She goes on, "I think that we figured out somewhere I can go since you’re working this case, and all of your people are busy. Truck has a cousin, some guy in the Army, who can hang out at a safe house with me. I could stay there, hide out, until I figure out some things."
Now I’m dead on the inside.
"You want to go there with him?" I ask, my tone hollow as a drum.
My mind screams for her to sayno. But that’s not what happens.
"I think it makes sense." She twists her hands together, looking small, and so damned vulnerable. "It would be safer than being on my own."
Herown?!?
A thousand words ball up in my throat and not a single one of them comes out.
Staying with Truck’s ARMY-fucking-friend?
Are you kidding me. FuckNO.
But then my focus zeroes in on that goddamned handprint on her perfect skin and I remember what she’s had taken from her.
Everything.
Safety. Comfort. Trust.
Her father’s abuse runs through her veins.
That bastard marked her skin, dragged her down another degree and I won’t do anything else to threaten her emotions.
Jade will be safe, but I willnottake her freedom from her.
"When do you want to go?" I ask, hollowed out to the marrow, already calculating how I’ll keep her safe from afar.
Even as I say it, Mako’s voice echoes through my skull.These people don’t leave loose ends. They auction them.
I can’t tell her. Not yet. Not with that bruise on her face and the fear she’s barely holding back.
But there is no way in hell she’s leaving my sight.
"They said the Agile Security & Rescue private jet can take us any time."
I’m going to beat the living shit out of Truck.
That’s all there is to it. And that Army friend, he’s about to find out what an angry SEAL is capable of.
With my throat and chest now in a permanent clench, I take a step toward her.
Reality is sinking in, clawing me apart.
"I’m trying to be a good man here," I say as I stop in front of her, forcing myself to be very careful.
"But I am not strong enough to let you go stay with some other man without telling you I hate that idea with every fucking cell in my body."
All her nervous motions including the hand twisting and blinking halt. She stops wetting her lips—the mouth I just owned the fuck out of—and breathlessly looks at me.
Time suspends.
A storm roars inside my temples.
"You guys coming to dinner?" Allison calls from the kitchen as other voices carry on talking about something completely inconsequential compared to this.
