Chapter 1

Hanna

I thought I had a lot of problems when my sister was murdered. Now, to my delight, I have more. When the man who murdered my dear sister kidnapped me.

It’s a long story I’d run in my head over and over if my brain wasn’t freezing from fear.

Oh, I’m scared. I shivered awake in this room a few minutes ago and found myself lying on a single bed imbued with dust and man sweat.

A sour tear runs down my cheek. Yes, I’m crying. Who wouldn’t be?

I remember rushing away from that abandoned complex where my encounter with a gang occurred, and where, in desperation, I started a fire. My brother covered me, giving me time to escape. I bolted, but by the time police sirens echoed over the industrial buildings it was too late.

No one ever held me in a chokehold before. My throat burned under his iron hold as I watched smoke rise into the black sky…

This sucks. I’ve lost count how many times I wished it didn’t. But it does.

My sister was a part of recent murders done by one serial killer. Random men and women were killed off over a period of six months. Nothing was stolen. No other damage inflicted.

Why am I kidnapped then? I’m a negligible girl not worth anything. Just my luck.

My stomach growls. With all the hustle I haven’t had a thing in my mouth since yesterday, hadn’t had a drop of water either. I’m afraid if I get up my head will spin, resulting in a fall and a loud thud.

A few minutes later the thirst wins and I wobble up. The room’s as wide as the bed I lay on, and windowless.

Running my tied hands along the dusty wall I tiptoe to the door in my worn sneakers.

Why is it always a girl that gets kidnapped? So not fair.

I wipe the tears from my face before I grab the knob and twist it, one part of me hoping for it to be stuck and the other begging it open. It cracks. I leap back with a yelp I didn’t think would burst out my lips from the damn door opening.

I peek into a tiny apartment. The blinds cover the windows and all the lights are off, dipping the place into the gloom.

Looks like a suburban house.

And I think he’s gone.

I step out into the corridor and scurry across the den to the kitchen, whisk open the fridge.

Fucking tits! “Empty? What do you eat you son of a bitch?” The man is muscular if anything. Yet my vision doesn’t lie. The fridge is a hole to another dimension but for one soda can I don’t dare to take.

On a counter I notice an apple and my lip quivers desperately. I must’ve missed it with my scattered brain. What if it’s his?

He didn’t kill me, but I’m too terrified to imagine what he might need me for. There are millions of options; from his insane mind twisting, to the thugs in charge of him changing their mind about keeping me alive.

I close the fridge and lag for a moment. Why am I searching for food when the house is empty? Why am I not escaping?

In haste I check the windows and doors. All locked. But I could easily break one, right?

I wasn’t ready to go down when he killed my sister, when he stalked me and my friends for months. I wasn’t ready to go down after I had learned that my brother and he had a brief history and that both, in their early years, were heavily involved in crime.

And I sure as hell won’t go down now.

One after the other, I swoop open a row of drawers in the kitchen. Just as a container with cutlery reveals itself the main entrance door cracks, freezing me in my spot.

Robust steps reverberate off the creaky wood floor when he walks forward. The lights come up and I snatch the biggest kitchen knife before I hide behind the wall next to the doorframe, my breath bursting in and out.

“Put that knife down.” His gruff yet placid voice floats through the apartment.

Carefully, I turn the blade in my grip and, slice after slice, cut my ropes. What do I do? I have a weapon now. I can give it a try.

Against a man twice my size with a gun? Really? I’m not very smart when I panic.

I raise my hands up and step out, still clutching the knife.

His gray gaze sends cold down my spine to my heels. It’s his dead gaze that’s taunting really, because nothing else about him would make me think he’s a mass murderer. Sure as hell not his clothing, not a leather jacket half the city wears, nor black combat pants or brown boots. His face isn’t distorted nor crippled either. All that’s a bit off-putting are dark bags under his eyes and a few scars on his forehead I only catch when his wavy hair shifts to the side.

His gloved hands hang peacefully at his sides, unarmed.

I clutch the knife in front of me. God, I must try.

He raises his brow lightly and pivots to me fully. “Move aside.”

Before my rational mind resists the statement my body is already in the corner, allowing him his way to the kitchen. My hands with the knife shake as he passes, inches from me. Stab him, come on, Hanna! Stab son of a bitch! Yet my fear chars away the brain links to the command attack.

A car drives past our house. Its lights hit the curtain-covered windows and slide over the interior. People are right there behind those walls! People who could help me and who are absolutely oblivious to a damsel in distress locked in this house.

Another car rolls by, but this time its tires screech as it comes to a stop, forcing me to turn my head and follow the sound. Did someone stop nearby?

A huff of hope escapes me and I push off the wall—

Before I know it his tight fingers seize my upper arm and he pulls me back. I swing the knife, but he scathes my wrist.

“Hel—” His palm cups my mouth as he presses me to the wall with his body.

“Shut up.” He pins my wrist at my side, squeezing it so hard my fingers release the knife.

I tense, struggling against him. It’s no use. His eyes snap to me sharply and he presses me against the wall harder. “Let me listen, okay? Someone’s here.”

I puff a breath through my nose and we both turn our gazes to the door. Muffled steps crunch in the snow and a second later a sleazy voice breaks the silence. “Michael! Are you in there?”

