Stunned to immobility, I stared as Damon’s body dropped face first to the grass, gravel and mud beside the road then slowly my head turned and I saw Harry moving toward me, a peculiar look on his face, a gun smoking in his right hand and he was shifting it to his left.

“Harry,” I whispered, my voice trembling, my tone a mixture of horror and shock, “he hurt me but you didn’t have to –”

I stopped talking when the look on Harry’s face penetrated and his right hand lifted.

He no longer had the gun in that hand. He now held a syringe.

Too late I took a step back but he caught me at the waist, yanked me to him and I felt the needle plunge in my neck.

Then his face was all I saw.

“Just like Max told me to do, I’m mannin’ up, Nina. This is me mannin’ the fuck up.”

My lids lowered against my will, I forced them open as I felt my body lifted in Harry’s arms and we started moving toward his truck.

Then they lowered again and I was gone.

***

My eyes opened and I was confused because I was certain my eyes were opened but all I could see was dark.

I started to move and it was then I realized both my arms were over my head. I thought this was strange until I tried to move them and it was then I realized they weren’t only over my head, there was something cold biting into my wrists and it hit me my arms were secured over my head to something.

I went still and my mind raced. Then I remembered Damon. Then thinking Harry was there to save the day. Then watching Harry shoot Damon. Then Harry taking me.

Oh my God. Oh my God!

I sucked in breath and that was when I felt the gag. There was something in my mouth and something tied around my head to hold it in place. I fought back the panic that surged through me and tried to take stock.

I was on something soft, a mattress. It was cold, not bitter but not comfortable. My limbs were stiff from inactivity and lying in the chill. My arms were not only secured to something over my head but my ankles were also tied together. My head hurt like hell and I was still fuzzy from whatever Harry injected me with.

And I was in the dark. Lying gagged and tied up in a foreign location in the dark. Just like the heroine in a horror movie but real.

I kept fighting back the panic by turning my mind to trying to figure out where I might be. I was either someplace dark, like a room with no windows or I was someplace secluded and it was dark outside, someplace the moon couldn’t light.

Either way, I was in trouble.

Cautiously, I tested my wrists against whatever they were secured to and it made a clinking noise so I stopped.

“Nina?” I heard a woman call and stilled.

Bitsy. Oh no, that was Bitsy’s voice.

The mattress under me moved and I felt a hand light on me. “Nina, it’s me. Bitsy.”

I rolled to my back, turned my head in her direction and tried to see through the dark.

“Oh honey,” she whispered, her voice breaking. “Oh God, Nina. Oh God. God. God. God. What have I done?”

I tried to say something from under the gag, she heard it, her hand left me and I felt the gag being pulled from my mouth. When it was free, I spit out the material and then swallowed against the dryness coating the inside of my mouth.

“Are you okay?” Bitsy asked.

No. No, I very much wasn’t okay.

“Harry’s turned,” I whispered back, my voice slurred. “I think, Bitsy, I think I watched him murder Damon.”

The mattress moved again, I heard her dragging her body closer to me and I knew she was lying on it with me but apparently she wasn’t shackled to the bed. Then again, Bitsy didn’t need to be tied down. Bitsy couldn’t go anywhere.

Her hand curled on my neck and I felt her face close.

“It’s my fault,” she whispered.

“Bitsy –” I started to tell her she had to find a way to get me lose so I could get out of wherever we were, get away from this true, real life horror movie and get us some help but she interrupted me.

“It is, it’s all my fault.”

“Don’t, sweetheart, we have to –”

I stopped this time because I heard the noise of a door opening and then light flooded the room, blinding me. Bitsy’s body jerked away from mine and we both twisted as best we could. I blinked against the light and saw Harry walking in, the lower half of a woman over his shoulder.

Oh God, what now?

Then I saw him dump the woman on the floor, her long, straight ebony hair flying as he did it and he did it unceremoniously, not like she was a human being but like she was a sack of sawdust. Her head cracked against the planks just as her body thudded against them. I watched in horror as her body settled, her hair slightly obscuring her beautiful face.

Shauna.

By the looks of her, clothes dirty and in disarray, hair greasy, she hadn’t seen the inside of a shower for awhile and I knew instinctively this was because Shauna Fontaine didn’t take off with her mantoy. Shauna Fontaine, like me, had been kidnapped by a mountain man gone bad.

The mattress moved again and I tore my eyes from Shauna, unconscious, or worse, dead on the floor to see Bitsy pushing up on her arms.

“Harry –”

“It’s okay, Bits, it’s all gonna be all right,” Harry cut her off. “I got it all figured out.”

“No you don’t, Harry. You don’t,” Bitsy told him urgently. “Listen to me…”

She trailed off when Harry moved to her side of the bed and sat on it. He twisted his torso to her, his hand coming up to cradle her face, he leaned in close.

“I did, honey, I listened to you. I listened,” he whispered.

“You didn’t. This is out of hand. This is wrong. Shauna? Nina? Why –?”

“He took away your legs,” Harry explained.

“Yes, he did. Curt did. But Nina’s Max’s and –” Bitsy started.

“He took away your legs,” Harry repeated. “He killed Anna. Your best friend. He fucked Shauna in your bed.” His thumb lovingly swept her cheek. “I listened, Bits, I listened to every word you said from that day I saw you in the hospital after he crippled you. I listened and I was with you all the way. He had to pay. You said it. You said it again and again and again as he fucked you and fucked you and fucked you. You didn’t want him to do that to our town, you didn’t want that big house up on the hill, you didn’t want to be queen of Gnaw Bone to his king but he didn’t care what you wanted. He never cared what you wanted. He only cared about one thing. Curt. Curt was all Curt cared about. Wakin’ up next to you and tellin’ you he loved you and then goin’ off and bangin’ Shauna, givin’ her money, makin’ you the fool as you wheeled your way through life. I listened, honey, I listened to every word you said. You were right, he had to pay.”

