Page 29 of Her Sensual Protector

Suck it up, you’ve seen worse.

Her stomach heaved again.

She tried to think.

Why can’t I think?

She hit the tiles on the floor with her fist, happy when she felt the pain.

Think!

She shuddered, and hated it. She tried to push herself up from the floor but found her legs too weak.

Pull yourself together, girl!

Daisy heard her phone ringing from the other room but she couldn’t handle it. She just couldn’t handle it. Let the world spin on its own without her for a while. It didn’t matter.

I shouldn’t care!

She hit the tile again with her fist.

That’s why I came here instead of my siblings. I wasn’t going to care; it was just another job.

She tasted salt again.

She closed her eyes. She could do better than this. She’d always done better than this. Emotions screwed up every assignment. She couldn’t afford to feel them or they’d stop her in her tracks. Make her powerless. People suffered when she was powerless.

She closed her eyes and tried, desperately tried, to relax her shoulders. It wasn’t working, but she took a deep breath in, tightened her shoulders, then let out a slow breath and relaxed her shoulders.

She felt them relax a tiny little bit.

She did it again.

Then she saw her father’s bruised face and the gun hitting him. She winced.

She heard her phone ring again and forced herself up from the floor. Going to the bedroom, Daisy grabbed her phone and turned it off, not caring who was calling. She slammed her laptop off and unplugged it.

The world can wait. The world can just fucking wait.

* * *

Something was wrong, Leo could feel it in his bones.

Could just be the fact that they’d just seen the video of Ethan Squires, but unfortunately, that was almost to be expected. Every single one of the Night Storm team was just thankful that the man was alive. They still had time to rescue him. Now it was just a matter of finding out where he was.

But that still didn’t explain why Leo was sure that something was wrong.

“Any word on our next target?” Leo turned from Kane to Max.

“We’re supposed to hear something tomorrow morning,” Max said. “The higher-ups are being cagey. They have a source they’re really trying to protect.”

“If this source is able to lead us to Squires, well then, they’re worth protecting,” Leo said.

“In the meantime, more drones are going up and looking for that jeep with the anti-aircraft gun. If they can spot that, it would give us a good indication that Squires is there.”

“They can’t have gotten too far,” Asher said.

“We’re not sure that others with trucks didn’t come in and load them up. We can’t just assume that that one truck and jeep were their only means of transportation,” Max explained.