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In the soft skin of her stomach, on the lower right side, someone carved the letter ‘R’. It’s scabbed over, the skin around it inflamed. “He did this to you?” Even I can hear the deadly tone in my voice. The violence simmering beneath the surface. Moving into the role of soldier is still as easy as breathing.

And right now? My only mission is to kill the man who marked her skin.

She nods. “Like I was a toy he was afraid to lose.”

I don’t miss the bruising sticking out from beneath her shirt. I’d known she was injured from the pained way she moves, but did I underestimate it? “How badly are you hurt?”

She drops her shirt. “I don’t know. I’m bruised, but nothing feels broken.”

Slowly, I retake my seat to give her more space. “Why didn’t you go to the hospital or the police?”

“I went to the police when it all started. There were little notes here and there. A masked man on the trail when I was running or standing outside the guest house of the family I was working for. One time, I found a rose on my pillow.”

“They didn’t do anything?”

“They couldn’t. He left no fingerprints, and there was nothing spotted on any security cameras. He always knew how to avoid them. But about a month ago—” She shuts her eyes tightly and sucks in a breath. “I was running, and he came out of nowhere. Before I knew what happened, I woke up in a cold cellar, chained to a pole.”

A month ago.

She lived that horrific reality for a month?

“Do you know how long you were there?”

“Almost three weeks,” she says. “He told me that he sent a letter to the family that I was working for. He said that I had to resign because I had more important things to do now...with him. For three weeks, I lived on a stained mattress in the cellar of an abandoned house, waiting to be rescued or⁠—”

She doesn’t have to say it, because I see it all over her face.

Waiting to be sexually assaulted.

Killed.

Both.

So she’s been running for a week. “How did you escape?”

“The chains broke.” She shakes her head in disbelief even as she’s standing here, free of them. “I’d been praying and tugging on them like I had every single day since I woke up in that place.” Her tone breaks, but there’s fire in her gaze again. “I’d nearly given up hope, but then the link snapped, and they fell off. After that, I broke a window and crawled out of the basement. As soon as I was free, I ran.”

“Why didn’t you go to the police after you escaped?”

“I was afraid. He told me that if anyone found out, he would take it out on the family I’d been nannying for. He said that, since I didn’t have a family of my own to punish, he’d use them to prove a point. So, I just kept running. He’s a monster, Maverick.” She wipes the tears from her cheeks.

I’m quiet as I try to process everything she is telling me. For a week now, she’s been running. The fact that she had no car yet managed to make it as far as she did is a miracle.

“I had Zane look into you. Off the books, but it’s kind of what he does.”

She swallows hard. “I should have expected that.”

“I needed to know who you were, that’s all.”

Is she going to be angry? Demand to leave?

Instead of anger, though, I see understanding reflected in her blue gaze. “And?”

“You came from South Georgia.”

“Kingswater Island,” she confirms. “Right off the coast.”

“I don’t know much past the police report you filed and your last name.”