Page 1 of Hunted Innocence

Prologue

NADINE

I’m chewingon the corner of my thumb, and my leg shakes under my desk. He’s coming for me. I know he is. There is absolutely nothing I can do to stop him. He’s going to come and find me.

He has probably known exactly where I’ve been this entire time. This is a man who enjoys playing games, even long ones. He’s out there, watching me and waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike.

My skin feels sensitive and itchy.

So itchy, in fact, that I have the deep desire to claw my actual flesh off. My stomach clenches. It twists and turns, and I’m seconds away from puking all over my desk. I haven’t felt like this in a long time. I was hoping I wouldn’t ever have to feel it again.

Because I know that with this sensation, memories will come barreling to the forefront of my mind, and honestly, I want to forget about that whole part of my life. I want it to vanish from the recesses of my brain.

I never want to remember it again. If I could figure out a way to have it erased permanently, I wouldn’t hesitate. It doesn’t matter that I changed everything about my life and did it in a way whereheshouldn’t have been able to find me in a million years… or at least not yet. But he has a lot of resources, so I should not be surprised.

He should be too scared to come and look for me, especially knowing exactly who and what my brother is. But he doesn’t care. Normal people would be terrified of Brody. He’s the president of the Night Devils MC, but this man isn’t scared of anyone, not even the president of an MC.

It also doesn’t matter that I work for the best security firm in the country. He will stop at nothing to get me, not out of love but out of hate and a desire for control. And yet, I keep trying to run in some foolhardy attempt at saving myself.

I’m not sure why I’m fighting so hard for my freedom. Nobody, except maybe Brody, would even care if I vanished. Sure, the guys at Securus would miss me for a little while, but they would hire someone new, and life would go on just like it always has.

My life doesn’t matter, and if I did go to Brody, he’d get himself killed or thrown in prison over me. That’s something I can’t allow. He deserves a life without my shit mixed in the middle of it.

My brother may not be a Boy Scout in any form at all whatsoever, but that doesn’t mean I would ever want anything to happen to him. My older brother protected me a lot over the years. He tried his hardest, but our parents are who our parents are, and he wasn’t able to protect me from everything.

Closing my eyes, I slip my thumb from my mouth and let out a long sigh. I wish I could truly make it so he could never find me again. If there were some kind of way I could disappear into thinair, I would. But I already tried erasing as much of my identity as possible.

And yet he found me.

He will always find me. His connections are well beyond what I am able to manipulate. About the only thing that I could do would be to hack into the dark web and add his damn name to a hit list, except I wouldn’t be able to pay the hit man, which would open a whole new can of worms.

So there’s that.

He hasn’t made himself known yet, but my body instinctively feels when Landon Tate is nearby—the biggest mistake of my young life. I was forced to marry him in exchange for safety.

I thought I was doing the right thing. I should have stuck both middle fingers in the air and told everyone to fuck off. But I felt as if I was trapped. I didn’t think I had a choice.

Every hair on the back of my neck stands at attention, interrupting my thoughts. Landon is somewhere close. He’s watching me, waiting for a moment of weakness.

That’s when he attacks, when his victims are at their weakest.

Because he’s a coward. He’s in a position of power and gets off on that control, on that power trip. He gets off on abusing said power and anyone he deems weaker than him to prove that he’s the big, strong man in control.

It seems that I’m his favorite weak target because he keeps coming back to me, keeps finding me, and keeps hurting me.

Over and over again.

When I hear a noise in the office hallway, my spine straightens, and my body stiffens as I wait for the inevitable. I imagine Landon walking down that hall. He’s made it into this secure building and is ready to drag me by my hair back to where he thinks I belong.

Back to hell.

He doesn’t appear the way my nightmares envision. Letting out a sigh of relief and, at the same time, clenching my thighs, I watch as Grayson walks through the hallway and into the room.

Instantly, my leg stops shaking, and my stomach pain eases. Then I feel little butterflies fluttering inside my belly, the way I always do anytime he’s nearby. My entire mood and vibe have completely changed.

Sucking in a breath, I hold it as I watch him make his way over to my desk. He stops directly in front of me. He’s close enough that I can smell him. It’s delicious, with a bourbon scent and something else that I can’t quite place.

Slowly, I tilt my head backward to look up into his eyes. He smirks down at me. He knows what he does to me, and I think he likes it, even if he doesn’t ever admit it. His gaze dances as it moves across my face.

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