Page 58 of Unexpected Heroine

One thing is clear. He aims to take matters into his own hands.

Violently.

I feel the color drain from my cheeks. Is he saying he’s capable of killing them? In cold blood?

This uptight, slightly dorky computer programmer is primed to commit murder.

Hundreds of times, I dreamed of hurting those savages. But there’s a difference between fantasy and reality.

James is making it seem like a possibility.

He is dangerous.

Lethal.

A sense of déjà vu slices through me.

This isn’t the first time I’ve had that thought.

I struggle to pinpoint the memory, reaching for it in the recesses of my mind.

Then it hits me.

In the shower on the night of my rescue.

I remember thinking he was dangerous. But so much of that night has been blocked from my psyche. Like it was hidden behind a steel door. My brain was shielding me from the realization that’s currently slamming into me full force.

I do not know this man.

Not all of him.

And I fear the mystery surrounding his name and background only scratches the surface of what he’s been hiding from me.

My head spins, and memories play like a movie reel.

The weapons room at his job.

The way he and his... friends or coworkers raided the nightmare house.

The secrecy about his past.

His military background and time in Special Ops.

The hacking things he said he would do to anyone who hurt me.

Little comments he’s made.

Phrases he’s used.

Phone calls taken in private.

Late nights and missed dates for work obligations.

I see him standing over the men in that house on the night he saved me, wearing his rage like a second skin. And he asked me, “Which one hurt you?” I had to pull him off one of them.

He was going to kill them that night.

And isn’t that what I wanted him to do?

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