Page 79 of Fighting for Scarlett

Another slap had the man’s eyelids fluttering, and a third had them finally opening.

“Who …? What …?” Warren whispered weakly.

“We know what you did, Warren. You sold something that didn't belong to you to a very dangerous man, and now Scarlett is paying the price for that,” Tate growled. “You're going to fix it.” Nothing else was possible. Because if he’d gotten Scarlett arrested to keep her safe, only to be unable to get her out again, he would never forgive himself.

“Did …?”

“Tell us what you did,” he demanded. “Give us something that can clear Scarlett’s name.”

“Was …”

“Was what?” They were running out of time. There was no way they could get Warren to help in time to save his life, he’d already lost too much blood. A field transfusion might work, and Tate was a universal donor, but the idea of giving blood to the man who had destroyed Scarlett’s life made him feel ill.

Near vacant eyes stared up at him, and from Warren’s labored breathing, he guessed they had a couple of minutes at the most until the man died.

“Didn't do it … wasn’t me … not mole …” Warren mumbled.

About to scoff at the man’s audacity, lying on his death bed and telling lies, Rex’s dark eyes met his. “There are bruises on his arms, around his elbows, looks like he could have been held down while somebody slashed his wrists.”

If Warren was just another patsy, then that meant somebody in the small group of people in the loop had leaked that information to Raul. There had been three names at the top of their suspect list, and Warren was one of them. Raul must have sent his people after Warren, set up a trail to lead them all right here, and once again outmaneuvered them.

“Who was it, Warren? Who did this to you?”

But Warren didn't answer, his eyes drifted half closed, and a gurgle rumbled through his chest as he took his final breath.

No.

Not happening.

Abandoning his grip on the man’s wound, Tate shifted so he could start CPR.

“Who was it, Warren? Who killed you? You tell me right now,” he shouted as he started chest compressions.

They couldn’t lose this lead.

Scarlett couldn’t afford for them to lose it.

Without proof someone else was the mole, she’d be kept locked up indefinitely. Letting her get arrested might have cost both of them a price that could never be paid.

What had he done?

CHAPTER NINETEEN

January 19th

10:28 A.M.

If she kept this up, she was going to have no fingernails left intact.

Scarlett had always been a nailbiter when she was nervous. As a kid, she used to get in so much trouble from her grandparents and her parents when they came home from deployments for doing it, but she couldn’t seem to break the habit.

The more they yelled, the more pressure they put on her, and the more they threatened the worse it got.

They didn't seem to understand it was her instinctual reaction to stress. If they wanted her to stop doing it all they had to do was remove the stress they kept heaping on her shoulders.

It wasn’t until she aged out of the foster system and struck out on her own that she finally was able to break the habit. That was when she realized she hadn't been biting her nails and gnawing on her cuticles because her parents put so much pressure on her, it was because she was so desperate to be loved that she had internalized everyone else’s lack of care and blamed herself.

Because she wasn’t good enough her parents didn't want to raise her.

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