It pained him to make her feel like this, but he loved her. He loved her with his entire being. He had to do what needed to be done.
At least that is what he had to tell himself to get through this.
Once she was gone, he could break down, but for now he had to be tough. He had to get her to go—even if that meant lying to her. This was for her own good.
“Shaye, you know I think you are amazing. And I had one hell of a good time in the gym. But while we were together...well, I realized that I don’t think we’re relationship material.” The lie burned like acid on his tongue.
Her hand came out of nowhere as she slapped him. As badly as his face stung, the burn wasn’t nearly as bad as the scorch in his soul. No matter how much she hated him, he hated himself more.
Anger flashed in her eyes. “I can’t believe that you are doing this to me. Kash told me you just keep women around for a booty call. I didn’t believe him, but now I know, you really are that kind of man.”
Chapter Sixteen
That was it, she didn’t understand men. At all. Ever.
He had used her and then thrown her out of his house. What kind of man did such a thing?
Easy. Chad Martin.
If STEALTH had a cruelty division, he would be their captain. And she would be his jester.
She had been so stupid for coming here.
As she raced away from him, Shaye tried to control her tears. She was so mad. Mad at him for what he had said and done, and mad at herself for her tears. She bit her lip, drawing blood, as she tried to keep her emotions in check.
He couldn’t see her cry.
He couldn’t see how much he had hurt her.
If he did, he would know that she loved him. And she absolutely could not, under any circumstances, love that man.
Hate, loathe and despise, yes...but love...
And yet, as she rounded the corner to ascend the stairs, she wanted to look back at him. To look at his face one more time to see if he had really meant what he had said to her.
As he had spoken, he had looked like a broken man, his head down low and his back hunched. His eyes had been dark and his face haggard, a stark contrast to just moments before when he had been looking down on her face, their eyes connecting as their bodies explored the edges of overwhelming ecstasy.
He had shifted so suddenly, so unexpectedly.
She had to have missed something, something that triggered his words.
But even if she understood why, it wouldn’t make the blow any easier to take.
Screw him.
She took the stairs two at a time. As she turned the corner toward the great room, her foot struck the baby’s diaper bag that was sitting on the floor. Jarrod must have forgotten to give it to Wyatt.
The baby. The hostages. The attacks.
Ugh.
She picked up the bag and took a long series of breaths, part of her hoping to hear Chad’s footsteps on the stairs as he chased after her, but there was nothing.
She didn’t need him in her life, anyway.
But even as the thought floated through her mind, she knew it was a lie. She loved Chad. She was furious with him, but damn it, she loved him.
No. No. You don’t, she reminded herself.
Running the back of her hand over her cheeks, checking to make sure that nothing would give her away, she entered the room where Zoey was still puttering away. Jarrod and Mindy were sitting on the couch with each other, holding hands as they looked at something on their phones.
They didn’t even look up as she came into the room and made her way toward the front door. But as she pulled the door open, Zoey finally seemed to notice her.
“What are you doing?” Zoey asked, her voice raspy from not being used.
“We forgot to give Wyatt the diaper bag. I think they’re going to need it for Peanut,” she said, lifting the bag like it was evidence.
Zoey sighed. “Just leave it by the couch. I’ll just text him to stop by when he can and pick it up. We’re on lockdown. And I’m starting to get reports of possible members of Gray Wolves arriving at the airport.”
She didn’t care what happened to her if she left this ranch. Staying here was out of the question. “The baby’s formula, diapers, everything—they’re going to need them,” she said, some of her strength leeching from her as she repeated the feeble excuse to leave. Instead of continuing to argue, she dropped the bag onto the floor.
Zoey looked up at her and when their eyes met, Shaye looked away, fearing that Zoey would be able to see all the hurt she was feeling.
“What happened?” Zoey asked, putting down her tablet and getting up off the couch. “Where’s Chad?” She sounded concerned.
“He’s fine, just downstairs with Trevor. They’re working on getting answers.” As she spoke, the image of the man with no teeth popped into her mind. Even with teeth the man would have been terrifying, but without them he looked like something out of a horror movie...like the man standing in the shadows holding the butcher knife.
A chill ran down her spine.
In her world, every shadow held danger—even the shadows in which she was standing.
“I’ll just run this over. No one knows my rental car,” Shaye continued, pulling open the door and stepping out onto the porch.
The cold made her nostrils burn as she took in a deep breath. The subtle pain was refreshing—physical pain was always easier to handle than the emotional kind.
“Shaye, stop. If you go, I can’t let you come back.” Zoey gave her a pained expression, like she really didn’t want her to leave. “You could lead our enemies straight to us. We can’t risk it.”
The change in Zoey’s attitude toward her didn’t fail to register. How could things with Zoey have shifted so dramatically?
What was up with this family? Why did everything with them have to be so complicated?
But then, who was she to complain about complicated?
