He’s older, his face weathered by time and whatever life he's lived in the thirteen years since I last saw him, but the eyes are the same. The predatory set of his shoulders is the same. The way he prowls through space like he owns it—like he owns everyone in it—is exactly the same.
My kidnapper.
The man who stole me and Mandy in the dark, going home from a late movie. The man who branded us like cattle. The man who imprisoned us in a decrepit house while he looked for buyers to sell us to.
The man who shot Mandy when we’re tried to escape.
My vision tunnels. The bar spins. I grip my wrist over the tattooed barcode he imprinted on me, like I was cattle.
Hell—to them, I was. I was just another girl they grabbed and sold to the highest bidder. Though when they found out I was a virgin, I was more valuable than the other girls.
And now he’s here. I stare as he moves to the other end of the bar and orders a drink like he's just another customer, like he hasn't starred in every nightmare I've had for thirteen years.
His eyes scan the bar casually, a predator checking his territory.
He's going to see me. I freeze. He's going to recognize me. My hand moves instinctively toward the knife inside my boot.
Mason shifts, his body blocking mine. “Breathe,” he quietly commands.
I do as he says instinctively, but I look over his shoulder, needing to keep an eye on that man.
I don’t even know his name.
His gaze passes over me without recognition.
Of course he doesn’t. I'm not the girl he took. It’s been thirteen years. I'm not the terrified eighteen-year-old who had no clue of the atrocities that could happen in life. I'm someone else now—harder, more determined, and trained. He doesn't see me because men like him don’t expect someone to stand up to him.
But I see him, and I will take him down.
11
MASON
Iregister the man Lily’s staring at in one glance. Mid-forties, weathered face, the kind of build that comes from ranch work rather than gym time. He moves with the casual confidence of someone who believes he rules his world.
His name is Patrick Kelly. I recognize him from the photos Luke showed us last week taken from the camera we have set up around the Turner Ranch. Kelly is the new foreman, which makes him either very unlucky or very complicit in the operation over there.
I’ve hunted monsters all over the world, but sometimes the monster in your backyard is the scariest—and Kelly’s boss, Cole Turner, is that. Turner runs everything out of his ranch—cattle, horses, drugs, guns, people. He has more people in his pocket then I do lint. Hell, half this county’s too scared to even say his name out loud.
We crossed paths with the Turners because of Emma. The Turners wanted her land. When she wouldn’t sell, his brother, Eli, started threatening her, but Jake handled it where the law wouldn’t. We thought that would end the situation. Instead, Turner came after Emma himself.
Turns out Emma’s ranch sits right on top of one of his favored trafficking routes and fills a gap in his pipeline. Her father died trying to expose Turner’s operation, and Emma had plunged into it before any of us realized how deep this thing really went.
Turner is a piece of work. After Emma nearly got captured taking photo proof of the trafficking, he came to Blackthorn Ranch and said Jake owed him for keeping Emma alive.
Do I think he’s going to try to collect? Yeah, I do. We’re working on taking him out, but he’s been lying low, running his operation out of different facilities. We’ve been a step behind for the past six weeks.
We have a feeling Kelly does more than just run Turner’s ranch. We just haven’t seen proof of it.
Yet.
How does Lily fit into the scenario? Because staring at her right now, there’s not a doubt in my mind that she’s involved somehow. You don’t radiate this kind of fear over someone you know nothing about.
That can only mean two things: that she’s involved or someone she cares about is a victim. My jaw tightens. I don’t like either option.
Kelly moves to the bar and orders a whiskey. He's four stools down from us, close enough that I can hear him joke with Hank about the weather.
I lean toward Lily, careful not to touch her, keeping my voice low. “You know him?”