“He had to pay. Curt did!” Bitsy hissed, yanking her face from his hand which stayed suspended in air for a second before he tried to touch her again but she dragged herself back so his hand dropped.

“Bitsy, baby –”

“No!” Bitsy snapped. “We had a plan. You take care of Curt and we play it cool. The money was untraceable. We’d been putting it aside for years, Harry, years. No one would ever know. No one.”

Shock made every centimeter of my body lock. There it was but I couldn’t believe my ears as I lay there and stared at the hideous scene playing out in front of me.

Harry and Bitsy had had Curt killed.

Bitsy.

Bitsy!

“He hired an investigator,” Harry returned.

“So?” Bitsy shot back. “I knew that, Harry, and I told you. The guy didn’t know anything. The game was to play it cool, you know that. No matter what, play it cool. That investigator didn’t know anything. I know because I got in Curt’s desk and read his reports. He didn’t even know we were sending the death threats! He didn’t know anything. He didn’t know shit! Then you off and kill him the same night that guy you found killed Curt. Why? Why would you do that? And this,” she threw out an arm, “Shauna? Nina? It was only supposed to be Curt. Only Curt. Why would you drag Nina into this? What’s the matter with you?”

“Shauna was fuckin’ Curt and Max and me,” Harry retorted.

“I know that, Harry, it was part of the fucking plan for you to look like you’d moved on from me,” Bitsy returned.

“Jesus, Bits, I just told you she was fuckin’ me,” Harry bit out.

“Yes, Harry, I know that. That was the plan,” Bitsy bit back.

“God,” Harry leaned back, “you don’t even care, you don’t even care she sucked me off, that I had to fuck that cold, emotionless piece of ass to keep up this shit so no one would guess.”

“I cared but that was the plan, Harry, we both had to sacrifice so we could have what we wanted. So we could be where we wanted to be,” Bitsy reminded him.

“But she was tryin’ to take Curt’s money, your money,” he clipped. “She got pregnant to do it.”

“She’s not pregnant, you idiot!” Bitsy, finally losing it, snapped. “She’s as pregnant as me. She said it because Curt always wanted a kid and obviously I couldn’t give him one so she thought she could play that but she wasn’t going to get dick. Not from Curt, he may have thought with his dick half the time but the other half wasn’t stupid, Harry and you know it. And you had to let her play you so you’d be with her when Curt was done and then no one would think a thing of it when you dumped her after I was available and you came back to me. That was the plan, Harry. We’ve been talking about it for years. That was the plan. Simple, smart, patient and cool. But no. No, you go off and murder Curt’s investigator and try to pin it on Shauna and… and… and I don’t even know what Nina’s doin’ here!”

“Shauna wants Max,” Harry stated.

“So?” Bitsy yelled.

“So,” Harry leaned forward, “outside, her other asshole is lyin’ in the snow, four bullets in his chest and her finger pulled the trigger, the residue will be on her hand. She was out when I did it. She won’t remember a thing. And it’s the same gun that killed that Fitzgibbon guy.”

I shifted my head to look down at the prone Shauna before I looked back at Harry in time for him to finish.

“The same gun that’ll kill Nina.”

My lungs seized and I felt the blood drain out of my face.

“Nina?” Bitsy whispered.

“Yeah,” Harry’s crazed eyes flicked to me then back to Bitsy, “Nina.”

“Why?” Bitsy asked then repeated on a shout, “For God’s sake why?”

Harry surged from the bed and I tensed as he bent at the waist, his face having gone red, his arms straight down at his sides, hands in fists and he roared, “He can’t have it all!”

Bitsy’s upper body leaned away from him before she breathed, “What?”

“Max!” Harry spat. “Max! Fuckin’ Max. Holden fuckin’ Maxwell with his varsity letter his freshman year and his scholarship and his mountain that everyone thinks it’s so great he kept clean when all that buildin’ was goin’ on all over the county. Max didn’t let anything touch his land. Oh no. Not Super Wonderful Holden fuckin’ Maxwell. Not him. He could have made it rich workin’ alongside Curt but he didn’t do that. Not Holden Maxwell, man of integrity. Man of strength. He had Anna and they were always holdin’ hands, always laughin’, always tight, lookin’ at each other like the rest of the world didn’t exist. Then he lost her but he didn’t lose everything, not Max. No. After he lost her everyone thought he was even more wonderful how he stayed cool with Curt and stayed tight with you. How he manned up,” spittle flew out of Harry’s mouth on the last two words, “how he built that house for his Dad, how he kept goin’ even though everyone knew losin’ Anna rocked his world. He didn’t fall. He didn’t even falter. Not Max. Everyone thinkin’ how strong he was. How fuckin’ perfect. Then the finest piece of ass in two countries waltzes into town and before you could blink, she’s cuddlin’ up to him at The Mark, she’s in his bed, she’s makin’ out with him on the street and at The Dog and two weeks later she’s movin’ from fuckin’ England just to keep him warm at night.”

He bent at the waist to put his face in Bitsy’s.

“No,” he sneered, “he can’t have everything and I’m gonna make it so he doesn’t. I’m tired of havin’ nothin’ and waitin’ fuckin’ years to make your play against Curt and all the while I’m watchin’ Max have everything he wants. Every woman opens their legs for him and everyone in town thinks he shits roses. The same time, everyone in town thinks poor Harry, gettin’ played by Shauna. Poor Harry, losin’ Bitsy and pinin’ after her all these years. Poor fuckin’ Harry. Well, Bits, fuck… that. Max told me himself just this mornin’ to man up and I’ve decided I’m takin’ his advice.”