“You promise?”
Claire Bennett tightened her grip around the phone while rain streamed down her face.
“I promise.”
“Every ten minutes,” Natalie Brooks repeated. “If I don’t hear from you, Ethan and I are coming after you.”
Claire almost laughed.
Almost.
“I’ll call.”
She ended the call and slipped the phone into her clutch.
For a few seconds, she simply stood beneath the trees along Rivercrest Road, breathing through the humiliation.
The emerald-green gown Mason Vale had sent to her apartment that afternoon now clung heavily to her body. Mud streaked the hem. Her blonde hair was plastered against her cheeks. Her bare feet already hurt from gravel.
The ridiculous part was that six hours earlier, she had felt beautiful.
Mason’s driver had delivered the dress with a small black card.
Wear this tonight.
No signature.
Mason never needed one.
Claire had smiled despite herself.
That was how their relationship worked.
He rarely said the things ordinary men said.
He remembered them instead.
He remembered she hated lilies but loved peonies.
He remembered she drank coffee with cinnamon but no sugar.
He had once driven forty minutes across Portland at two in the morning because she had casually mentioned she couldn't sleep.
He never said, I love you.
But Claire had believed his actions were saying it for him.
Tonight, she learned how dangerous assumptions could be.
Thunder rolled across the sky.
Claire started walking.
The road was darker than she expected.
Tall fir trees crowded both sides, and the few streetlights along the residential stretch flickered through sheets of rain.
She tried not to think about Mason.
It lasted approximately twelve seconds.
“I never said I loved you.”
The words returned.
Claire clenched her jaw.
“You don’t get to cry,” she whispered to herself.
She had survived worse than a rich man with trust issues.
She had grown up watching her mother work double shifts after Claire’s father disappeared when she was twelve.
She had put herself through college.
She had built a career as a nonprofit fundraising consultant while half the city underestimated her because she smiled too easily.
Mason Vale would not destroy her.
Even if loving him already had.
Her phone vibrated.
She glanced down.
Not Natalie.
Mason.
Claire stopped.
His name glowed across the screen.
She stared until the call disappeared.
A moment later, another appeared.
She declined it.
Then another.
She turned the phone over.
“Too late.”
Several miles away, Mason Vale was sitting alone inside his penthouse office staring at photographs spread across a black walnut desk.
Vanessa Hale had delivered them forty minutes before the gala ended.
Claire outside the Alder Street café.
Claire sitting across from Jonah Quinn.
Claire handing him a cream-colored envelope.
Jonah slipping it into his coat.
Mason had recognized him immediately.
Jonah’s uncle, Warren Quinn, controlled half the illicit freight operations on Portland’s north side and had spent three years trying to weaken Mason’s territory.
That should have been enough.
In Mason’s world, hesitation got people buried.
But Claire was not part of his world.
That was the problem.
She had entered it without understanding how suspicious men like Mason survived.
His phone rang.
Natalie Brooks.
He almost ignored it.
Claire’s best friend rarely called him directly.
Something made him answer.
“Mason?”
Natalie sounded irritated.
Then worried.
“Where is Claire?”
Mason looked toward the rain hammering against his windows.
“She’s not with you?”
“No. She said she was walking here.”
His fingers tightened around the phone.
“Walking?”
“From Rivercrest Road.”
The office became very quiet.
“She called me around ten twenty. She said she was near the old garden center.”
Mason’s heartbeat slowed in the way it always did before violence.
“How long ago?”
Natalie hesitated.
“She promised she’d call every ten minutes.”
“What time did you last speak?”
“Ten twenty-three.”
Mason looked at the clock.
11:06.
Forty-three minutes.
Not ten.
“Natalie.”
Something in his voice changed.
“What?”
“Call her.”
“I have. Six times.”
Mason stood.
His chair rolled backward.
“She isn’t answering.”
Three seconds passed.
Mason Vale forgot how to breathe.
Then the most feared man in Portland became terrifyingly efficient.
He hit an internal number.
“Rafe.”
His security chief answered immediately.
“Yeah?”
“Get everyone.”
A pause.
“What happened?”
“Claire is missing.”
Mason grabbed his coat.
Rafe’s tone sharpened.
“Where?”
“Rivercrest Road. Old garden center. Approximately forty-five minutes.”
“I’m moving.”
“Track her phone.”
“On it.”
Mason was already in the elevator.
Natalie remained on the call.
“What did you do?”
He closed his eyes.
For the first time in years, Mason had no useful answer.
“I put her out of my car.”
Silence.
“You what?”
“I thought—”
“You left Claire alone on Rivercrest Road in a storm?”
“I thought she betrayed me.”
Natalie’s voice exploded.
“You absolute idiot!”
Mason had been insulted by dangerous men before.
Most regretted it.
He stood motionless while Natalie continued.
“You actually thought Claire was working for the Quinns?”
“I saw photographs of her with Jonah.”
“Jonah is my cousin!”
Mason gripped the elevator railing.
“I know that now.”
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“Because if you knew anything about Claire, you would have known she’d rather cut off her own hand than betray someone she loved.”
The elevator doors opened.
Mason walked through the underground garage where three black SUVs were already starting.
Natalie’s voice cracked.
“If something happened to her—”
“Nothing happened.”
