ironic, because your cameras and listening devices and constant invasion of my privacy were big reasons why I left.”
If they’ve been watching me, they know just how wretched I’ve been without them. I haven’t been eating, dancing, or living. I haven’t done anything but miss them with every goddamn pang in my chest.
How fucked up is that? To ache for not one but two men who lie and cheat and manipulate at every turn? Oh, and now I can add drugs and kidnapping to the list of reasons why I should be looking for a phone and reporting their asses to the authorities.
Is this Trace’s estate? I don’t even know where I am. “What is this place?”
Cole meets Trace’s eyes and shifts his unblinking glare to me. “This is where we finish this.”