“I know.” As she spoke, Shaye closed the door behind her, blocking out all that was the Martins.
Digging her keys out of her pocket, she let the tears finally fall. They blurred her vision as she walked down the steps and out to the driveway, where her rental car waited.
She had no idea where she would go—all she knew was that she had to get out of here.
She couldn’t stand spending one more second this close to Chad. Even from here, she could feel the pull, the inexplicable magnetism that made her want to go running to him—they could yell and scream, curse and flail, but maybe if she went back, they could make this right. He could explain to her why he had attacked her with the one weapon he knew would hurt her the most.
Yes, Chad was the worst kind of man.
Angrily, she wiped away the tears. She hit Unlock on her car fob and opened the door.
As she moved to step into the car, a hand grabbed her from behind. A scream rippled through the air, but it was cut short by a hand over her mouth. “Shut up,” a man growled in her ear. “If you want to live, you need to shut the hell up.”
She tried to pull at the man’s hands, to uncover her mouth and catch a glimpse of whoever was holding her, but as she scratched at his skin his grip on her only tightened. She dug her fingernails into his flesh until she could feel the skin give way and a wet, sticky blood ooze over her fingers.
“You little bitch,” he said, his voice flecked with what sounded like a Turkish accent. “You’re lucky your father wants you alive, or you would already be dead.” He leaned in and took a long sniff of her hair, making her squirm with disgust.
She struggled harder, her body flailing in the man’s grip, and as she moved to kick, another set of hands grabbed her ankles. The men held her so tightly that even though she tried to struggle, she could barely move.
They lifted her into the back of her car, and as the
y moved, she silently prayed that someone in the house had heard her scream. A dark-haired man climbed into the back of her car. He had a long goatee, and his face was the color of someone who spent hours in the sun. He pulled out some rope and tied her ankles, then, with a tight yank, he wrenched her arms behind her back and hog-tied her. They slapped a piece of black tape over her mouth. She tried to bite at it and push at it with her tongue, but it was stuck firmly to her skin.
Her heart raced in her chest. They weren’t sent her to kill her...but that didn’t mean they couldn’t beat her. And what about her friends? They were inside, seemingly totally unaware of what was happening out here.
There had been men posted around the house, keeping guard for the family, but where were they now?
And how had these men found her? No one knew where she and the Martins were hiding except Wyatt. Had he told someone where they could be found?
If she saw her father again, she was going to kill him herself for getting her into this situation.
Her hatred for the man who had fathered her roiled in her, threatening to make her explode. Until now, she hadn’t thought it possible to hate someone as much as she hated him.
If Chad got hurt because of her father...
A sob rattled through her, escaping through her nose.
This couldn’t be happening again. He had already killed Raj. He and his men couldn’t take Chad, too.
She rubbed her face on the seat of the car, hoping to peel back a corner of the tape. If she could yell, maybe the Martins would stand a chance. They had done so much for her, taking her in and helping her escape her father...and yet she had repaid their kindnesses by bringing their enemies straight to their doorstep.
She rubbed harder until her skin burned and she was sure that she had rubbed her face raw.
She had been so foolish to walk out, to think that she could just leave and nothing would happen. Everything she did, every choice she made, everything she was—it was all a curse.
Chapter Seventeen
He felt like a complete jerk, but he had done the right thing by telling Shaye to leave. He picked up his phone and sent her another text message, hoping she would at least tell him that she had made it to the airport okay.
He had handled the whole thing terribly. But she wouldn’t have left him unless she believed that he really didn’t care. It was a lie he had to sell. And he had sold it well.
His message failed. Had she blocked him?
She was pissed. Actually, probably more than pissed. If he had been on the receiving end, he would have hated her.
That was it—she hated him.
And she had every right.
But he had to know she was at least safe.
He turned to Trevor. “I’m going to check on her.”
Trevor nodded, then crossed his arms over his chest as he leaned against the wall outside the panic room. “Yeah, you probably should. You really hurt her, man.”
He was more than aware. Not for the first time, he wished Trish was here. She would have told him what he should do.
And as he thought of Trish, he realized he was almost completely alone. Everyone he was capable of opening up to, everyone he could talk about his darkest secrets with, was gone.
“I screwed up.” He had meant it with the best of intentions, but it was hard to live with the results.
“Nah,” Trevor said, “you were right in wanting to get her out of here. The Gray Wolves are coming—maybe not right now, but they are coming...and they want us dead. You had to say what you had to say.” He gave him a tired, drawn nod.
He was glad he had Trevor to talk to, and that his brother understood where he was coming from without a long, drawn-out conversation, but his approval did little to assuage the guilt he was feeling.
He hated lying.
He hated acting like the man Kash had made him out to be.
And, more than anything, he hated that he had to watch her be hurt and then walk away—and he was the cause of her pain.
Even if he couldn’t be the man in her life, or show her how much he loved her, he still needed to make sure she was okay. Though it seemed like the only way to get her to leave, he shouldn’t have pushed her away like he had.
