Page 75 of Fighting for Scarlett

“I love my wife more than anything in the world,” Rocco said. “But her life and safety would absolutely come before her happiness if I had to make the choice. Caite is amazing. Brave and smart. She risked everything to save me before she even really knew me. I’d protect her with my life, and I don’t think there’s anything I wouldn’t do to keep her alive. I'm not saying it doesn’t suck to be Scarlett right now, but at least Raul Castillo can't get to her where she is, and I believe that once everything is over, she’ll realize that you were trying to do what you thought was best in a no-win situation.”

And if she didn't …?

If Scarlett couldn’t get over her feelings of betrayal, the happy ever after he’d just reached out to try and grab hold of would go up in smoke.

It was all well and good to say he was prepared to lose her so long as she was alive to be angry with him, but if it came down to that, he didn't know what he’d do.

In just a few short days, he’d allowed all the feelings that had been building inside him for the last three months to finally bubble to the surface. Scarlett had become the most important person in his life, and letting her go would be next to impossible.

Tate would fight for her, for them. With everything he had.

But that didn't mean he’d win.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

January 18th

8:52 P.M.

Why was she so used to being alone and yet it still hurt so badly?

Scarlett sat huddled on the bed in her cold, lonely cell. It was possibly the most uncomfortable mattress she’d ever had the displeasure of sitting or lying on. Worse even than the one she’d had as a kid. That one had been secondhand, the metal springs were starting to poke through, and when she’d timidly asked if maybe she could have a new one, she’d been told that the men and women serving their country—protecting her—slept in worse places.

The military weren't the only ones who slept in worse places than that bed.

Prisoners did, too.

And while she wasn’t comparing those who had committed crimes and were suffering the consequences of their choices to the men and women of the military, there were innocent people in prison, too.

Like her.

She wasn’t paying the price for her choices, she was paying the price for someone else’s.

She hadn't asked to be targeted by some greedy colleague who cared only about themselves. She hadn't asked to be kidnapped by a weapons trafficker who bought and sold weapons for fun and thought he could do whatever he wanted. And she hadn't asked to trust the man she could so easily fall in love with to turn on her and hand her over to the authorities.

In the hours since she’d been driven to the police station—she had no idea why she was at the local precinct instead of some defense agency—Scarlett had had a lot of time to think.

Too much time to think.

Enough time to have started doubting everything and everyone.

There had been crickets from Prey. She hadn't heard a peep from Eagle, or Fox and the guys, or her team.

None of them had come by.

None of them had called to check on her.

Well, not as far as she knew.

Wasn’t like she had her phone here, that had been confiscated from her as soon as they arrived, and she was led down to this quiet cell. There were no other prisoners here, so at least she guessed she ought to be grateful that Tate had carried through on that promise.

Guards hadn't come other than to bring her food, and the doctor who had checked out her head wound and other assortment of injuries and then given her a pair of scrubs. There had been no interrogation, she hadn't been fingerprinted, or had a mug shot taken, she’d just been brought here and left here.

It was strange, and Scarlett desperately wanted to believe that it was because this was all just some big game that was being played, and she hadn't really been arrested, but then she looked around the cell she’d been kept in for the last several hours and …

It didn't feel like a game.

It felt like being arrested.

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