“Please, if he finds me he’s going to kill me,” I choked out, my bleeding fingers sliding against the sticky mahogany of the bar as the front door violently shattered open. The bartender didn’t flinch, didn’t panic, and didn’t run; he simply wiped down a glass, his dark eyes locking onto mine as he whispered, “Let him try.”
Chapter 1: The Invisible Cage
I don’t hear my own footsteps on the concrete. I only hear my pulse, loud and stupid and deafening in my ears.
It beats against my eardrums like a warning bell, screaming that I am already too late. I am running, sprinting down the sun-bleached boardwalk of the Jersey Shore, and I don’t even remember starting to run.
“Hey, watch where you’re going!” a tourist yells as my shoulder violently clips his arm, sending his iced coffee spilling onto the wooden planks.
“I’m sorry,” I gasp, not stopping, not even turning my head. “I’m so sorry.”
One moment I was breathing the salty ocean air, trying to pretend I was a normal twenty-six-year-old woman having a normal Tuesday. The next moment, I was sprinting across the wooden boards, with sand clinging to my bare ankles and strangers staring at me like they can smell the pure, unadulterated fear pouring off my skin.
I keep telling myself not to look back, which, of course, is the exact psychological trigger that makes me do it. I glance over my shoulder, my vision blurring with panicked tears.
He’s there.
Marcus. A silhouette I know too well, a shadow that has violently haunted every corner of my existence for the last three years. He has broad shoulders, a tailored Tom Ford suit that looks completely out of place on a boardwalk, and an arrogance in the way he walks that makes my stomach violently turn.
“Amara!” his voice booms over the sound of the crashing Atlantic waves. “Stop acting like a child! You can’t run from me!”
He walks like the world exists solely to get out of his way. The afternoon sun hits off his silver watch, flashing bright as a butcher’s blade.
My breath literally cracks in half. “Not again,” I whisper to myself, my voice trembling so hard my teeth clatter. “Please, God, not again.”
But praying feels far too soft for the way my life is violently falling apart in broad daylight. Nobody around me knows what it means that Marcus found me. Nobody sees the invisible, suffocating cage snapping shut around my ribs.
I slam into a brick corner of an old seafood restaurant hard, my shoulder barking with hot, sharp pain. But the pain grounds me, forcing me to remember the one unbreakable rule I promised myself the day I ran away.
Never stop moving. “Get back here right now!” Marcus screams from half a block away. “You owe me!”
I keep going. I don’t even know where I am going anymore. I just need a place where he can’t touch me.
My lungs burn as if I’m inhaling battery acid. My hands shake uncontrollably. That’s when I see the heavy oak door of a windowless dive bar sitting just off the main tourist strip.
Loud rock music spills out onto the pavement like it doesn’t care who’s running for their life outside. I shove the heavy door open, throwing my entire body weight against it. I stumble inside, the dim lighting blinding me, and I nearly trip over some giant biker’s heavy leather boots.
“Watch it, sweetheart,” the massive man grumbles, gripping his pint glass.
“I’m sorry,” I gasp out, ducking my head immediately. “Excuse me.”
Everyone at the nearby tables glances up for a heartbeat, their eyes scanning my disheveled hair, then goes right back to their drinks. No one cares.
I slide between the sticky wooden tables, bending incredibly low, dragging desperate gulps of air into my burning chest. My hands tremble so violently that I have to physically tuck them under my armpits.
I drop to my knees and scramble behind the edge of the long, polished mahogany bar. I curl myself into a tight, pathetic ball between two heavy crates of imported liquor.
“Please don’t see me,” I pray into the dark dust of the floorboards. “Please.”
My mind is absolute chaos. Unwanted flashes of Marcus’s smooth, terrifying voice echo in my skull. I can almost feel his heavy hand clamping down on my bruised wrist.
“You owe me, Amara,” his voice hisses in my memory. “I made you. You think you can just leave?”
I press my sweaty palms flat against the cool, sticky floor, begging my lungs to stop heaving. And that’s exactly when I hear him. Not Marcus.
“You going to tell me why you’re hiding behind my bar?”
The voice is low, steady, and almost entirely bored.
My head snaps up so fast my neck cracks. The man towering above me is the kind of man the world naturally rearranges itself around. He stands behind the counter, casually wiping down a whiskey glass with a white towel.
“I… I…” I stammer, my eyes wide.
His broad, heavily tattooed shoulders fill the tight space like he owns the very oxygen in the room. He’s watching me with an unnerving, predatory calm that makes me feel completely exposed.
“I’m sorry,” I croak, my throat feeling like sandpaper. “I’ll leave in a second. I just… I need breath.”
He finishes wiping the glass and sets it down with a soft, deliberate clink. “Looks to me like you need breath.”
“Please,” I whisper, clutching my knees. “I just need to disappear for five minutes. Please don’t throw me out.”
“I didn’t say I was throwing you out,” he answers smoothly, leaning his forearms against the bar.
At this exact moment, most people would have bolted back out the door or called the police, but Amara froze, paralyzed by her past trauma. What would you have done if you were cornered in a strange bar?
