Tall, Dark & Furious (Pyte/Sentinel 6)

“And you’re putting her in danger by just being here,” Lukas said with a frown as he cut her off as he stared down at his phone.

“Look, my father-”

“Doesn’t have a fucking say in how I run my town and he knows it. He asked me if you could move back and I told him that as long as you didn’t fuck up and bring trouble into my territory, then you could stay,” Lukas said as he put his phone back in his pocket.

“But I haven’t done anything!”

“You’ve done enough, Miss Williams,” Lukas said, lazily gesturing around her. “Make yourself comfortable, because it appears that you’re going to be here for a while,” and with that, he was gone and she was left standing there, trying to tell herself that everything was going to be okay, but something told her that it wasn’t going to be okay.

Not anymore.

Chapter 14

Westdrom, Maine

“Nathan’s going to have me committed,” Samantha said, for some reason deciding that now was the time to start lying to herself because she knew damn well that Nathan was going to kill her.

Not that she could blame him, Samantha thought as she reluctantly put the car in park and glanced at the large house that she never knew existed until today. She really couldn’t believe that she was doing this, she thought as she looked down at the address Ethan had given her to make sure

that it was the right one only to end up closing her eyes when the words began blurring together. After a moment and another slow, deep breath, she opened her eyes and tried again. She should have run when she had the chance. She could still run now, but…

“Apologies,” the large man that she should be doing everything in her power to get away from said as he forced himself to release his hold on the center console, which he’d managed to crack in half when she’d been forced to do a U-turn a few minutes ago when she accidentally drove past the driveway that she’d never noticed before.

“It’s fine,” Samantha said, sighing, because what else was she going to do? she wondered as she climbed out of the car and-

Was forced to grab hold of the car door and close her eyes when a wave of dizziness threatened to drop her on her ass. She was going to pass out if she didn’t eat something soon. She should have grabbed something to eat before she left, but she didn’t have a chance to do much more than pack a bag and stumble out of the house before the man that she was throwing her life away for could set her house on fire.

Wondering why she was really doing this, Samantha took a steadying breath and opened her eyes to take in the house where Ethan promised they’d be safe until this was all over. She’d lived in this town her entire life and she’d never heard of anyone living in this area of Westdrom before. Then again, that probably had something to do with the fact that the entire east side of Westdrom was supposed to be a federally protected nature preservation.

There were no buildings, roads, or houses in this area, except for this one, she amended as she took in the large colonial house before her. It looked just as old as her grandmother’s house, but unlike her grandmother’s house, this house looked well-cared for with a fresh coat of paint, the windows looked new as did the two-car garage, the grass was neatly trimmed, the property was cut back to the woods surrounding the property, and even the small cottage in the back looked like it was well taken care of, and she had no idea what they were doing here.

When Ethan explained that they needed to leave, she’d assumed that meant leaving town. Instead, they were only thirty minutes from her house with orders to stay here until Ethan could get to them. Until then…

She really had no idea what she was supposed to do.

Well, that wasn’t exactly true since she knew damn well that she was supposed to be trying to get away and get help, but…

She wasn’t sure that was a good idea.

She had no idea what she was really dealing with and something told her that getting the police involved wasn’t a good idea. She didn’t think they were prepared to handle something like this without Trace paying the price. It shouldn’t matter what happened to him, but it did. He’d saved her life and as much as he scared her, she couldn’t ignore that fact.

“What is this place?” Samantha asked only to decide that perhaps now wasn’t the best time to ask questions when Trace’s eyes turned red and that was pretty much all she needed to get her to focus on something else.

At least Nathan was safe, Samantha told herself as she let Charlie out of the backseat, who immediately came to her side and-

“Stop doing that!” Samantha snapped, glaring down at the horrible dog that she was stuck with only to gasp and move her ass when he nipped at her again.

Vowing to eat an entire pizza in front of him the first chance she got, she grabbed her bag-

“Damn it!”

-and quickly made her way to the house before he could nip at her again. Once she made it safely to the front door, she noted the keypad on the doorknob.

Slowly exhaling, she squinted down at the note in her hand, trying to remember if she wrote down a code as she did her best to make sense out of what she was seeing only to end up slapping her hand against the door, closing her eyes and taking a shaky breath as pain shot through the back of her skull. She berated herself for not going to the hospital when she had a chance. Hoping that she wasn’t dealing with a skull fracture, she opened her eyes and forced herself to focus on the small piece of paper in her hand.

“The year he was born,” came the familiar voice out of nowhere.

Frowning, she glanced up and found herself looking into a small camera lens, letting her know that Ethan was watching them. It took her a moment to figure out what he was talking about, but once she did, she turned around and found Trace standing behind her.