Chapter 5 - THE NIGHT JUNE DISAPPEARED
Two nights later, June disappeared.
Mara knew because June’s phone called her.
But Tristan answered.
“Good evening.”
Mara’s blood went cold.
“Where is my sister?”
“Safe.”
“Let me speak to her.”
“Not yet.”
“Tristan—”
“You embarrassed me.”
Mara almost couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
“At a wedding?”
“You let Rourke humiliate me in front of everyone.”
“You humiliated yourself.”
His breathing changed.
There was the old Tristan.
The one beneath the charming voice.
“I gave you everything.”
“No. You tried to decide everything.”
“Same difference to you, apparently.”
“Where is June?”
“A car is downstairs.”
Mara’s hand moved to her belly.
“No.”
“Then your sister spends the night with men much less patient than I am.”
The line ended.
Mara immediately called Marcus.
He answered before the second ring.
“Mara?”
“Tristan has June.”
Silence.
Then Marcus’s voice changed.
“Where are you?”
She told him.
“Lock the door. Do not go downstairs.”
“But—”
“I will get her.”
“He wants me.”
“I know.”
“Marcus.”
His voice softened.
“Mara, listen to me. He wants you frightened enough to stop thinking. Don’t give him that.”
Twenty-five minutes later, Marcus arrived with Owen.
They had already traced June’s phone.
An abandoned private events building near the Hudson.
Mara insisted on going.
Marcus refused.
She held his gaze.
“Then June dies because Tristan knows I’m not there.”
“I will not use you as bait.”
“Good. Because I’m not bait. I’m part of the plan.”
“Mara.”
“Trust me.”
The words stopped him.
For Marcus Rourke, trust had always meant vulnerability.
For Mara Whitaker, trust had always meant surrender.
Neither definition could survive what came next.
May you like
So they made a new one.
Together.
