The stranger was reaching for her car door but halted her movements and looked his way. Ignoring the zing he felt when their gazes met from across the dented hood, Ivan went with a more direct approach.
“How do you know Jax?”
“I don’t.” She shook her hooded head. “I just thought he might be able to—” The woman cut herself off, drawing in a deep breath before blowing it right back out with a rushed, “Never mind. It doesn’t matter. I’m sorry I bothered you.”
From his spot beneath Sin’s black and red neon sign, Ivan ignored the sudden nagging feeling swirling inside his gut. Though his instincts were screaming at him to stop her, he remained silent.
And let her drive away.
2
Cera pulledinto the crappy motel parking lot. Picking the spot nearest the stairs leading to her crappy second-floor room, she shoved her crappy car into park and smacked an angry palm against the steering wheel.
“Damnit!” She hit the cracked and peeling black leather again.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Four…
After the fifth angry strike of her hand, Cera wrapped her fingers around the wheel and squeezed it as hard as she could. Then she opened her mouth and roared.
“Gaaahhh!”
Cera’s throat burned from the animalistic release fueled by fear and desperation. Jax Monroe was her last hope. And now…
What the hell am I going to do, now?
Warm tears burned the corners of her eyes, but she blinked them away. She’d done everything she could think of to escape the maniac stalking her, but somehow, he always managed to find her.
That’s why, for the past almost two months, she’d been hiding away in this no-tell motel, using only pre-paid debit cards and cash for all her purchases and bills. Bank accounts and credit cards could be traced, after all.
The pay-as-you-go phone in her thrift-store purse almost never rang. If it did, it was her boss, Mr. Boden, asking her to fill in at the small grocery store where she worked to make her meager ends meet.
He was one of two people who knew her new number, and the other never called.
Two contacts. That was it. Cera had no family left—a madman had stolen them from her a long, long time ago. And rather than rally around her, the friends she’d had back then simply vanished from her life shortly after.
My parents said I shouldn’t be around you anymore. They said it isn’t safe.
How many times had she heard that from the girls at her old school? How many sideways glances and barely concealed whispers had followed her everywhere she went? And the only thing Cera had done to deserve any of it was survive.
Her family’s massacre hadn’t simply robbed her of her mom and sister and Richard. It had also destroyed the happy, playful girl who’d once existed inside her.
With some extensive therapy—and a lot of hard, painful work—she’d made it through the worst. It wasn’t fast, nor was it even remotely easy, but little by little, she got better.
Better.
Stronger.
A little less…lost.
Eventually, Cera got herself to a place where she could finally,finallystart leaving the past in the past and move on. And for a minute there, she’d been foolish enough to think someone like her could actually behappy.
It hadn’t lasted, of course.