The Wind Speaks No Evil. The Wind Speaks, #1

A year has passed since Bee--once Bevy Ritter, now living under the alias "Beatrice Rathborne"--lost everything. Now, she stands to lose it all again. Bee was forced to enter Witness Protection following a traumatic kidnapping that left her hands crushed and tongue severed. The supposed perpetrator? Her ex-fiancé, Collin. But when the U. S. Marshal assigned to her case informs her that Collin is believed to be dead--and the assailants who carried out her kidnapping, within county lines of her alias's remote cabin home--her very understanding of reality is shattered.
With no safe place to go, she has no choice but to return home in the midst of a record-breaking blizzard. Once again, her illusion of safety is broken when she finds an armed intruder in the place she once thought her safe haven. Nico Faulkner, a deaf drug mule left stranded in the surrounding wilderness by a deal gone awry, seeks shelter from the deadly storm. That, and a clean slate from his near-fatal life choices still far from reach.
Nico knows his clock is ticking. And, whether it be his vindictive employers or hostile buyers which come back to finish the job of killing him, they won't care that the woman occupying the cabin he thought deserted is an innocent bystander--or, his estranged best friend. It's been ten years since Nico irrevocably broke Bee's trust. Now, as they discover it is the very same crime ring hunting both of them, she must trust him in spite of their fractured past--their survival of the present depends on it.
And soon, a threat much closer to either of them than they know will scream the truth: time does not heal all wounds.