Page 111 of Dangerous Mission

He watches me with a guarded expression as I walk past him toward the kitchen. “I’ll make you something to eat.”

But he catches up to me and presses a hand to the refrigerator door, his body close enough that I can feel the heat from him, but not touching me. “Your scars…”

A shudder wracks me.

He continues in that rough tone. “Calling me your boyfriend…”

I drop my head, and my tangled hair drapes around my face. I look like a feral animal. But more importantly I feel like a cornered one.

“He’s my rapist. Is that what you want me to say?”

Scout leans into me, cocooning me in his arms, pressing his mouth to the top of my head. After exhaling raggedly, he half growls, “I want to kill him.”

How crazy is that?

“No. No, please promise me you won’t. He’s not worth it.”

Scout’s scary, silent, and vibrating with the most dangerous energy I’ve ever felt around him.

“I need for you to stop being a barbarian over me.”

His body tenses. “I don’t know if I can do that.”

“Well you need to. It’s time for the authorities to handle this. You were right, he shouldn’t ever be able to do what he did to me to another woman.”

He rumbles.

I take a breath. “I am sorry you found out who it was that way.”

“It’s okay, sweetheart. But you shocked the fuck out of me and your brother.”

I jolt and try to pull out of his arms. “Wait, where is Griff?”

Scout rests his palm against my cheek, his eyes search my face, then come back to hold my gaze. “I’d rather not talk about that.”

My heart plummets. “Is he—” My throat contracts and works, trying to swallow. “I need to talk to him.”

“You need to let this play out.”

“Play out!?” I shriek and back across the kitchen. “If Griff kills Adam, he’ll go to prison.”

Scout leans against the fridge, a look of cold uncaring on his face.

I’m appalled. “You don’t care if Griff gets in trouble?”

He looks affronted. “Of course I care. It would hurt you.”

Clutching the island, I stare at a man I hardly know, but one who knows all of my darkest secrets. The one who alsoallowed me to touch him when no one else does. But I have no idea what the darkness swirling in his hard gaze is about.

I pull back, curling into myself. “You don’t care if Griff murders someone? I can’t stomach that. I would never look at him the same.”

“I’ve killed.”

So blunt. It’s a punch to my gut. Of course I know this. Scout is a combat hardened SEAL.

But it still unsettles me.

“Aria, your brother and I are both special forces. We’ve taken the lives of bad people. A lot of them.”

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