My stomach flipped when his eyes carved a path over my body, and my reaction surprised me. It wasn’t the habitual disgust I felt, and his face was absent of the lust I typically saw. This was an entirely different animal. He looked at me as if I were a nuisance. But worse yet, his unusual eyes were full of judgment as he cataloged my appearance.
“Excuse you,” I snapped, attempting to sidestep him. Regardless of whether our collision was my fault, I had no intention of apologizing to him now. His arm shot out to catch me, and I glared up at him.
“You should pay attention to where you’re going,” he grunted.
My skin prickled under the grip of his calloused fingers. His voice was rough. Gravelly. And he stared at me as if he had a direct line into the hardwiring of my brain.
“Thanks for the tip, asshole,” I muttered. “Now get your paws off me.”
I tried to shrug him off, but he didn’t budge. He was completely grounded, and I was rootless. Beneath the intensity of his shadowy gaze, I felt the armor I’d forged so carefully disintegrating.
“You’re coming with me.” The emotionless words rumbled from his chest.
Clinging to the image of fearlessness I wore like a badge, I laughed. “Is that what you think?”
His head dipped forward, the response low and gruff. “That’s what I know.”
I humored him with a smile, but inside, my heart rattled against its cage. He wasn’t joking.
“Sorry.” I tried unsuccessfully to yank away again. “But you aren’t my type.”
His eyes flickered with dark amusement. “Who said you were mine?”
Flames licked over my skin, singeing my delicate ego. Of course, this caveman wouldn’t know designer from department store. His opinion shouldn’t matter, but for reasons I couldn’t fathom, it did. It was an anomaly. Everything about this interaction was out of my wheelhouse. Men were toys. Suits with wallets. They didn’t make me feel. They didn’t produce physical responses in me. But this one did.
“What do you want?” I whisper hissed as a few heads turned our way. All those couples pouring out of the art installation probably assumed we were having a lover’s spat.
His attention never wavered, and neither did his grip. “I already told you. You’re coming with me.”
“Like hell, I am.” My nails dug into the skin of his forearm in warning. We were in a public place, and I could easily make a scene, but he seemed aware that I wouldn’t. Because like it or not, the last thing I needed was to draw more attention.
He studied me, the black of his pupils melting into the amber of his irises. I released a shaky breath. We weren’t getting anywhere. Clearly, this man was insane. I was preparing for further negotiations when my arm suddenly dropped back to my side, free from his grip. For a second, I stood there, stunned. And then the stranger fished a phone out of his pocket and stirred the screen to life with his thumb, flashing it at me.
My eyes moved from his face to the screen, and my heart leaped into my throat. Time seemed to slow as comprehension took root. The ammunition he’d produced so casually was an image of Gypsy in front of our apartment in Summerlin North. Her fingers were wrapped around the handle of a suitcase, and she was wearing the same yellow romper she’d had on when I picked her up at the airport this afternoon.
“What the hell is this?” Acid corroded my voice as I fought for breath. “How did you get that?”
His response was to flick his thumb across the screen, producing a cascade of images that didn’t seem to end. Photos of my sister. Photos of me. At casinos. Lunch. Shopping. From the looks of it, there was months’ worth of surveillance neither of us had ever noticed. A crater opened up inside my chest, threatening to swallow me whole. This was bad. It was really fucking bad.
“What do you want?” I croaked.
“Come with me,” he answered without emotion.
On instinct, my eyes shot toward the exit, but it was a silly notion. There was no escape. Not if he had Gypsy. I turned my phone over in the palm of my hand, fumbling to dial her number, but his fingers closed over mine, and he shook his head as he snatched the phone from me.
“I need to know she’s okay. I’m not going anywhere—”
“Don’t be a pain in my ass, and your sister will be just fine.”
I tried to suck in air, but it felt like I was drowning. I’d been so busy putting out the fires of our past in California that I never saw this one coming. I was exhausted and terrified, and I’d never felt so helpless. Gypsy. Her name was the mantra playing on repeat in my head. I couldn’t let anything happen to her.