Page 2 of Run for Her Life
“Yes, it will be.” The woman’s voice softened around the edges.
Her pulse quickened as she shoved a hand in her pocket and wrapped it around the cold, unyielding metal grip of a gun.
TWO
NOW
Zoe peered into the dark pit of the well, into a tunnel of pitch blackness with no end in sight. Vines and tendrils extended into the lip of the well, filling the cracks running along the glistening, weathered stones.
“Help!” a young girl’s voice called out from the darkness. “Help me, please!”
Zoe wanted to jump in. But fear had her body locked. She swallowed hard and braced herself. But before she could take the plunge, her mother, Rachel, breezed past her.
“Emily!” Rachel shrieked, panic-stricken. “Emily! Honey!”
Zoe was standing inches away from her mother, but she hadn’t noticed her. Rachel’s face was streaked with tears, her hair was in disarray, and her breaths a tangled mess. She found a rope coiled by her feet and threw it down the well. “Grab the rope, Emily!”
Silence fell as Zoe watched her mother desperately shake the rope and pull at it with all her strength. Rachel was a muscular woman—not merely toned from Pilates or yoga. There was a dexterity with which she handled the rope. In hindsight, Zoe tried to spot the smallest things about Rachel that had been cloaked over the years. There was something about hermother she didn’t know—something that had forced her to go into witness protection for ten years, something that had got her murdered.
Zoe raised her hand to touch her mother. A touch that had been fading for twenty years but hadn’t entirely disappeared. Before her fingers made contact, she slipped and toppled over the edge of the well, hurtling through the darkness.
“Ah!” Zoe shot up from the bed, her back as taut and straight as an arrow. She blinked profusely as fractured pieces of her nightmare dissolved and reality closed in.
She was in her bedroom. Early morning light seeped in through the curtains, bathing the room in a soft, golden hue. Her alarm was set to go off in exactly one minute but once again she woke up just before. She pinched the bridge of her nose, pain blossoming behind her eyelids.
Same nightmare every single night. Rachel and Emily.
Filing it away, she grabbed her hand wraps and headed to the living room where a punchbag hung from the ceiling.
Smack.
Smack.
Smack.
Rage burned through her as she struck the bag over and over until her knuckles ached. She didn’t want to think about the nightmare, Rachel, Emily, Keith.
For one damn moment, she just wanted to forget what she carried around with her all the time.
Her phone kept pinging. She ignored it and focused on thrashing the bag until the hinge loosened. There was no technique or skill to her punches anymore. It was pure emotion—reckless and uninhibited. When she could no longer ignore the pings, she let out a frustrated breath and checked her phone.
Aiden. Again.
A: Storm, what’s going on?
A: Why haven’t you reported it yet?
A: I can help.
Ever since Aiden had found her in the motel room attacked and injured a month ago, he was constantly pressing her to find out what exactly had transpired. But she had no intention of involving him in this. She ignored his messages and fired up her laptop.
A four-week witch-hunt and she had finally tracked down the man she was after. A picture and a name came into focus on the screen.
Viktor Axenov. The man who had beaten her black and blue and threatened to kill her if she didn’t stop looking into her mother’s murder.
THREE
“I want a seat on the board,” David said in a tight voice.
