Gone Beyond Her Reach

Damon Westbrook is rescued after three months of kidnapping and humiliation in the mountains, left with severe PTSD. Through his self-harm, nightmares and suicide attempts, his fiancée Eleanor Carrington stays at his side, promising they will marry once he recovers. To speed his healing she brings in Marcus Keane, a former college upperclassman finishing a psychology doctorate overseas, and Damon, grateful, endures every brutal session.

Then, behind a half-open balcony door, he overhears the truth: Eleanor arranged his kidnapping herself, so Marcus's research could produce an award-winning dissertation, and his suffering is merely data. The woman who once defied her father's cane to keep their engagement has traded his trauma for another man's future.

Something in Damon goes cold and quiet. He says nothing, cooperates, and lets them believe he does whatever Eleanor tells him, while he begins to gather what he has seen and heard.