Page 7 of Her Delta Force Protector

He poked his head around the doorjamb. “I’ve got to head out.”

“Okay. See you in the morning.” She read for another hour, and when her eyes grew heavy, she set the Kindle on her bedside table and went to sleep.

The nightmare felt so real. Her scalp actually hurt when the monster dragged her out of bed by her hair. Wait. Why was she on the floor?

“Get up, bitch.” The monster kicked her ribs.

Not a nightmare.Pain shot up her side, and she groaned. She scooted across the floor until she was backed against the wall. The man grabbed her arm and jerked her up. It was too dark to see his face, but she knew that voice. It was the man in the knit cap who’d threatened her on her driveway.

“I should have checked the security cameras sooner,” he said, his fingers digging into her arm. “You’re a nosy one, aren’t you? Where are the pictures you stole? Where’s Lisa?”

“You’re hurting me.” She tried to pull her arm away, but he tightened his grip. How had he found her? And they had security cameras inside the warehouse? That had never occurred to her. She’d make a lousy spy if she couldn’t consider and plan for things like that.

“That’s what happens to little girls who stick their noses in things that are none of their business.” He slapped her. “Where. Is. Lisa?”

“I don’t know. I swear.” She cried out when he punched her in the same place he’d kicked her. Oh God, that hurt.

“Bitch.” He wrapped his hands around her neck and squeezed. “Where is she?”

“Cho...choking me.”

“Tell me, or I’ll kill you and then wait for your father to come back and kill him, too.”

Did she have a choice? He was going to kill her and her dad if she didn’t tell him.I’m sorry, Lisa.“Ala...”

He squeezed harder and her world turned black.

Chapter Three

Present day

There wasn’t one vacancy in Myrtle Beach, so Harper took Kade’s advice and found a dive bar and settled in a dark corner. They didn’t offer food, so she’d alternated between buying club sodas and cheap beers for the past four hours to keep from getting booted out. The three beers she pretended to nurse for a while before carrying each one to the bathroom when the waitress wasn’t looking and pouring them out.

She checked her watch. One more hour and she could turn her phone on. So far, she hadn’t noticed anyone paying attention to her, hadn’t sensed she was being watched. The worst of her injuries, her two broken ribs, had finally healed, but she hated how the beating had changed her.

The confident, outgoing woman was gone, replaced by one who jumped at shadows. If her father had his way, she’d stay dead, because dead was safe. When he’d gone so far as telling her she should change her name after a man had knocked on his door, asking for her, that had been her wake-up call. She had to take her life back, and there was one person who could help her do that. Kade wouldn’t turn his back on her, but would he help her once she told him her story?

“Another beer, hon?” the waitress asked.

Harper held up her forth and hopefully last bottle. “I’m good, thanks.”

The woman glanced around. “Listen, if you’re going to bring trouble in here, you need to leave.”

“Why would you think that?” Although if one of those men found her, trouble would be an understatement.

“Well, you’re hiding here in this corner with that ball cap pulled down, no one hangs in this place nursing beers for four hours, you keep watching the door, and you pay for your beers each time I bring you one so you’re paid up if you have to run.”

Harper blinked. “You’re very observant.” Too observant.

“I’ve had to run a time or two, so I know the signs.” She glanced toward the bar where the bartender was staring at them. “That’s Mako, my old man. You’re making him nervous. We own this place, it’s just the two of us working here, and we don’t need cops storming the place. We barely get by as it is.”

“I’m just waiting for a friend.” She checked her watch. “He’ll be here pretty soon now.”

“You got a fifty on you?”

“If I do?”

“Give it to me. That’ll buy you one more hour, then you won’t have to keep buying beers that you sneak into the bathroom and pour out.”

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