Hunted: A Criminal Deeds Novel

by Kyle Autumn

  “The fuck are you doing?” I ask as she opens them up and spreads them on the floor.

  She eyes me for a moment, maybe trying to find the right words. “Y-you said I could stay in here, didn’t you?”

  My eyebrows draw down as I squint and nod. “Yeah. So why are you doing that?”

  “So I can sleep.” She gestures a hand to the floor.

  “What the…” I mutter under my breath. Then I stomp over to the fucking nonsense pile of blankets on the floor, scoop them up, and throw them on the bed. “You’re not fucking sleeping on the floor.”

  “Then where should—”

  “Where do you want to sleep?” I spit out through clenched teeth. I’ve had nearly enough of this bullshit. Her brain is so fucking mental because of that asshole that, with every new word she speaks, I imagine ripping off another appendage, tearing off another limb, yanking out another tooth…

  Adam won’t survive if he shows up at my house. I swear it.

  Even with no guns. Even if she’s not trained properly. Even if she’s still hurting when he gets here.

  Especially if she’s still hurting when he gets here.

  Her mouth opens and closes like she’s not sure how to answer my question. I suppose she’s not. But it infuriates me even more because it makes me wonder.

  Was I destined to become a man like Adam? Or was I never really going to get out from under his thumb, either? Was I meant to be a pawn in his macabre game of chess forever?

  Fucking dammit.

  I’m about to rage. I want to rip these blankets to shreds. To kick the bed until the frame splinters into pieces I can never recover. To throw the dresser she’s standing next to out the window and relish the sound of it shattering all over the asphalt of my driveway.

  Until she speaks.

  Until her soft words float over me and split the rage into two.

  Until her answer pierces my heart and makes the fury disintegrate.

  “In bed with you,” she says so quietly, so timidly. But then she straightens her posture and repeats it more forcefully. “I want to sleep in bed with you.”

  That a girl…

  Hanna Lee.

  Willow.

  Whoever she is.

  That’s who she needs to be.

  Maybe training won’t be so bad. But sleeping might now that we’ve established locations.

  “Then get in the fucking bed,” I seethe, the last of the anger dissipating. My limbs go heavy as the adrenaline drains and weariness seeps in.

  Okay, maybe sleeping won’t be that bad, either.

  On my side of the bed, I get in. I’m rough, moving in staccato motion, punching the pillows to get them the way I want them. In contrast, she slips right in, smooth as butter, rolling her head to the side and facing away from me as she curls into a ball. With the light still on, I can see the way she tucks the blanket all around her, but her limbs still move beneath it. I’m not sure what she’s doing until a thought crosses my mind.

  If she’s really used to sleeping on the floor, maybe my bed is uncomfortable and she can’t find the right position. Maybe she feels unsafe, like she’s bound to the bed or unable to defend herself with the blanket over her. With that idea rolling around in my head, I get up to turn the light off, and when I return, I no longer stay on my side.

  I cross the boundary and fold an arm around her middle. Then I drag her to me. “Go to sleep,” I say into her ear. It came out in a huff. Like I was upset with the way she was moving. I wasn’t, but maybe she needs to think so. Maybe that’ll get her to go still long enough to rest.

  After a few tense moments of her in my arms, she relaxes. But I don’t let go. I will when her breathing evens out and she’s asleep. I will when I know she’s no longer fitfully awake and distressed. I will.

  I don’t though.

  I wake up who knows how long later with my arm still curled around her.

  Around her back now.

  Because she’s facing me now.

  And her head is on my chest.

  14

  Hanna Lee

  Somehow, in the middle of the night, I thought it was okay to roll over and sleep on this man. Zane. As if he’s some kind of protector. My savior. The man I’m married to.

  I never did that with Adam though, so maybe this is a thing people do. My life has never been normal. Not for the last several years, anyway. My judgment isn’t the best. If Zane didn’t like it, he’d tell me, right?

