I had some stuff scattered around Rowdy’s place already. I had been making my way into his life, into his space, subconsciously for weeks and weeks. I was making myself at home without even realizing that’s what I was doing. I just needed my dog and some provisions for my sister and I could camp out there indefinitely.

I was just about to shut the car door and click the locks closed behind me when another car motor revved and screeching brakes made me pull up short. I looked over the top of the open door I was holding and felt all the blood rush out of my face.

A sedan stopped right next to my car and the driver’s-side door swung open violently. Before I could react in any way other than to freeze in surprise and shock, a short man got out of the car and pointed at my sister where she was hovering nervously next to my car on the curb. I knew this wasn’t a good situation.

“Get in this car, Poppy.” He didn’t yell, didn’t posture, he just told her what to do in a coolly clam voice that was terrifying.

“No.” Poppy didn’t say it. I did. But there was no way I was letting her go anywhere with him. He looked unkempt and crazed and there was obvious danger stamped all over him.

He vibrated in rage when I barked the negative at him, and instead of letting the argument escalate or raising his voice and coming after me, he methodically produced a gun from somewhere behind his back and pointed it right at me.

I had lived in a lot of big cities and not always in a good part of town. I had seen guns before and even witnessed gun violence at a club here or there along the way. What I had never had happen to be me before was to be facing down the barrel of one with a man clearly ready to pull the trigger on the other side of it.

“Get. In. The. Car. Poppy.” Each word was hollow, deliberate, and laced with evil.

I could hear my sister whimpering and felt the tension between all of us wind up and scream with the need to break. My hands curled around the frame of the door as I stared unblinking at the gun.

“Move! I will shoot your sister. I should do it anyway as a favor to your father.”

I swallowed hard but refused to react. I had a feeling if I so much as twitched an eyelash the wrong way he would feel justified in pulling the trigger. Why hadn’t I thought this through? Of course, if he had followed me home to see where I lived, the lunatic would have followed me to Rowdy’s as well. Hell, the creep very well might have been lurking outside of the shop all day just waiting for his moment. I felt like an idiot, and my sister was the one who was going to suffer.

“Oh my God.” Poppy whispered the words and I saw her move out of the corner of my eye.

“Don’t!” I couldn’t stop the command and jolted when the gun went off in a thunderous BANG. I gasped and watched at the bullet skated across the hood of my car. I jumped involuntarily and couldn’t stop shaking in terror. I had always been independent and confident that I could take care of myself, but right now I was lamenting not just waiting twenty minutes for Rowdy to come with us. Not that I wanted him in danger, but something about having him close by gave me the feeling things would be all right no matter what, and that was a feeling I could desperately use right now as the gun was leveled at my face once again.

“I will shoot you. I don’t care about you. I just want what’s mine.”

Poppy had moved so that she was between me and the gun. I wanted to reach out and grab her and pull her back to me, but now I didn’t want to risk him pulling the trigger and shooting her.

“Poppy, if you get in that car he’s just going to shoot me as soon as you close the door. He’s going to hurt us both.”

She was shaking so badly that she could hardly stand up. Her honey-colored eyes were gigantic in her face and I couldn’t see any way this was going to end without bloodshed.

“No, he won’t. Put the gun down, Oliver, and I’ll get in the car.”

He laughed and it sounded as deranged and crazy as he looked. “You don’t get to give orders. I give the orders. Get in the f**king car, Poppy.”

“Listen, the police are already looking for you. You just fired a gun in a crowded metro area. How long do you think you have before you’re surrounded by cops? If you want me to go with you, put the gun down and I will. I’m not getting out of the way until you do. You’ll have to shoot me if you want to hurt Salem.”

Shit. This wasn’t good. Not at all. I went to tell Poppy to run, to move, to do something—anything besides getting in that car with a man that had already proven he could break her, but I didn’t get the chance. Oliver went back the driver’s door of his car and tossed the gun in the direction of the backseat. If Poppy did get in the car like she seemed determined to do, there was no way she could get to the weapon before he could.

“Now get in.” Apparently his desire to have my sister under his control outweighed his desire to threaten and harm me. “I’m not telling you again. An obedient wife listens to her husband.”

“Don’t do this, Poppy.” I was pleading with her in desperation.

She looked at me over her shoulder. “Get in the car and call the police.”

“He’s going to hurt you—kill you. You can’t go with him.”

“I have to. You’ll save me. You always do.”

She pulled open the passenger door of the sedan and slid inside. Oliver looked at me over the hood of his car and made a finger gun. He pretended to shoot me right in the head just as the faint sounds of sirens could be heard. He slipped inside of the car and raced off with my sister’s horrified face looking at me out of the passenger window.

I dove for my cell phone and called 911, Royal, Rowdy, my parents, and Sayer in that order. The police were already on their way, and before I screamed at Rowdy that I needed him and that he had to come hold me together, I was surrounded by detectives and patrol officers. They were all asking me a million questions.

What color was the car?

Did I see the license plate?

What was he wearing?

What was Poppy wearing?

Did I know what kind of gun it was?

Did I think he was going to hurt Poppy—or himself?

Where would he take her?

The questions were endless and I couldn’t answer most of them coherently. I felt like I was numb. I felt like I had walked into a bad shoot-’em-up movie and the plot had just twisted in a glaringly obvious way. How did I not know better? I was crying silent tears. I was shaking so hard my muscles hurt. I felt like all the words being spoken to me were just white noise over the roar of my blood and the thundering of my heart. I wanted to curl up in a fetal position on the ground and rock. I wanted to get in my car and go speeding off in a random direction like I would just magically find Oliver and my sister if I did that. I wanted to throttle Oliver, kick my dad, and shake my mom within an inch of her life.