Page 20 of When He Fights
Each time he spoke, she felt the impact of that deep voice flooding through her body.When he actually touched her…hello, hypersensitivity.She quivered.She yearned.
She had serious problems.
Two years had passed.Two years.And three days.She should be over him.No, shewasover him.Way over.So over that…
She hadn’t been with another man in two years.
Two years.No lover.Since leaving Logan, the closest she’d come to being intimate had been when she’d basically thrown herself at Kane.
Crap.Ana shoved back a heavy lock of hair that had tumbled over her left eye.
“How about we sit down?”Grayson had stopped near her kitchen table.“We can talk like rational adults.No one will attempt to physically attack anyone else.We’ll discuss just how we are going to work together in order to trap a wanted criminal.”
Sure, they could do that.“Or I could run out of the door, hop in my Jeep, and vanish.”
Grayson stared at her.His face subtly changed.His jaw hardened.His gaze sharpened.His expression stopped being quite so warm and became calculating.Assessing.
“You’ve made friends in this town, haven’t you?”Grayson asked her.“After all, you’ve been here for two years.You’ve put down roots.”
She had.One of the reasons she wanted to flee from Gulfport was because she didn’t want any of her new friends getting pulled into the madness that had been her previous life.
“Logan has intel that will tell him where you are.Here.”Grayson motioned around him.“We both know that Logan Catalano is an apex predator.He will be able to get close to the individuals you consider to be friends.He will make them talk.Make them tell him everything that they know about you.”
“They won’t know where I’ve gone.”Ana was suddenly very, very cold.
“Do you think that will matter to him?”Grayson closed in on her with his slow, deliberate steps.“Or do you think that he’ll still slice the throat of your next-door neighbor, that sweet widow?Eighty-three-year-old Shirley Hosier?Or that he’ll just let your dolphin training buddy, Felicia Vickory, go right about her business?You and Felicia hang out together once a week for dinner.You think he’ll let her walk away or do you think he might decide to hold her head under water and to stop her from breathing at the Gulfport Aquarium where she works because Logan doesn’t give a shit who he hurts?And, honestly, making the people you care about suffer would probably make him feel a whole lot of pleasure.Oh, hey, and let’s not forget your best friend Zuri—Zuri and that restaurant she loves so much.She’s the manager there, right?It’d be a shame if she got cut with one of those giant butcher knives that are kept in the kitchen?—”
“Enough.”A roar from Kane.Suddenly, he was between her and Grayson.
Her breath heaved in and out.
“Don’tscare her,” he snapped at Grayson.
Too late.She was suitably terrified.And incredibly pissed off.
“She needs to be afraid.She knows exactly what her lover was.”
A deep growl came from Kane.
“If she walks away, if she runs away, he’ll take his rage out on the people who were close to her.We all know it.”Grayson was adamant.“He will kill anyone in his way.The man can’t be allowed to stay on the loose.We have to catch him.We have to lock him up again.We have to find out how the hell he orchestrated his escape in the first place.Who helped him.What other ties he has.We have to trap him.And Ana is our best shot at doing all of that.”
She couldn’t see Grayson because Kane’s big body blocked her view of the other man.That was good because if she couldn’t see Grayson, then Grayson couldn’t see her.And since Kane wasn’t looking over his shoulder, he wouldn’t see her, either.
Ana swiped her hand over her face, wiping away the tears.“I would love to be bait,” she declared, making her voice bright.Perhaps even semi-enthusiastic.“I was wondering what I could do this week.Didn’t have lots of plans and was worried I might be bored.Being bait is the perfect item to put on my to-do list.Thank you both so much for this opportunity.”
Kane’s shoulders stiffened.Then he whirled toward her.His eyes narrowed into chips of glaring fury.His big hands closed around her shoulders.A careful, soft touch, despite the rage in his stare.“Are youcrying?”
“Absolutely not.”Absolutely, yes.She blinked quickly.“Shall we move on to the planning portion of this event?”Still bright.Still fake.All she really wanted to do was run to her bedroom, yank the covers over her head, and curl into a ball.Was that so much to ask?But she’d kept the mask in place.There was no point in letting Kane and Grayson see her crumble.
Sometimes, nightmares just wouldn’t end.
Not unless you made them stop.
“You should have let me kill him,” Kane rasped.
She stiffened in his hold.The past was right there again—all big and bloody and scary between them.For a moment, Ana could not speak at all.
“Ahem!”A loud throat-clearing from Grayson.“We don’t talk about murder in front of federal agents.We don’t talk about killing people in front of law enforcement personnel.That is rule one.Rule two—we aren’t killing anyone.”
