Everything about Shay was different. He’d known she would be from the moment he laid eyes on her. He tried to put barriers between them. To guard against her getting to close, but the woman wormed her way under his skin and touched his cold dead heart.
“Well hello to you too.” Greg said unaffected by Drew’s cold tone.
“What do you want?” Drew didn’t have the patience for Greg’s snark.
Shay stirred on top of him. Her face rubbing over his chest as she mumbled something incoherent. His arm tightened around her, a smile touched his face that his scars didn’t bother her.
He hated how self-conscious he was about them. They were a part him. An extension like an arm or a leg and yet he hated them. A stark reminder of his failures. His teammates didn’t care about the sight of them. They all had them. Some were missing limbs and had it way worse than he did.
Strangers reacted differently. Some openly stared. Some in horror. Some in sympathy. The last thing he wanted was others pity. He didn’t feel sorry for himself. His scars were a remembrance. To try better. To fight harder.
If Shay ever looked at him with pity it would kill him. It was why he tried to shield her from his scars. He didn’t want her to ever look at him as less than whole. For all the distance he tried to put between them, she didn’t care about them. Barely batted an eyelash at seeing them. She went out of her way to touch them. It filled him with something far more powerful than fear. Hope.
It scared him how much her acceptance meant to him. He didn’t rely on others. He was a leader. Drew was used to taking charge. Yet one fearful look from her eyes and he’d be slayed.
She was more precious than gold to him. It would kill him to walk away from her when this was all over, but he didn’t see how they could be together. He was trained to look at every possible outcome. In this, he didn’t see a way for them to stay together.
Her high profile father would pull some strings and get him fired. Or worst, his enemies would recognize him and come after Shay. He’d die before he let that happen. His life of living in the shadows would be over if they were together, but the thought of letting her go was consumed him with pain.
“Drew? You there?” Greg yelled.
“Yeah, I’m here.”
“My informant called. He said there’s a buy going down in about an hour.”
That piqued his interest, then he remembered he couldn’t be there. He couldn’t leave Shay. “Did he say what’s being sold?”
“Women,”
Drew felt his whole body tense. Shay must have as well because she sat up. Her looked of sleep gone. She was wide awake. Fear was evident in her eyes. No doubt she was wondering if it was connected to her kidnapping like he thought it was.
“Text me the address and we’ll make a plan.”
“Got it.” As soon as he hung up Drew slid out from under Shay and started to dress. His mind was already on the new mission. He was thankful Shay didn’t say anything as she went to her room.
His phone pinged with an incoming message from Greg. He didn’t recognize the address so he pulled it up on maps. It was in the middle of nowhere. Why would a buy go down there? It was nothing but desert. It was true they wouldn’t want to draw attention but this was way out their way. It wasn’t even close to any major roads.
Shay came in wearing another outfit. His gaze caught on another revealing shirt. Now wasn’t the time to get distracted.
“Are you leaving?” She inquired. Drew didn’t miss the worry in her eyes, whether for him or being alone he didn’t know.
“I told you before that whoever you chose to stay with wouldn’t leave you.”
She cocked her head to the side, studying him. “But something happened.” It wasn’t a question.
“My team is more than capable of handling it without me.” That didn’t mean he wasn’t going to work from home. He could survey everything from his laptop with was on the dining room table. He wanted to go though. Drew wasn’t used to standing on the sidelines while others fought. He liked to be inthe thick of things with his men. He didn’t like relying on others to get the job done, but he’d made a promise to Shay.
Shay needed protection. No one should know where they were. He’d purposely held off telling her father she was safe so it didn’t alert her captures where she was and come after her, again. Hearing the horror stories from shay about him, he wasn’t in a hurry to return her.
“I know you want to go.” She didn’t sound upset about it.
He paused and looked at her. She’d changed in just the short time she’d been with him. In the two days they’d been together she was becoming more confident in herself. She didn’t keep her eyes downcast and make herself smaller. “I will in a way. I’ll have surveillance on them. I’ll see everything as it happens.”
“Drew—” She started to argue.
Drew closed the distance between them and placed his hands on her shoulders. “We’re done discussing this. You and I will stay here. I’ll run point from the laptop.”
With saying his final peace he brushed past her and headed to the dining room table and opened his laptop while he called Jack. “Greg called with information that a buy is going down in an hour.”
