Chapter 60: Shadow of Past Betrayal
Liam’s POV
Night had fallen by the time I stepped out of the hotel, the city lights glittering against the darkened sky. I waved off the doorman’s offer to call a car, opting instead to hail a cab from the street. Some irrational part of me wanted the anonymity, the normalcy of flagging down a taxi like any other person.
A yellow cab pulled up almost immediately, and I slid into the back seat, giving the driver my address before leaning back, eyes closed.
The sensation of being watched prickled at the back of my neck. I opened my eyes to find the driver staring at me in the rearview mirror, his gaze oddly intense.
"What?" I snapped, unnerved by his scrutiny.
He didn’t respond, merely turned his attention back to the road. Something about him seemed vaguely familiar—the set of his shoulders, the shape of his profile—but I couldn’t place him. Probably just another face in the crowd of people I passed daily without noticing.
We drove in silence for several blocks, but instead of heading toward my neighborhood, the cab veered onto a side street, then another, taking us away from the main thoroughfare.
"Hey," I leaned forward, rapping on the partition. "You’re going the wrong way."
Still, the driver said nothing. Alarm bells began to ring in my head as he accelerated, taking us deeper into an industrial area I didn’t recognize.
"Stop the car," I demanded, reaching for the door handle. Locked. "I said stop the car!"
Without warning, the cab lurched to the side of the road, braking hard enough to throw me forward against the partition. Before I could recover, the driver was out of his seat, and my door was yanked open.