“Getting ready for what?” she whispered. It couldn’t be true, not after everything they’dshared.
He cleared another pistol, the loud click making her jump as it snapped back into place. He scooped up a handful of bullets and tucked them into another pocket. And then a knife, and then another one in hisboot.
“King, answer me.” She drew closer, her pulse thrumming hard and fast, as the possibility that King had been using them the whole timegrew.
He spared her a glance and then snatched up a grenade and clicked it on his belt. “You should go and be withFaith.”
She could practically see the invisible wall going up between them. “What are youdoing?”
“I’m preparing, and you don’t need to be here.” He turned then, pinning her with that intense stare ofhis.
“Is itJohn?”
His jaw clenched, and his hands fisted at his sides. “I asked you toleave.”
Tears burned the back of her eyes and she blinked them away rapidly, wrapping her hand around her throat. “So, it’strue.”
He scowled and went back to the task of picking up weapons. Weapons to kill her brother. “I never lied to you about Dawson. He’sdangerous.”
Her voice hitched, “So you’re going to put him out of hismisery.”
King slung the rifle over his shoulder. “One way oranother.”
“And you’re going to use me and Faith to do it.” She felt the sob rising in her chest and quickly clamped her mouth shut, refusing to let the weakness escape in front ofhim.
“No, you two are staying here, where I know you will be safe and protected. Whether you like it or not.” King put another rifle over his other shoulder, the barrels crisscrossing his back. When he faced her this time, with enough weapons to take out an entire army, he truly did look like a pirate ready tokill.
King made to brush past her, but she refused to move out of his way and instead blocked his path to the door, flinging her arms wide to stop him. “What do you mean stay here? Aren’t you using us asbait?”
King picked her up, set her to the side and reached for the door. “I don’t have time forthis.”
Laura blindly reached out and snagged his belt, pulling with all her strength. “You’d better make time forthis.”
King paused and blew out a long, deep sigh that said he was very annoyed. He turned to face her, crossing his arms over his chest and scowled down at her. “I’ve waited long enough. And I’m not going to wait any longer. I warned you about your brother. I can’t sit back and wait for him to lose control and hurt someone. I understand if you don’t want anything else to do with me because of it. I’ve accepted that fact. But nothing changes the fact that he is a wild dog that needs puttingdown.”
“Who said I didn’t want anything else to do withyou?”
He drew up straight, studying her. And then he turned for the door. “It doesn’t matter. I can’t be with you. You’re better off forgetting aboutme.”
“So, everything that happened between us for these last couple of weeks—is that nothing toyou?”
King turned his head, so that she could only see the sharp angular profile with his eye patch. “They were justdistractions.”
His rough words gut punched her. Her chin wobbled and the tears threatening the back of her eyes spilled over. “And Faith? She was a distraction too? And the stage you built for her? The training area you set up for her? Taking her to thehospital?”
King threw his head back, thick veins bulging on his muscular neck beneath his beard. He ground out one word, “Yes.”
“You’re a liar, King,” she bit out, her anguish turning tofury.
He spun on her, midnight black eyebrows arched into sharp points. “What did yousay?”
Not intimidated in the least by his callousness, she advanced, jamming her finger into his thick chest. “So you’re blind and deaf now? I called you aliar.”
She jammed her finger into his chest again, barely restraining the urge to ball her hand into a fist and pound against him until hecaved.
“No one has ever called me a liar,” he said, his voice carrying a quietmenace.
“Sounds like I’m overdue then,” she ground out between clenched teeth. “If you don’t want us, at least have the balls to be honest about it. Go ahead, I’m a big girl. I can take it, I promise. You kidnapped me and Faith to use us as bait to draw out my brother. And then you screwed me so I would stay without a fight. And I was dumb enough to buy your whole wounded warrioract.”
