s rage and possession, a thief stealing something she hadn't even know

ke to a pounding headache and a dull, aching soreness that radiated through her

back, fragmented and horri

at. On the pristine white sheets, a small, dark red stain bloome

er-a girl with wild eyes, smeared makeup, and the faint, purple-blue marks of a man's fingers on he

to get o

She found her torn paper gown and the simple dress she'd worn beneath it, pulling the

rom her grasp, spilling its contents across the floor. A tube

etic gesture, a child's rebellion, but it was all she had left. She snatched the bill from the flo

more than a transaction. She didn't wait to see it land. She turned and fled, not stopping until she was out

for exactly t

nt of her, blocking her path. And behind them

her phone, displaying a photo of an elderly woman lying in a hospi

. "It would be a shame if someone had to... pull the plug. You're going to get in the car, Chl

weakness, the only person she truly loved. And they had her. A

urn strode back into the bedroom after a series of urgen

was the fifty-dollar bil

g from the bill to the small, dark stain on the sh

nstantaneous, and th

t used him. She hadn't just lied to him. She had treated him like a common gigolo, paying

amning thought solidified in his mind: Chloe Foster was not a victim. She was a mercenary, a

ld make her understand that some thing

from the curb, she watched her fleeting moment of freedom disappear in t

ne. He didn't call hotel

," he commanded, his voice lethally quiet. "E

r. And he was going to make her regret the day s