Chapter 3
The Stranger
In the rear of the vehicle, Ethan Cross looked up from the shadows of the backseat. He was not a man who opened his door to chaos. He was the kind of man people waited for, feared, and obeyed. His bespoke suit was impeccably dry, his expression unreadable, and the screen of his phone still glowed from a call he had just concluded.
But the drenched young woman outside did not look like a con artist. She looked like someone who had just used up her very last miracle.
Ethan’s gaze shifted from her fractured face to her bare, bleeding feet, and then to the dark trail behind her, where a flashlight beam was rapidly approaching.
He spoke quietly. “Unlock the door.”
The driver hesitated for a fraction of a second before hitting the release. Aria lunged into the backseat, never asking who he was. Warm leather, expensive cologne, and a profound, quiet luxury enveloped her—it felt like stepping into an entirely different dimension. She curled into the far corner, shivering so violently her teeth clicked.
The car surged forward. Only when the distant lights of the manor dissolved into the rain did she finally draw a desperate, ragged breath.
“They can’t find me,” she whispered, clutching her torn dress around herself. “If they take me back, she’ll destroy me.”
Ethan slipped off his overcoat and draped it over her trembling shoulders. His fingers inadvertently brushed her arm, and the sheer cold radiating from her skin made his jaw tighten.
“Who will destroy you?”
Aria closed her eyes, but the tears leaked through anyway. “My stepmother. Tonight, she tried to hand me over to one of her business associates. She told me I owed her. She said that after everything she spent raising me, my body was the only useful asset I had left.”
A heavy silence descended upon the car. Even the driver’s hands tightened on the steering wheel. Aria swallowed hard, her throat raw. “When I refused, she hit me. She locked me in a room with him. I escaped through the bathroom window. I don’t have a phone. I don’t have shoes. I don’t even know where I am.”
Ethan stared at her for a long time, a dangerous glint flickering within the calm depths of his eyes. Outside, jagged lightning fractured the sky. In the rearview mirror, the headlights of an SUV emerged from the same dirt road, accelerating rapidly behind them.
Aria saw it. The blood froze in her veins.
“That’s them,” she breathed.
The SUV’s high beams flared blindingly bright. Ethan leaned forward, speaking to his driver in a voice so tightly controlled it was more terrifying than a scream.
“Don’t pull onto the highway.” Then, he looked at Aria. “Get down.”
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She slid onto the floorboards, pressing his coat tightly to her chest. But as she did, her eyes caught a detail that made her heart seize. On the console, before Ethan’s phone screen faded into black, she saw the name of the caller flashing on the missed-call log: Victoria Montgomery.
Ethan noticed exactly where she was looking. Behind them, the pursuing SUV closed the distance. And before Aria could scream, before she could even reach for the door handle, Ethan spoke words that made her realize she hadn’t escaped the nightmare at all. She had simply jumped straight into the dragon’s mouth…