“You don’t know that.”
Mason stopped.
He hated fear.
He hated helplessness.
Most of all, he hated that Natalie was right.
“No,” he said quietly. “I don’t.”
He ended the call.
Rafe Mercer approached carrying a tablet.
Thirty-seven, former Marine, built like a concrete wall, Rafe had worked beside Mason for eight years and had seen him furious, wounded, betrayed and almost killed.
He had never seen Mason frightened.
“Phone location?” Mason asked.
“Last network contact at 10:41. Rivercrest near Mill Creek access.”
“What happened at 10:41?”
“Signal dropped.”
“Battery?”
“Was above fifty percent.”
Mason’s eyes lifted.
“So someone turned it off.”
“Maybe.”
“Or broke it.”
Rafe didn’t answer.
They climbed into an SUV.
Rain battered the windshield.
“Road crews reported flooding near Mill Creek,” Rafe said. “Also a minor landslide by the garden center.”
Mason stared ahead.
“Drive faster.”
Twenty minutes later they reached the location where he had ordered Claire out.
Mason stepped into the storm.
He could see it immediately.
Her footprints.
Faint, mostly washed away, but the mud preserved fragments.
Bare feet.
Claire had carried the shoes.
Mason followed.
Thirty yards.
Sixty.
Then Rafe’s flashlight caught something in the drainage ditch.
“Boss.”
Mason turned.
A silver high heel lay half-submerged in muddy water.
He knew it.
He had bought the pair.
The second shoe was nowhere nearby.
Mason picked it up.
His face changed.
Rafe recognized the expression.
It was the look Mason wore when someone had crossed a line that could not be uncrossed.
But this time the rage was pointed inward.
“She wouldn’t leave one behind,” Mason said.
“No.”
Mason looked down the road.
“Search everything.”
Their men spread out.
Fifteen minutes passed.
Then someone shouted.
“Over here!”
Mason ran.
A black clutch lay beneath a hedge.
Claire’s.
The clasp had broken.
Lipstick.
Wallet.
A hotel receipt.
And the cream-colored invitation Natalie had given Claire to pass to Jonah.
Mason stared at it.
Natalie’s Surprise 30th — Saturday, 7 PM.
Underneath, Claire had handwritten:
Jonah—don’t ruin the surprise this year. She still hasn’t forgiven you for her 25th. —C
Proof.
The truth had been in her purse the entire time.
Mason closed his eyes.
For one second, the rain sounded far away.
Then Rafe’s voice came from behind him.
“Mason.”
Rafe rarely used his first name during operations.
Mason turned.
The security chief was crouched beside the road.
There were tire tracks.
Fresh.
They cut onto the muddy shoulder and stopped exactly where Claire’s footprints disappeared.
Rafe pointed toward the pavement.
“Vehicle stopped here.”
Mason stared.
“And?”
Rafe stood slowly.
“Claire’s footprints don’t continue past this point.”
Something dark and lethal settled across Mason’s face.
“You’re saying she got into a car.”
“I’m saying either she got in…”
Rafe paused.
“…or someone put her in.”
Mason Vale looked down at the silver shoe in his hand.
And somewhere beneath the fear, another thought emerged.
Vanessa Hale had not simply shown him photographs.
She had known exactly how he would react.
And if someone had been waiting on Rivercrest Road afterward—
Then Claire’s disappearance had never been an accident.
It had been planned.
Mason lifted his head.
“Find Vanessa.”
Claire woke to the smell of gasoline.
Her head hurt.
For several seconds, she did not remember where she was.
Then she tried to move.
Her wrists were bound.
She was lying across the back seat of an unfamiliar vehicle.
Rain drummed against metal.
Her dress was freezing against her skin.
A man sat in the driver’s seat.
Another beside him.
Claire kept her eyes mostly closed.
“You think Vale will come?” the passenger asked.
The driver laughed.
“He threw her out himself.”
Claire’s stomach turned.
“How do you know?”
“Vanessa watched them leave.”
Claire stopped breathing.
The passenger looked over his shoulder.
“She’s awake.”
Claire opened her eyes.
The man smiled.
“Good evening, Ms. Bennett.”
Claire stared at him.
“Who are you?”
“You don’t need my name.”
“Then you clearly don’t understand kidnapping. Names make the experience much more personal.”
The passenger blinked.
The driver laughed.
“She’s got attitude.”
Claire swallowed her fear.
Mason had once told her something during a conversation she had thought was hypothetical.
If someone ever takes you, don’t beg immediately. Listen. People reveal more when they think you’re scared.
She had accused him of being paranoid.
Now she wished she had listened more carefully.
“Where are we going?”
“No questions.”
“Then conversation is going to be difficult.”
The passenger leaned closer.
“Maybe Vale was right to throw you away.”
Claire looked directly at him.
“You’re depending on that.”
His smile faded.
She knew immediately she had struck something.
Whatever this was, Mason’s rejection had been part of the plan.
Which meant whoever had arranged this believed he wouldn’t come looking.
Claire prayed they were wrong.
Then she remembered his face when she shut the car door.
Cold.
Unmoving.
Uncertain.
For the first time since waking, Claire became truly afraid.
Not because Mason might fail to find her.
Because he might never try.