Chapter 1 - The Night He Threw Her Into the Rain, He Thought He Was Ending Their LoveAt 10:17 on a Friday night, Mason Vale ordered the woman he loved out of his car in the middle of the worst storm Portland had seen all fall.
At 11:06, her best friend called him and asked one question that turned one of the most feared men in the city completely silent.
“Mason, where is Claire? She said she was walking to my house. She never got here.”
For three full seconds, Mason Vale forgot how to breathe.
Forty-nine minutes earlier, Claire Bennett had been sitting beside him in the back of a black sedan, still wearing the emerald-green evening gown he had sent to her apartment that afternoon.
Rain hammered the windows so hard the city beyond them looked melted.
Mason’s hands rested on the steering wheel, his jaw rigid, his dark suit jacket open at the collar after the charity gala they had left without explanation.
Claire had asked him six times what was wrong.
He had answered only once.
“Get out.”
She stared at him, convinced she had misheard.
“Mason.”
“Get out of the car, Claire.”
“There’s a storm warning.”
“I know.”
“We’re miles from downtown.”
“I know exactly where we are.”
His voice frightened her more than shouting would have.
Mason almost never raised it.
Men twice his size had gone pale when he spoke in that low, measured tone because everyone in the city’s quieter circles knew what the Vale name meant.
Vale Freight and Harbor was legitimate on paper.
Warehouses.
Trucking contracts.
Private security.
Commercial property.
Import businesses.
The stories underneath the paperwork were less respectable.
Claire had known those stories before their second date.
She had nearly walked away because of them.
Three months later, against every instinct she possessed, she had fallen in love with the man behind the name.
Now that man would not even look at her.
“Mason, please tell me what happened.”
“You want to explain?”
His laugh was quiet and empty.
“Fine.
Explain Jonah Quinn.”
Claire blinked.
“What?”
“The café on Alder Street.
Three weeks ago.
You handed him an envelope.”
Her confusion deepened.
“How do you know about that?”
That finally made him turn.
There was something terrible in his eyes.
“Because Vanessa Hale showed me photographs.”
Claire stared at him.
At the gala, Vanessa had approached Mason while Claire was speaking with a donor near the ballroom entrance.
Claire had watched the elegant blonde woman touch Mason’s sleeve, lean close, and whisper something.
Mason’s entire posture had changed.
Thirty seconds later, he had crossed the room.
“We’re leaving.”
That was all he had said.
Now Claire understood only enough to become afraid.
“What photographs?”
“Pictures of you meeting a member of the Quinn family.
Pictures of you passing him information.
Vanessa says the Quinns have been bragging for months that they planted someone close to me.”
Claire’s mouth fell open.
“You think that someone is me?”
“I think you knew exactly who Jonah Quinn was.”
“Of course I knew who he was.”
His face hardened.
Claire’s voice rose.
“He’s Natalie’s cousin!”
Mason paused.
“What?”
“My best friend Natalie.
Jonah is her mother’s nephew.
He sells commercial insurance, Mason.
He collects vintage baseball cards and cries during dog movies.”
“His father’s side is Quinn.”
“I don’t care what his father’s side is.
I gave him an invitation to Natalie’s surprise birthday dinner because he’d been traveling and I didn’t trust the mail to reach him in time.”
Mason’s expression did not soften.
Not enough.
“You expect me to believe that?”
Claire went very still.
Something inside her broke more cleanly than if he had shouted.
“No,” she whispered.
“I expect the man who says he loves me with his actions every day to ask me before deciding I’m guilty.”
“I never said I loved you.”
That was the cruelest thing he could have chosen.
They both knew it the moment it left his mouth.
Claire swallowed, staring at him through eyes suddenly shining.
“No,” she said.
“You didn’t.”
Mason looked away first.
“Get out.”
Her hand trembled as she reached for the door.
“This is what you want?”
“I don’t know what I want.”
“That’s a lie.”
“Claire.”
“You want me gone because being angry is easier than admitting you might be afraid.”
His eyes flashed toward her.
She had found the wound.
Mason Vale was feared because almost nothing frightened him.
Claire apparently did.
She opened the door.
The storm swallowed her instantly.
Cold rain hit sideways, flattening her hair against her face and soaking the thin fabric of her gown within seconds.
Her silver heels sank into the muddy shoulder.
She turned before closing the door.
“Tomorrow morning, if you discover you were wrong, don’t come to my apartment expecting one apology to erase this.”
Mason said nothing.
“That’s the part you never understood about trust,” she continued, rain running over her face like tears.
“It doesn’t break when someone betrays you.
Sometimes it breaks when someone decides you’re capable of betrayal without giving you the chance to speak.”
She shut the door.
Mason stayed there for ten seconds.
Then twenty.
Then he drove away.
Claire watched the red taillights vanish around the curve.
Only then did she realize she was standing barefoot in a storm nearly two miles from Natalie and Ethan Brooks’s house.
