Page 33 of Fighting for Scarlett

Problem was, her faith in the people she worked for had been shaken.

Weapon in one hand, cell phone in the other, she crept to the door, inching it open just in time to see a black, shadowy figure step inside the master bedroom.

Thankfully, the thought of sleeping in that room again had her nauseous enough she’d almost thrown up and decided not to push herself. The carpet had been thoroughly cleaned and you could never tell that someone had been shot dead in there less than a week ago, but it didn't matter. Scarlett kept seeing the events of that night play out in her head, burned forever into her mind’s eye.

Not wanting to engage, because for all she knew it wasn’t Raul’s men who had broken in here, but instead someone from the government come to put her in handcuffs, Scarlett slipped out into the hall and crept toward the stairs.

It would only take moments for the intruder to realize she wasn’t in the bed, so there was not time to waste a single second.

Regardless of whether or not the intruder was from some agency or part of a criminal organization, it wasn’t likely that they had come alone.

There had been six men the night she had been abducted, and law enforcement always worked in groups.

Either way, she was almost certainly outnumbered.

Her palms were so sweaty that she almost lost her grip on both her cell phone and weapon as she reached the stairs.

At least the spare bedroom was closer to the staircase than the master, which was down the end of the hall. And whoever the intruder was, he was probably going to think she was hiding somewhere in the bedroom because Raul’s men knew that’s what she’d done that night, and law enforcement knew too because it was in her statement.

Maybe if someone had actually listened to her and believed in her, she wouldn’t be in danger all over again.

Well, her team believed, and they said no one at Prey thought she had done what she was accused of, but Scarlett was still struggling to believe them. They seemed sincere, but every time she tried to believe she remembered how she felt when she was sitting alone in that interrogation room, hurting, tired, and scared, and not a single person she cared about had been there.

Somehow, she made it down the stairs without tripping over her feet or dropping something and alerting everyone to where she was.

The bottom of the stairs was only steps away from the front door, but she wasn’t sure if she should go out that way or around the back. Her backyard had a huge fence and lots of trees and vines, she liked her privacy and she loved to hang out there in the summer and pretend that she was way out in the woods nowhere near another living soul. It would provide better cover for sneaking away, but then again, it would have provided better cover for anyone sneaking in.

Her best bet was to get out of the house, get to someplace she felt safe, and then call someone to see if it was law enforcement who broke in. She wasn’t going to make herself look guilty by running, but she also wasn’t hanging around and letting those men get her in case they were Raul’s.

A shudder ripped through her as she remembered the look on his face as the drug he gave her began to take effect and she started panting and writhing as unbearable pressure built up inside her.

The memory cost her precious seconds and she heard footsteps above. Hurrying toward the front door, deciding to risk it and make a run for it, if someone was waiting out there for her then she would scream her head off and hopefully wake the neighbors.

Just as her hand closed around the handle something moved behind her.

Lifting her weapon as she spun around, she was too slow to dodge the fist that came towards her.

Connecting squarely with the side of her head, pain flared out from her temple, and her head snapped to the side, slamming into the door hard enough she saw stars. A clunk told her that was her weapon hitting the floor and she knew her chances of escaping just plummeted to pretty much zero.

“Got her down here,” the man in front of her called out as a large, meaty hands wrapped around her throat, squeezing just enough to make it difficult to breathe.

Footsteps thumped down the stairs and she saw another man appear beside the one holding her.

Tattoos.

At the hollow of their necks.

Raul’s men.

Not law enforcement.

Why they would risk coming after her again so quickly she didn't know, and she didn't care. All that mattered was getting away. If they got her out of her house, she would never be seen or heard from again, and everyone would just assume that the accusations were true and Raul’s men had come to whisk her away to safety.

How anyone could look at the marks on her body and think she had been working with Raul was beyond her. And even if he hated her, Tate surely must have told them in his reports that she had been tied to a rock when he found her, about to be shoved into a pool to drown as motivation to talk and tell Raul what he wanted to know.

“Raul always gets what he wants,” the man gripping her throat told her with a smarmy smile that made her skin crawl.

If she got taken back to Raul, she would be tortured again and again until she broke. While the thought of the physical pain she would endure was terrifying, it was that drug she’d been given that scared her the most.

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