I keep it cool until I make it to the parking lot, and then my eyes immediately search for Harper.
In the far corner of the lot, she’s climbing into her little sedan. I walk quickly to my Jeep while trying to make it look casual in case there are cameras watching. But once I’m inside, I peel out and take the fastest route to catch up with her.
She goes the long way around the parking lot, which means I’m able to pull out onto the main road just ahead of her. We both turn right because there’s no other direction to go, and as soon as we’re on the ranch road, I get in the slow lane and let her pass me.
I follow at a distance as she heads back toward Austin, occasionally letting another car in between us. The drive feels endless and my brain keeps spiraling into worst-case scenarios that I have to actively fight against.
What has Z gotten her into?
How badis itif Silas is telling her to run?
Finally, she pulls off into a gravel driveway. I’ve been leaving a longer follow distance since we’ve been on this ranch road out in the hill country, so I go a little farther past her yard before I pull off to the side and duck low in my seat.
I can see through the cedar trees and tall grasses of the big front yard to the front door of the trailer situated on the nice little piece of land.
As soon as Harper parks, someone steps out from the front door.
Z.
My hands clench on the steering wheel just at seeing the bastard.
I drop down in the seat and lower the window.
“Where’s Bruiser?” Harper shouts as she walks toward the front door, and her voice carries with an edge of panic that makes my chest tight. “I did what you said. Now where’s my son?”
“You better have done exactly as I said,” Z says, and there’s something in his tone that makes my blood run cold.
He doesn’t sound right. Is he on something?
But Harper’s already shoving past him and throwing open the door.
“Bruiser!” she shouts, and then through the open front door, I see a boy come running into her arms in the foyer.
He’s maybe eight or nine years old, and Harper drops to her knees and throws her arms around him like she hasn’t seen him in years instead of days. Her whole body is shaking even from this distance, and I can see her pressing her face into his hair like she’s trying to convince herself he’s real.
Z slams the front door shut, cutting off my view.
I want to leap out of my car and tear across the street and yank that door back open because I’m going to kill that motherfucker for whatever he’s doing to Harper. I can figure out context clues. And that scene just told me he was keeping her own son from her for some reason, maybe blackmail of some kind? What the hell kind of man uses his own son like that?
My hands shake on the steering wheel from the effort of not committing homicide, and I have to shut my eyes hard and force myself to focus.
What does Harper need right now?
Not what doIwant to do, but what doesHarperactually need?
She needs to get the hell away from that maniac, that’s for damn sure.
Harper said Silas told her to run. But she won’t be running anytime soon with Z in there. As he was slamming the door, I caught a glimpse of something on his hip that looked an awful lot like a gun.
I pull out my phone and text Isaak, my friend who runs a security company. But even as I’m typing out the situation, I know it’s going to take time for him to mobilize his team.
Harper might not have time.
My heart pounds in my ears and my hands are shaking, but I force myself to move slowly and deliberately as I calmly slip out of the Jeep, keeping low.
Because here’s what I know about control:
I don’t have any and I never did.