The deranged scientist isn’t here.

I follow the skeletal remains of the house like a blueprint, trekking through a narrow space that leads to the backside where I stop and stare out into the forest.

Where the brush along the tree line has been cleared from the fire, a small wooden shack appears. Trepidation claws at my nerves as I encroach on the structure. I can make out tread marks in the rain-sodden earth.

The shack doors are open, revealing an empty inside, but the evidence on the ground exposes what was once stored here. Alex kept a second vehicle on site. And by the look of the tire marks, it was a motorcycle.

“Son-of-a-bitch.”

A bird twitters in the tree above and I startle, hand pressed to my chest. I whirl around, my gaze darting from the cabin to the woods. Anger chews through the anxiety. I lower my hand and ball my fingers into a tight fist.

There’s one thing I’ve learned in my short time with these infuriating emotions, and that’s the only way to control them is to focus all my uncertainty and fear—drill it down into a sharp point—and channel it into fury.

Then I direct all the fury toward Alex.

I pull my phone out and check the time, making sure I have enough to get to the airport. Just the quick action of looking at the time has my pulse spiking. I’ll never view clocks the same again.

Alex ruined a lot of things for me. Most notably, the career I loved.

I haven’t taken a new revenge job since Lenora Daverns. She was my last client. She severed all ties to me, and I deleted all connection to her after the way that job ended. Ended is a poor descriptor for the way I murdered her husband.

To make absolutely sure our arrangement remained a secret, I dug out my black notebook full of clients and their secrets—a contingency I always made sure to have in place should a job go badly—and hinted (okay, full on blackmailed) to Lenora that, should the authorities discover our arrangement, her private adoption would be made public. However, Lenora had no plans to reveal our connection; she was glad Ericson was gone.

“He was a monster,” she had said.

In the end, Lenora learned who her husband truly was. And in that regard, Ericson might have had it coming. Hell, the shady criminals he was tied to were probably planning to take him out at some point, and I undoubtedly did them and every female escort in the city a favor. But, brutally stabbing a man to death in an alleyway is an act not even I can live with.

If Lenora suspects me of Ericson’s death, she hasn’t breathed a word. I discovered the insurance policy paid out to her was quite considerable. Maybe that’s why she’s staying silent, or maybe it was my not-so-veiled threat. I should stop obsessing over it, but the constant fear and paranoia has churned itself into neurosis. There’s still evidence, little pieces of metadata, that links us together. If anyone digs hard enough, it’s not impossible to uncover.

I’ve never been on the wrong side of the law before, and I’m running out of time.

The only person I’ve confided in is Jeffery Lomax, a family law attorney who refers his irreconcilable clients to my business. Well, he used to, back when I was revenge for hire. After I retained Lomax as my counsel with a dollar so our conversation remains bound by privilege, I told him my story, to which he recommended a cutthroat criminal defense lawyer.

In all honesty, I’m surprised he didn’t refer me to a shrink.

I have the card for one Josh Vanson in my billfold. I haven’t placed any calls to Vanson. Not yet. As far as the official report and the information I’ve gleaned from the news, the police aren’t looking at anyone in connection to Ericson.

But a man is dead.

By my hands.

Yes, Ericson was a sadistic rapist and possible murderer himself, but that doesn’t exonerate me of my actions.

I’m not running.

I plan to turn myself in and face my consequences like a woman.

But not before I get my revenge.

Before I confess to any crime, I have to find Alex. He did this to me. He turned me into this weak and disgusting…whatever I’ve become. And he’s going to undo it. He’s going to reverse the damage he’s done to my brain, uncross the wires that got crossed, or whatever the fucking hell he has to do to bring me back.

I won’t make it even one day in prison like this. I’ll break. I’ll decay. I’ll wither into a carcass just like this house.

The old Blakely could handle prison. She was tough and indifferent, nothing would affect her. She could defend herself against prisoners and not get duped by sentiment.

I need her in order to survive.

With an angry huff, I tug the hoodie over my head and start in the direction I came. I’ve seen enough. Alex isn’t here. He abandoned his project, then burned the whole maniacal experiment to the ground.

And now he’s out there.

Ultimately, what boils my blood—even if I can’t admit it aloud—is that he abandoned me.

He forced me to feel all these things...things I can’t even explain…so much so that the sheer overwhelm exhausts me daily.

Then he just left me alone to deal with it all.

My pulse thuds heavily in my ears as I pass the open basement door. Memories of Alex—his masculine scent, his pale-blue eyes, his messy dark hair, those dimples when he smiled his boyish smile—become too much, and I slam the door closed with a resounding bang.

He ruined my well-constructed life, yes, but he also ruined other things, too.

Like sex.

Sex was always simple. Uncomplicated. Find a person I’m attracted to and satisfy the need. It was never any deeper than that. Never any messy feelings to muddle through. I had sex the way I lived my life: pleasure-focused. Driven by my desires.

Then one night under a waterfall with Alex changed everything.

An ache blooms in my chest, like a bruise that won’t heal, the fiery pain becoming a familiar companion. Thoughts of that night assault me. Of Alex as he touched me in a way no other man had, of how I could feel his need for me, feel his emotions, feel an intense connection to him.

He told me he loved me.

“He’s the enemy,” I say under my breath, a reminder that I can’t lose sight of what he did. He tortured me for almost a month. He altered the chemistry of my brain, for fuck’s sake.

And yet, on the nights when it’s the hardest to sleep, when the sickness pits out my stomach and I curl into myself and I can’t decipher the difference between anger and heartache, I reach for his shirt. The one I keep tucked on the side of the bed, the one I grabbed when I raced out of the burning cabin.

The one that still carries his scent of sandalwood and aquatic cologne and some indefinable masculine fragrance that belonged only to Alex.

I wear his shirt and, on some subconscious level, the comfort that closeness brings is enough to chase back the darkness.

The acrid smell of fire coats my throat, making it raw. I swallow hard. As I find my way back onto the path, I notice a shiny glint up ahead near the gate. The sun catches on the gleaming object, and as I get closer, a shiver rocks me.

I kneel down and swipe the dirt away with a shaky hand to uncover the pewter cover of Alex’s pocket watch.

My heart knocks violently against my rib cage as I unearth the watch. The glass face is missing, the glass shattered and left discarded in the dirt. The gears are crushed and the hands no longer tick.

A strange eeriness settles over me at the silence, the world suddenly too quiet, too still.

Alex destroyed his timepiece right before he smashed every clock in his twisted dark room and set fire to his cabin.

In doing so, he set me free. But really, he only locked me inside a different kind of cage.

I rub my thumb over the engraving, the one Alex’s sister had inscribed, before I clean the dirt out the best I can. I stand and slip the watch into my pocket.