Deep Woods

The scrape of boots and then denim in the dirt as Cal sat down next to me. A big, muscled arm encircled my shoulders, warming my shaking body. Then Rufus’s furry head forced its way under my arm and a tongue started licking my tears away.

I wasn’t alone.

“What happened?” asked Cal, his voice gentle. He held me, his big body pressed against my side, until my tears slowed. And then he listened as I told him.

17

Cal

WITH EACH WORD she spoke, I felt the rage rise inside me. Not the anger I was used to, that fiery black cloud of pain and guilt that seared me from the inside out. This was fiery and pure. Protective.

I was visualizing the smug bastards in suits and the sick club they’d built. A massive, shadowy machine, cloaked by money and power. No wonder they’d been able to hide it for so long: the people who were meant to protect us were the ones running it.

To them, we were just serfs, peasants to be exploited. We voted for them, we bought their products, followed their laws. And if one of the club members saw a woman they liked, they’d pluck her from her life and carry her off, like a king raiding a village, and there was nothing she or we could do about it—

I sucked in a long, shuddering breath, the blood pounding in my ears. No. Not her. I didn’t care how goddamn powerful they were. They weren’t having Bethany.

We’d protect her. Me and Rufus.

I looked into her eyes and my chest tightened. I couldn’t kid myself anymore: I was crazy about this woman. But I couldn’t let myself get close to her. She was good...innocent. And that meant she needed to be kept well away from someone like me.

I had to keep her at arm’s length. That was already damn near impossible and it would get harder the longer I was with her. But the only other option was to abandon her, and that wasn’t an option at all.

She shook her head. “I don’t know what to do,” she whispered, her voice ragged from crying. She looked at the ground. “I can’t go to the police. I can’t go home. There’s nowhere I can go where they won’t find me.”

“No,” I said. I stood and offered her my hand. “There’s one place.”

18

Ralavich

“It’s been almost twelve hours!” I yelled. “How can you not have them, yet?”

To his credit, Cairns, the head of the club, didn’t flinch. “Mr. Ralavich, you’ve been up all night. Please, let my people bring you some breakfast.”

That nearly pushed me over the edge. “I don’t want fucking breakfast! I’m wanted by the FBI in this fucking country! What if she’s talking to the authorities right now?” I swept my arm around at the mansion. “Everyone here, all of your members, are at risk!”

Carl Jammer, the attorney general, shook his head. He was lounging in an armchair with a girl on his knee. “I have people I trust in the state police and the FBI. If she’d popped up on their radar, I’d know about it.” He turned and fondled the girl’s breasts. She closed her eyes, as if trying to wish herself somewhere else.

Cairns saw me watching. “Why don’t you let me get you another girl? Or you could try the golf course or the pool...we can even arrange a hunting trip for you, we have rifles and a helicopter that can take you right to the best spots for deer.”

That did it. I grabbed him by the throat, lifting him so that I could snarl in his face. “Because I want her!”

Didn’t any of them get it? Bethany was special. So good, so pure. In the few minutes of sleep I’d managed, I’d dreamed of defiling her in every possible way. The fact she’d escaped me made her even more irresistible. There’d been time for her fear of me to build. She’d be twice as scared, when I finally took her. Pale and sobbing and pleading, exactly as it should be.

The need has been with me since my first sexual experience: my father offered me the captured wife of one of our rivals, telling me it would make me a man. And it did. I suddenly realized there was a way I could get even with all the girls who’d rejected me in school as too fat, too unsophisticated. And later, when I was beaten so badly that my face was left ruined, and women shrank away from me, I knew exactly how to make them pay.

Cairns had finally lost his irritating cool and was struggling to breathe. “Find them,” I ordered.

He nodded frantically and I let him fall to the floor, choking and gasping.

“Quickly,” I added. “Otherwise…”—I looked at Alik—“I’ll take matters into my own hands.”

19

Bethany

I TOOK A LAST look back at Tucker’s before the branches closed behind us and cut off my view. The wilderness seemed even scarier, having had that little taste of civilization. And from what Cal had told me, we were going even deeper, this time: his smallholding was right in the heart of the woods. A place where I’d be safe...but also a place we’d be alone together, for who knew how long?