  Maybe not. He’s a man of only a few growly words, so who knows.

  I try to pry my face off his chest, but sweat and… Is that drool? It very well may be. They both have me stuck to his skin. Honestly though, I don’t want to move. There’s something comforting about being this close to another human being who isn’t going to beat me or pinch me or slice me open for pleasure. That should scare me because I bet most people don’t want to do those things. But again, my judgment isn’t the best. Zane wouldn’t just come out and say it if he did want to do those things, right?

  Adam never did. Not until it’d become habit. And even then, he didn’t just say what he was going to do. He just did it.

  Kind of like how Zane does things. He just does them.

  He just gets me a gun.

  He just kisses me and shoves me away.

  He just makes me come back to his house with him instead of letting me go to the police.

  He just does things too. So I can only hope he won’t do the mean, awful things to me like Adam used to. I didn’t risk my life only to put it back at risk with some other deranged, fucked-up asshole. No way.

  The thought seizes my lungs and makes air leave me in a shuddering breath. Before I wake him with the movement, I press away as fluidly as I can. But I’m stuck. Something’s holding me down. Something’s keeping me at his side. Something’s forcing me to stay here.

  And I didn’t risk my life only to get stuck again. No, no, no, I did not.

  It builds—the fear. The anguish. The need to scream. I’ve never been able to before. I was only punished more if I screamed. He loved to hear me scream. Like a sick, twisted game, he’d do whatever he could to get me to shout, yell, moan. He got off on those noises I made, so I learned right away not to make them.

  It only made things worse.

  Now though… In the middle of nowhere… With only Zane to hear them?

  I want to let them out.

  But I don’t. I whimper instead, keeping them inside. Shoving them deep into the depths of my soul where no one can hear the things I really want to say.

  It’s not until the thing keeping me stuck to him tightens around me that I realize it’s his arm. His hand trails up my back, under my sweatshirt, and over my scars. Over the letters that staked claim over me. All the way up to my neck, where he rubs in small circles.

  When I don’t stop shaking, he presses me closer.

  His other arm circles around my back.

  And I sob into his chest as quietly as I can.

  How did this become my life? How did I become more comfortable with this stranger than my own husband? How did I allow myself to marry the most sadistic bastard I could have ever dreamed up? How the fuck did I let this all happen?

  When I have no more tears left to cry, I fall back asleep in Zane’s arms. For the first time in my life, I feel safe. Protected. Cared about. It’s all an illusion.

  But it’s the only thing I have left.

  In the morning, I try to pretend that the middle-of-the-night sobbing scene never happened. I want to forget about it, but I’m not one of the lucky people who can push things aside and never think about them again. Every brutal moment of my life has been burned into my memory like a macabre slideshow I’ll never get to turn off. This only adds to the list.

  But Zane’s not here to rub my weakness in my face. He’s not here to remind me that shit like that can’t happen ever again. He’s just gone. The bed is warm where he once was, but that’s not as comforting as his presence was.


  After slipping out of bed, I tiptoe to the door as carefully as I can so the wood below my feet doesn’t creak. Then I crack the door open and listen. Something’s going on downstairs, but I can’t quite make it out. Since I’m not a prisoner here, I decide to head down there to see what it is.

  When I find Zane in the living room, setting up a punching bag, my heart nearly melts. It’s absurd, but it’s the sweetest thing anyone has ever done for me.

  And it doesn’t hurt that he’s only wearing a pair of basketball shorts.

  God, this man’s body looks like it’s been carved out of marble. It’s all ripples and edges and muscles in all the right places. I should have noticed before, but it’s been a hectic thirty-six hours. I’m noticing now, and my body’s reacting in ways it has no business to react. It’s not even close to fair that I’m finally having normal reactions to someone and the man’s a brutish stranger who can’t stand the sight of my own carved body.

