Page 2

One by one, seven hooded women are led out onto the patio. They’re in dresses similar to Darcy’s, each a glittering color all their own. The women stumble in their heels, and the men accompanying them keep them from falling.

One of them is crying. Another can barely stand.

It takes everything in me not to tear Felton’s throat out.

This is fucked up. So fucking fucked up. I’m being given a woman like she’s a welcome basket, and what’s worse is, Felton looks excited for me.

The women’s hoods are snatched off. All terrified, breathing fast with expressions of sheer terror.

“Take your pick, Cage,” Felton says, bobbing his eyebrows. “She’ll be your date for the weekend.”

The others cheer me on, and I wish I had my gun so I could end this once and for all.

I want to refuse, but I’m supposed to be a colleague to these monsters. Trafficking women isn’t supposed to nauseate me. At the very least, I should care very little about my ‘gifts’, so I step forward, glancing over them as if I’m considering my choices, when truthfully, I’m wondering how the fuck I can get out of this without raising suspicion.

Movement behind the line of women catches my eye, a blonde ponytail swaying from side to side as a waitress appears. She’s in a black skirt and white shirt, and I track her as she moves.

Time slows along with my heart, and I wonder if I’ve fallen asleep. Breathing becomes a conscious effort, and I grip the lighter in my pocket, hoping the pain of the metal biting into my palm will wake me from this nightmare, because she cannot be who I think she is.

She glances in my direction, her small smile practiced and frozen. She’s twenty feet away, but I know she smells like vanilla bodywash, and has a small birthmark in the shape of a moon on her right shoulder blade.

A birthmark I kissed a thousand times when I fell in love with her thirteen years ago.

One I’ve dreamed about since I freed her of me, and the monster I was becoming.

I blink quickly, as if clearing my vision will change who I’m looking at.

My childhood sweetheart.

My first love.

Sunday Winters.

Chapter 2

Cage

What the hell is Sunday doing here? Has Felton figured out who I am? But if he has, why not have her in the lineup?

No, he can’t know. Felton is a shitty liar, and his demeanor hasn’t changed at all since Sunday appeared. He doesn’t even seem to have noticed her, he’s too busy ogling Darcy’s legs.

Could this be a fucked-up coincidence?

Darcy jumps up and down, clapping. “Choose, Cage!”

The hum in my head is now a shrill ringing. Somewhere, in the deep recesses of my mind, my training is telling me to fucking move. I was chosen for this assignment because I’m the best. I volunteered because I have total confidence in my ability to remain attached and diligent. Other men have tried and failed to infiltrate the Maddox family and their human trafficking empire. I can’t afford to fail.

This is a hurdle. A big fucking hurdle.

I have to leap over it, or I’m dead, and the last two years will mean nothing.

“I think Cage has made a choice,” Felton says, tracking my attention to Sunday. She’s collecting glasses, completely unaware of the danger I’ve unintentionally put her in. “You want her?” Fuck. I don’t have a choice. If I don’t choose Sunday and she spots me, she’ll call me by my real name. Years of hard work down the fucking drain. So, I damn the only woman I’ve ever loved with a nod.

“Sunday,” Felton calls out, and she turns. “Come over here.”

Her grip on the tray tightens, but she doesn’t look at me. Her focus is on Felton, and she places the tray down before approaching. The skin on her chest is rapidly reddening, blotches climbing up her throat, something that only ever happens when she’s anxious.

When she reaches us, she lifts her gaze to me, and the evening falls away.