She removed her ruined heels, shoved them into her clutch, and called Natalie.
“Oh my God,” Natalie said the moment she heard the wind.
“Claire, where are you?”
“Rivercrest Road.
Near the old garden center.”
“What are you doing outside?”
“I’ll explain later.”
“I’m coming.”
“No.”
“Claire.”
“The bridge traffic is awful and the roads are flooding.
Your house is less than two miles from here.”
“You are wearing a gown and six-hundred-dollar shoes.”
“Not anymore.”
“What happened?”
Claire looked toward the direction Mason had disappeared.
“Apparently I’m a spy.”
There was a pause.
“What?”
“It’s a long story.”
“I’m getting my keys.”
“Natalie, don’t.
Seriously.
I can walk twenty-five minutes.”
“In that weather?”
“I’ll stay under the trees.
Please.
I need to move right now or I’m going to stand here crying over a man who doesn’t deserve the satisfaction.”
Natalie sighed.
“Call me every ten minutes.”
“I will.”
“You promise?”
“I promise.”
Claire began walking.
The first five minutes were manageable.
The next five were not.
Water rushed along the road.
Branches fell from trees.
Wind pushed against her body hard enough to make each step uncertain.
Her feet were numb.
Her phone battery dropped to fourteen percent.
She called Natalie.
“I’m okay.”
“You sound awful.”
“I’m wet.”
“You're always wet when it rains.”
“Not like this.”
Natalie laughed nervously.
“Keep talking.”
Claire tried.
She talked about everything.
The terrible gala.
Vanessa.
Mason’s expression.
How stupid she felt.
How angry she was.
How much she hated that she still loved him.
Then the call cut out.
Claire looked at the phone.
No signal.
“Great.”
She tucked it into her clutch.
She had reached the old garden center when she heard an engine.
Headlights appeared through the rain.
Claire stepped toward the shoulder.
The vehicle slowed.
She expected Natalie.
Instead, the passenger window lowered.
A familiar face looked out.
Jonah Quinn.
He stared at her in shock.
“Claire?”
She froze.
“What are you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same question.”
“I’m walking.”
“In that?”
She laughed weakly.
“My boyfriend threw me out.”
Jonah’s face hardened.
“Mason?”
Claire nodded.
Jonah unlocked the door.
“Get in.”
She hesitated.
“What?”
“You’re freezing.”
“I can't.”
“Why?”
“You're a Quinn.”
He stared at her.
Then laughed.
“Seriously?”
She almost smiled.
“Sorry.”
“Get in.”
She climbed inside.
The heater hit her skin.
She shivered violently.
Jonah handed her a towel.
“Wrap that around your head.”
“Thanks.”
“Your feet?”
“Fine.”
“They're blue.”
“Still fine.”
He looked at her.
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
“Claire.”
She stared out the windshield.
“Mason thinks I betrayed him.”
Jonah's expression changed.
“He what?”
Before Claire could answer, headlights appeared behind them.
Jonah looked in the mirror.
A black SUV.
Then another.
His face tightened.
“Claire.”
“What?”
“Do you know those cars?”
“No.”
“Neither do I.”
The first SUV accelerated.
Jonah gripped the steering wheel.
“Hold on.”
The road curved.
The rain became a wall.
The SUV hit the rear of Jonah's car.
Claire screamed.
Jonah fought the wheel.
The car spun.
Metal struck the guardrail.
Glass exploded.
Claire's head hit the side window.
Then darkness.
The last thing she heard was Jonah shouting her name.
Forty-nine minutes later, Mason's phone rang.
“Natalie?”
“Yes.”
Her voice shook.
“Mason, where is Claire?”
He frowned.
“She said she was walking to your house.”
“She never got here.”
Mason sat upright.
“What do you mean?”
“I thought you dropped her off.”
“I did.”
“Where?”
“Rivercrest.”
“Which part?”
Mason didn't answer.
Natalie whispered:
“She wouldn't still be out there.”
The silence between them changed.
Mason looked at the clock.
11:06.
He remembered the rain.
The empty road.
Claire's last expression.
And suddenly, every instinct in his body screamed the same word.
Wrong.
He grabbed his jacket.
“Stay in your house.”
“What?”
“Lock every door.”
“Mason, what happened?”
He hung up.
Then he called Vince.
“Find Claire.”
“Where?”
“Rivercrest Road.”
“What happened?”
“I ordered her out.”
Silence.
Vince knew better than to ask why.
“I'll find her.”
Mason walked toward the garage.
His phone rang again.
Unknown number.
He answered.
Nobody spoke.
Then a voice whispered:
“You wanted her gone.”
A pause.
“You should have been more careful what you wished for.”
The call ended.
Mason stopped.
For the first time that night, genuine fear entered his eyes.
Not because someone had taken Claire.
Because somebody had been waiting for him to make exactly one mistake.
May you like
And he had.
He had sent the woman he loved alone into a storm.
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