Page 70 of Fighting for Scarlett

“That was the trap.” Despite the likely concussion, the wheels in her head were obviously spinning. “It wasn’t to try to kidnap me again it was to kill me.”

Framing her face with his hands, he smoothed his thumbs across her cheekbones. “I won't let him.”

Hands moving to grip his wrists, her grasp tight, she looked up at him with big, scared doe eyes. “This is my fault. I'm sorry. We shouldn’t have come. I was being selfish, thinking only about what I wanted, what I needed, and it almost got you killed.” Tears rolled down her cheeks, mixing with the blood and leaving pink trails in their wake.

“I came because I wanted the same answers you do,” he reminded her, caressing her silky soft skin with his fingers.

“But you didn't want to do it like this. I'm sorry, Tate, I won't be reckless again, I promise.”

He believed her.

Only not for the reasons she would have thought.

Already a plan was forming in his mind, the only one he could think of given what had happened here this morning.

“What's our next move?” Scarlett asked so trustingly that what he was about to do was going to break her sweet heart.

But he didn't have a choice.

Things had changed.

Wrongly, he had assumed that the purpose of this meet-up was to flush Scarlett out so that Raul could kidnap her again and try to force her to give up the formula for the Reactivator.

But that didn't seem to be true.

They’d been lured out of hiding so Raul could have Scarlett killed.

Obviously, now he considered her to be more of a liability than an asset, and he was cleaning house, cutting his losses, and either moving on and giving up or regrouping and coming up with another way of getting his hands on the drug.

Either way, it wasn’t good for Scarlett.

Hurting her was the last thing he wanted to do, but more than that, he wanted her alive and safe.

Which meant he was willing to hurt her if it was for her own good.

He would just have to pray she forgave him.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

January 18th

9:31 A.M.

“I wish we’d at least got a glimpse of something,” Scarlett said, running her hands through her hair and wincing when that tugged on the gash by her hairline. Other than a killer headache and some new aches and pains she’d been lucky.

They both had.

Tate hadn't received any serious injuries either. Things could have so easily gone the other way. Dead or in the hospital fighting for their lives, either could have been the outcome of this morning’s events.

If Tate had been killed because of her, she never would have forgiven herself.

It was her fault they’d been at the park. Her selfish actions could have cost her everything. Too late, she had realized that she’d rather have Tate than answers, but by then they were already caught in the trap and blown up.

Worse than the new bruises littering her body and their accompanying pain was the anger at herself. Why had she been so selfish? Why hadn't she listened to Tate when he had so much more knowledge than she did when it came to things like this? Why had she been so arrogant as to think she had what it took to help him take down the mole?

Tugging on her hair again, this time she welcomed the sting. It didn't feel like enough though. She could have gotten a man who was very important to her killed.

Killed.

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