  He helps me though. He holds me when I cry. And he helps me up when he’s pushed me down. Those may not be the stuff normal relationships are made up of, but it’s all I have right now. And it’s going to help me get ready to face the man who made me this way.

  I may not be ready for combat—or even for practice with the way my body feels—but I’m going to work on it. I’m going to protect myself when I need to. Because I will need to. Soon. I’m sure of it.

  “We’ll use this until you get more accurate. Then I’ll get some hand pads, maybe tomorrow, and we can work with those.”

  His optimism floors me. One, he thinks I’ll get more accurate with my punching. Two, he thinks I’ll do that by tomorrow. And three, he thinks we have that much time. It’s almost adorable. I know my husband though. I may not have been smart enough to figure him out before I was in too deep, but I know him now.

  Tomorrow might not be soon enough for me to be ready.

  But I’m sure as fuck going to try.

  15

  Zane

  I wasn’t planning on starting her training with this punching bag, but I needed something to erase the way I’m starting to feel about her. Fucking her right off the bat was a terrible idea, and now, it’s all I can think about. Especially when she slept so close to me all fucking night and cried in my arms.

  I’m not supposed to care about her.

  I was supposed to hand her back to Adam.

  But the more time we spend together, the more I want to rip Adam to shreds.

  She was right. A bullet wouldn’t be enough for a man like him. And physical labor is exactly what I needed this morning to get rid of my growing attraction to his wife.

  If only it’d worked.

  Seeing her now, I can feel how much it didn’t. Even with her scars showing with her sweatshirt pushed up a little around her torso, it doesn’t matter. I know what she feels like while I’m buried deep inside her. I know how she squirms when she comes on my tongue. I know she’s been through a hell of a lot, and I know she wants to fight.

  That makes me even more attracted to her—because she’s someone I should never want. That’s just how things work with me. I have to do everything the hard way. With any luck, this will be the last fucking time.

  With masking tape, I mark an X on the bag. “Center mass. This is where you want to hit.”

  Without any hesitation, she steps up to the bag and raises her hands. But the way she has them positioned wouldn’t keep a fly away. Lifting them, I put them where they need to be. And I ignore the buzz against my skin as it touches hers. Once her hands are where they should be, I shake mine out and wipe them on my shorts. Then I point with a finger toward the bag to indicate that she should give it a go.

  Her first punch makes her hiss in pain and reel back. As she cradles her arm, I hang my head. We’re never going to get anywhere if she’s hurt. But she can’t force it, either. Making it worse only, well, makes it worse. The last thing she needs is to be in more pain when trouble shows up. Her husband won’t leave without a fight, and he’ll drag her out of here by her jagged fingernails if she can’t get her shit together.

  We might need that gun after all. It’ll be only mildly better for her wrist, but it’ll pack way more punch than her real punch will. It’ll be lethal, deadly—it’ll get the job done even if it’s too easy for a man like him.

  While I’m thinking about that, she takes another swing. Then another. Then another. Each one lands on the X, but they get weaker and weaker. Then they get less and less accurate as she flails against it and starts to cry. As the tears spill down her cheeks, her punches transform to slaps. Soon, she just grabs the bag and holds on, her body trembling against it.

  “It’s supposed to make you feel better,” I tell her. It comes out as a lame attempt at a joke, but it gets her to ease off the bag and wipe her nose.

  “Yeah, well, it didn’t.” She uses her sweatshirt sleeve to dab at her eyes. “Sorry.”

  “Don’t apologize,” I hiss at her. I’m so fucking sick of hearing her say that after everything she does. “Just get better at this so you can be free of whatever the fuck you’re running from.”

  Her arms fall to her sides now, and she lets out a deep breath, her head hanging forward. “Adam—my husband. I’m running from him.”

  I flex my neck to crack it as my jaw tightens. “Yeah. You said that.” My fingers crunch together into a fist as I think about that man laying a hand on her. But I manage to stick one out in her direction. “He did all that to you?”