Past his shoulder, behind the frosted window, I notice a shadow sneak outside. Two of them.

I try to jerk my head to warn him, but all that comes out is a, “mm” from deep within my throat. He looks at me and I widen my eyes, indicating behind him.

The pressure on my mouth weakens, just enough for me to speak. “Two of them, just rounded the house,” I utter, my heart thudding against my ribcage so hard I think he might feel it. “Friends of yours?”

A familiar click of a gun behind the door turns both our heads to the side, our breath stilling.

The gunfire of an UZI pierces the air.

He leaps to the kitchen and to the ground, shielding his head. With a shriek I curl in my spot, my head bowed to my chest and my hands covering my ears.

The house creaks from the bullets, shredding the furniture and walls in their way.

What the fuck did he do for these thugs to retaliate like this?

The gunfire ceases as quickly as it started and somehow, before footsteps enter the house, I manage to grab the knife from the floor and stand.

“Oh, the bitch!” A fat man looks at me as he steps through the broken door. Uzi hangs at his side and three of his thugs follow him. They must be my kidnapper’s gangmates, not so happy with him for some reason. “Where is he?”

I gulp, looking around for the man, but the kitchen floor is empty. “He-he was there.” At their approach I shy away to the kitchen doorframe, clutching the knife to myself.

A hand seizes my shoulder from behind. I yelp as Michael emerges from around the kitchen doorway and pulls me to himself, extending a gun over my shoulder.

Thugs raise their weapons and all I manage to understand is I’m being used as a shield before gunfire erupts. Two of the thugs drop and the fatty hides behind the room corner. The remaining ganger shoots at us a few times before Michael ducks behind a sofa and drops into a squat. As soon as my shoulder is free of his grip I bolt upright and blindly leap head first through a shattered window. I roll over my back and land on my belly, face planting into the snow. With a gasp I prop on my arms, knife still in one hand. Somehow I didn’t stab myself.

“Stop!” One of the thugs approaches me, so close I can see his wrinkle wedged face. Gun in his other hand he wraps his fingers around my bicep. “I got her!”

Panic rolls over me and, slipping on the snow, I stab him in the belly. He gasps, firing a few shots into the snow. I stab him into abdomen again, then kick him and send him to the snowy ground with a thump. He pulls me with him. Grunting, I yank the knife out and stab him into the heart, and then again and again, as deep as my strength allows. It’s not until my hands are sticky with blood do I register his unmoving face and frozen eyes, fixed in place.

I lurch away and fall on my ass, staring at the butt of a knife stick from his blood overflowed chest.

A voice sharpens in my mind, louder and louder. “Run!” I jerk my eyes up at Michael, bolting toward me. “Run!”

Leaping up I snatch the man’s gun and rush into a back yard and into a tall wood fence encircling it.

Voices, following Michael’s footsteps behind me, grow closer. My heartbeat lurches. An engine roars and tires screech and I risk a glance back. Another car pulls into the driveway. Its white lights cut around the corners of the house, highlighting the man I stabbed to death only moments ago.

With two steps I sprint up the fence, grab the top, pull myself up and twist my body over it.

I land on my feet on the other side, panting with sudden exertion.

Michael lands next to me. A puff of snow mushrooms around his feet. “Go! Come on.” I pivot away from him and lift my gun.

He backs off and I do too, keeping my distance.

Here’s my chance. The chance I’ve been waiting for.

Breath hitches in my throat when a sharp pang travels through my side. I glance down at my abdomen. Am I… am I shot?

I straighten my gun. “Don’t move.” My hands shiver and blood stains my skin. Blood of a man I stabbed…

I stabbed a man.

I stabbed a man.

I’ve seen my sister's dead body. I’ve been dragged around by the police and the FBI, questioned, then questioned more. I’ve seen photos of other victims and after all this time I…

You’ll get your revenge, my brother told me once.

“I… I don’t want revenge.” A cloud of warm air from my mouth evaporates into the coldness. My hand with the gun shakes so bad I’m not sure if I shot I’d hit him. Michael stares at me from under his brows, blank.

My hand falls to my side when flashes of what has happened occupy my head. The shootout, the blood, the dead man…

Fuck revenge.

Voices call out from behind the fence and I jerk, awakening once again. Police sirens below and I think I hear a distant roar of a helicopter.

Before I will my awareness back into my head Michael grabs my wrist. I let him lead me away, over one fence, over another. Finally, all I do is follow his back, because I don’t know where else to run. My mind is blank and all I see is my hand with a knife, jabbing the man. Again and again.

Shock, I think people call it.

It’s not until he shoves me into his car’s front passenger seat do I wake from my experience.

I pivot in my seat, but the gun from my hand is gone and instead his weapon stares straight into my forehead. “Stay,” he orders. “Or I will shoot you.”

He hurries around and subsides into the driver's seat. Starts the car.

“Where are we going?” I bite out a few words. “What do—” A stab of pain halts my breathing. I shove my hand under my sweater. Shot.

I glance at him sidelong. He doesn’t seem like he noticed as he keenly watches the road. Pressing my palm against the wound and rest my head against the headrest.

Fuck.