She’d given me the chance to satisfy her expectations.
And only I knew the truth: that she or her friendshadbeen in trouble and when the chips were down and her own family had sold her out, she ran for me.Because I was the one she knew she could always count on.
Even if it meant trusting me to keep the secret about her vulnerability in that moment.
My smirk turns to a more brittle smile, because I might be the only one who’s seen Brooks Landry’s vulnerable side, but that doesn’t make me the only one who takes advantage of it.
Her father has her in the most vulnerable position possible right now, and my gut is telling me that he’s going to ruin her with it.
I sit at the table, ignoring the mess I just made, and force myself to think.
Everything about this feels wrong to me, and it’s making me even twitchier about Brooks being under her father’s roof.It’s the Russians.It has to be.
No, it’s the fact that the port didn’t happen the way it was supposed to.Brooks told me that a shipment was happening and that a high-profile target was involved, but her information turned out to be the opposite of true.Instead of a shipment, we found armed men shooting at us.
Again.
She didn’t have the correct information.Either the details she saw were changed after she saw them, or she was intentionally misled.Given the wrong information on purpose.
Or she was set up, which is even worse.
Did someone feed her details that would put me at the port, just to see whether she would pass them to me?
God, if that’s true, and I showed up there with guns blazing, it was a glowing neon finger pointing right at her.It set me up for an attack, and it set her up for whatever the fuck her father has planned for her.
“Christ,” I breathe, my blood freezing at the thought.
God, I might have just signed her death warrant.And if her father is involved, that death will be ugly.Long and bloody and horrible.
I jump to my feet, unable to sit still any longer, and start pacing.I have to get her out of there.i don’t know if she’s gotten any real answers yet, but it’s too dangerous to leave her in that house any longer.My instincts are screaming that we’re seconds away from being caught—and that’s if we have’s been discovered already.Who the fuck knows what kind of crazy decisions she’s been making in the last day.If I know Brooks, she’s probably done at least five things that will get her caught on her own.
She might already be dead.
No.I can’t think that way.It will kill me.
But the driving urge, the absolute need, to see her is so overwhelming now that I feel like someone has injected acid directly into my veins.I have to know that she’s okay, and what she’s found out.I have to work on a plan to get her out of there.Which means I need her cooperation, because I won’t be able to extract her unless she works with me.
Fuck me.
That won’t be easy… but I think I know exactly how to do it.
I just have to count on Dom to keep being the arrogant, insufferable asshole I already know he is.
***
“You’ve lost your fucking mind,” Daniel mutters from beside me.
I look up at the mansion in front of us, the cobbles of Dom’s driveway under my feet and his guards around us, their guns drawn and their faces deadly serious, and think that he’s probably right.But Brooks is inside that house, and it’s high time I get her out of there again.I’ve already waited two days too long to have her back in my hands, where she’ll be at least a little bit safe.
Though if she’s done anything stupid since I last saw her, the first thing I’m going to do when I get her is take her over my knee and punish her.
Actually, I might do that regardless.The thought of her spread across my lap, that ass bare and vulnerable to my hands, my name on her tongue and her hands wrapped around my ankles, is glorious enough that I dedicate several seconds to it, my mouth nearly watering at the idea.
“Lucien,” Daniel snaps.“I said something.”
Right.
“And I heard you,” I snap back.“I just didn’t think it required a response.After all—” I give him a smile that’s all sharp teeth and evil intent.“—It’s not the first time I’ve lost my mind over a girl.”