  With her gaze still on the ground, she nods. “Well, most of it. Sometimes he let other people give it a shot.”

  “Why?” I spit out before I can think better of it. It’s a fucked-up question to ask a victim, but I just don’t want to believe that someone would do this for fun.

  She shrugs with one shoulder. “It’s like it was fun for him. He made money when he let others cut me.”

  My eyes shut as bile rises in my throat. “What the fuck…” I didn’t mean to mutter it out loud, but I know I have when she speaks again.

  “I don’t know,” she says, sounding exhausted. She wraps her arms around her middle and holds herself. “I don’t know what possesses someone to do those things to someone else. I just don’t.” As she trembles, she closes her eyes.

  It’s the most I’ve heard her say since she got here. But that doesn’t stop me from wanting more from her. “You didn’t do anything at all?”

  Her glare isn’t what makes me rethink those words. The words themselves meant no harm. For the first time since my life went fucking sideways, I didn’t mean to inflict pain. But I’ve done it anyway. More victim-blaming coming from this idiot right here. That’s not what I meant though.

  “You think anyone deserves this kind of treatment?” she spits in my direction.

  Fair enough. It really is. But my answer might shock her. “Yeah, actually, I do.”

  She takes a hateful step toward me, infuriated with my response. “And you think that person is me?”

  “I didn’t say that,” I reply, stepping in her direction too.

  Marching up to me, she continues with, “Then what are you saying?”

  I close the distance between us and bend so my face is right in front of hers. “I’m saying that the motherfucker who did this to you deserves this.” My voice is venomous. Low. Gritty.

  Because I meant every fucking word.

  Her lips quiver, but she doesn’t look away. She keeps her eyes powerfully trained on mine, which turns my dick to stone, as if it has any right to do that with her. But the more she asserts herself, the more power she finds—the more I fucking want her.

  Badly.

  “So you’ll help me?” she dares to ask. It pains her to do it. I can see that shining in her big, hopeful eyes. But what other choice does she have?

  And what other choice do I have but to agree?

  She doesn’t mean help her train though. She doesn’t mean give her a gun and hope for the best. I can tell what she means. She wants me here f
or that fight. When he finds her—and he will—she wants me with her.

  Something foreign flares in my chest. It’s fiery, burning through me.

  It’s the need to say yes.

  So I do.

  I nod.

  And then this time, she kisses me.

  16

  Hanna Lee

  I wish I knew what keeps possessing me to do this with him. I don’t know if it’s the pure lust I feel because I haven’t been around another man in so long. I don’t know if it’s because I desire with every fiber of my being to be wanted by someone who isn’t Adam. I don’t know if it’s because I truly want to kiss this man and have him touch me. Have him inside me.

  Have him really, honestly look at me and not be horrified.

  I don’t know what it is.

  But I don’t mind it.

  I get to take with him until he flips the switch and takes from me. It’s a give-and-take in that way. I’m risking taking a beating, but that’s nothing unusual. Actually, a beating might be welcome over what I’m used to. Sore bones and bruises don’t hurt and sting quite like open cuts and sores do.

  A few shoves won’t be as bad. I’ll even take getting knocked to the ground. Just no more sharp objects. Or even dull ones.

  It doesn’t matter right now. All I feel in this moment are his lips on mine: rough and punishing. He grips my shoulders too hard, his fingers digging in like he’s preparing to push me away while warring with the desire to keep me this close to him. He’s just as confused as I am, it seems, because I want to run away too. Run the hell away from this man who can barely look at me without becoming infuriated—yet I can’t get close enough, either.

  I’ll never get close enough.

  If he can sense how much I need this, how desperately I need to control at least one area of my life, he doesn’t let me know it. He’s the same amount of desperate for some reason too, this man of few words. He grips me with an intensity even Adam didn’t possess, but it doesn’t scare me as much. Only a little, and not for the usual reasons.