The whole time I’d been under my father’s thumb, recuperating from the kidnapping and my own attempt to end it, everything in my world had scrambled like a Rubik’s Cube. Nothing had lined up the way it should.

Coming back to this island felt like coming home.

I started on the trail and hiked up the slight incline past a massive willow. The top of his A-frame cabin came into view, and I took a moment to really see it for the first time. Painted a dark brown-red with a huge front porch, trees towered around it, as if standing sentinel. I thought back to the night we’d left through the front door, but I couldn’t recall leaving the cabin. I’d been too preoccupied with fear, too worried about Rafe and what he’d do. Too paralyzed by the thought of going near the water.

As I climbed the steps, I withdrew the letters from my purse. Taking a deep breath, I halted at his door, and I gave myself a moment to hope.

Hope that he still wanted me.

Hope that he’d love me even.

Hope that he’d help me end this, once and for all.

Zach was still out there, and everyone around me was nuts. Rafe had done horrible things to me, but he was the crazy I knew, the crazy I loved, the crazy I trusted with my heart and my life.

Looking at him was like looking into a mirror. We’d done so much to hurt each other, but we were the only ones who could fix each other. I believed that with every bone in my body. It’d just taken me a while to see beyond my father’s manipulations, his threats, and I refused to be a puppet any longer. Not unless it was the man on the other side of the door pulling the strings.

Swallowing the lump in my throat, I lifted a fist and knocked.

17. Unwritten - Rafe

17. UNWRITTEN - RAFE

“You can tell my brother to shove it. Shit, Jax, I don’t even remember working at the winery. Seems pointless to go back now.” I paced in the kitchen, cell to my ear, and not-so-patiently listened while he tried to convince me that Adam was right. Hiding out alone on the island wasn’t going to fix anything. I needed to move on with my life, memory or not. Move on from Alex.