Damn it.
“I know you said you needed a break, but—”
“Go get her, make it right.” Trevor waved him off. “Since she and the baby showed up you’ve started to get back to being yourself... And seriously, I love you, bro, but I don’t think I can stand you sitting on the couch and eating Cheetos anymore.”
“I do love Cheetos,” he said with a laugh.
“And yet, even if I was blind, I could see that you love her more. Now, go get her.” Trevor threw him his car keys and he stuffed them in his pocket.
Chad’s heart lightened incrementally as he bounded up the stairs and, not bothering to even acknowledge his working family, ran out the door.
Shaye’s rental car was still in the driveway, but Shaye was nowhere to be seen. Where had she gone? Had she gotten someone to pick her up?
Knowing her, she was probably hoofing it out of this place and just about ready to hitchhike to anywhere but here.
No. She wasn’t that careless.
But she had been in a hurry to get out of there.
He took out his phone and tried to call her, but the call didn’t go through. Stupid goddamn thing.
He looked out on the porch, hoping to spot one of the guards that his sister had posted there, but they were gone. If he remembered correctly, Zoey had assigned men to the perimeter of their new enclosure and yet, he couldn’t see a single guard. Lesson number one was always have a visible presence in scenarios like this one. He walked to the far side of the deck, where he would have stood if he had been tasked with acting as the family’s sentinel.
There was a set of footprints in the snow from a man’s boots.
On the railing, near the footprints, was a tiny speck of blood.
“Zoey!” he yelled, charging back toward the door in a mad dash to raise the alarm. “Zoey!” He pulled open the front door, making sure to close and lock it behind himself. “Did Shaye tell you where she was going?”
Zoey looked up from her tablet, looking somewhat annoyed that he had dared to pull her away from her work.
“You need to shut that stupid thing. I think we’ve got company,” he said, pointing toward the front window, where someone had pulled the drapes closed.
“Huh? What?” Jarrod asked, getting to his feet. “What are you talking about?”
“How many men did you post outside?” Chad asked.
“Twenty-two. But there should be more on the way. If there was anything going on outside, I’m sure one of them would have reported something by now.” Zoey set her tablet on the coffee table in front of her, but she kept looking back at the screen. “It’s not like anyone could get the drop on us with that many feet on the ground.”
“Not just anyone could, but a well-orchestrated group might be able to—a group like the Gray Wolves,” Chad countered. “We know they’ve started to arrive, you’ve said as much. There’s blood on our front porch and I don’t see guards anywhere. And now Shaye...” His voice cracked, betraying his terror and panic. “Shaye is missing. I have to find her.”
If something had happened to her because of what he had said, and if the Gray Wolves were behind it, he was going to personally kill every single man in their organization with his bare hands. And when he found Bayural, he would rip off his head and feed it to the crows.
He seethed with rage at the mere thought of Shaye being in harm’s way.
She had to be okay. Maybe she had caught an Uber... Maybe the guard who was supposed to be on the porch had gotten a bloody nose or was taking a pee or something. Maybe he was just jumping to the worst-case scenario without cause.
A
nd yet, he couldn’t help the panic that rattled through him like he was an empty can without Shaye here.
He had to get her back.
But first he had to keep his wits about him. Shaye was fine. She was probably taking a walk. Maybe she was even thinking about how she was going to come inside and ream him out—she had every right.
Yeah, that was it. Shaye was just gearing up for a fight with him. Nothing more.
He let out a long exhale, attempting to quell his medley of negative thoughts.
Jarrod charged toward the window and barely pulled back the curtain to look outside. “She only beat you upstairs by a few minutes. She couldn’t have gotten far,” Jarrod said, taking in the steadily darkening world outside. “Zoey, can you pull up the cameras, see where she went?”
Zoey clicked to the cameras that were stationed in and around the house. Her screen turned black.
What in the actual hell?
He walked over, closer to the tablet, hoping he was just seeing things wrong or that he wasn’t understanding something correctly.
But as Zoey clicked, the screen stayed black. She started hitting buttons faster and faster in a manic race for answers.
Jarrod turned away from the window and walked toward Mindy, who was still sitting on the couch.
Mindy looked up at him, a terrified look on her face. Jarrod put his hand on her shoulder as though he had the ability to calm her fears with just a touch.
Chad wished he had that kind of relationship with Shaye. Instead he had used her anger to manipulate her—even if he had thought it was for the greater good, he had made a mistake. He didn’t deserve her. And once he found her, he would tell her exactly that and then drop down to his knees and kiss her feet and beg her forgiveness.
And he would tell her that he loved her.
Not that she would probably want to hear anything of the sort from him. She had to hate him right now.
“What is it, Zoey? What’s going on?” Jarrod asked, almost as if Mindy had given him the strength to ask the question that everyone feared the answer to.
Protective Operation Page 15
