Ginger stared into the darkness, wishing she could see at least the Wolf’s silhouette. But the only light was coming from the garden outside the window, three stories down, so if she had to fight him, she was going to do it blind.
He knew her name.
Ginger Jones.
It was all over for her.
She’d been found.
“Are you…” she started, clearing her throat, feeling waves of anxiety wash over her, something she wished she could get under control. “Are you the guy who—”
“I am not the guy who,” The Wolf cut her off. There was something so familiar about his voice, but she couldn’t place it. He had the upper crust accent of a wealthy New Englander, but there was something about it that was off. Something that reminded her of when she had to pretend to be someone she wasn’t, kind of like she was doing now.
“How do you know my name?”
The Wolf chuckled. “Because you’re an impossible woman to forget, even for someone like me.”
She backed up, trying to think. She wasn’t sure if the party would have metal detectors, so she didn’t bring any weapons at all. All she had was the message. She quickly turned her head and tried to assess the room, hoping there was something sharp in this library that she could use in self-defense.
She finally spotted a metal poker by the large fireplace, the marble gleaming in the dim light. She cursed the moon for hiding again, for leaving her in such darkness, but she still made a run for it.
The Wolf was faster. He anticipated what she was going to do.
He grabbed her by the hair and yanked her back until she fell right onto the carpet, a yelp of pain escaping her lips as the back of her head made hard contact.
Stars made their appearance behind her eyes, and she knew she had to act fast or she would be dead. She tried to get up, to scramble to her feet, but the Wolf was large and much stronger than she was.
She went for her usual defensive moves, but he was quick in that regard too, as if he knew everything she was going to do before she did it.
He grabbed her wrists and pinned her down, enjoying the show. She struggled wildly beneath him, trying to be free of his grasp, trying to kick at him, but he had her in such a way that she could barely move.
He could kill her right now.
She didn’t want to fail her grandmother this way.
“You can’t scream,” he said roughly, and his accent faltered just a little. “They’ll come up here and find out who you really are.”
Her eyes pinched shut under the mask, her head rolling from side to side, and she was trying to think, starting to panic. She knew this man, and he knew her. Most people who knew her wanted to kill her, and there was no doubt in her mind that he would do the same. There were so many people she had wronged, so many men that this man could be.
But then he let it slip.
“I won’t kill you if I don’t have to.”
Ginger was panting hard by now and stared up at the mask, hoping to see his eyes instead of the fathomless black holes. Pieces were starting to come back together now, like a puzzle taking shape, and she was trying to shift through the files of people in her mind, to figure out who this was. Someone that could kill her but didn’t necessarily want to.
“I know you,” she said after a moment. She didn’t relax. Her body was as tightly-strung as a piano wire.
“You do,” he said. “And I know you. And I think I know why you’re here. Do you care to tell me?”
“Eat shit,” she sneered.
“Such a defensive response for a simple question.”
She tried to move again, hoping that the conversation was distracting him, but he was as powerful as ever. His grip on her wrists was cutting off her circulation.
Whoever he was, he wasn’t a friend. That much was true. And even though he said he wouldn’t kill her if he didn’t have to, she also knew that there were fates worse than death.
The Wolf had all the power.
She had none.
The Wolf cocked its head, which would have seemed comical under any other circumstance. Ginger shut her eyes, knowing he probably glimpsed the defeat in them. She wished her mask