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None of it is going to help me get Liv out.

I reach the side of the cabin and stay close to the wall. Through the window, I can see part of the room. A table. A chair. A book lying open beside it.

Liv steps into view again.

She is alive. That is all I let myself think.

I move to the door and test the handle.

Locked.

I work at the lock, keeping one eye on the trees. It takes longer than I want. My hands are steady, but I can feel my pulse in my throat.

The latch gives.

I push the door inward.

Liv turns. “Ari?”

I put a finger to my lips.

For a moment, she just looks at me. Then she crosses the room so quickly that I barely have time to lower the gun before she reaches me.

Her hands close around my arms. “You came.”

“Of course I came.”

I want to hold her. I want to ask everything at once. Whether she is hurt. What he has done. Why there is a book on the table and why she looks at the doorway behind me instead of asking how we get out.

“We need to move.”

Her fingers tighten.

“Where is he?” I ask.

She looks past my shoulder.

I turn.

Jax stands just beyond the open door. Behind him, a man steps out from beside the cabin.

I bring the gun up.

Jax stops. He looks at the weapon, then at Liv’s hands still gripping my arm.

“I wondered how long it would take you to remember.”

The lodge. Aspen. A conversation I thought I had recovered before he could anticipate it.

“Move,” I tell him.

“Where will you take her?”

“Somewhere you won’t find her.”

His gaze returns to mine.

For a second, I see the man I knew before any of this. The patience. The certainty that he can make someone else do what he wants if he waits long enough.