Page 27 of Danger Close
“Everything alright?” his brows knit together.
“Jessa’s disappeared.” Ellen put her hands on her hips. “Until she comes back to work, I don’t even know what we’re going to do.” She then crossed her arms. “She just vanished, her husband and kids have no idea what happened to her.”
“You think something bad happened?”
Ellen’s hard eyes softened. Beneath her temper was an underlying current of fear. “You know as well as I do what’s going on around—”
She let out a sigh, gesturing with the rag in her hand towards the television, to the bar itself, and to the world at large.
“People disappearing, children crying themselves to sleep… No one knows what to do, how to help, or who to go to.” She swallowed. Then her moment of tender worry switched to: “So take this shit outside, because I am not in the mood for your little domestic.”
Cobra’s eyes turned back to me, and I stepped back.
His smile was predatory, gorgeous, and terrifying. “You got it, Ellen.”
In one swift move, he dipped his shoulder, jamming it into my waist and throwing me over it. I fell over his back, my head dangling around his ass as he seized my thighs to his chest.
“Put me down!” I screamed. I tried to push myself upright, only for him to violently drop his shoulder until I slipped, losing any grip I had on his shirt.
He walked us through the crowd, and no one helped me, even as I screamed for it. I screamed for help, and saw nothing but averted eyes.
No one was coming to help me. Everyone was on his side. He’d made me the crazy one.
Kidnapped, broken, humiliated, and I was the villain once more! So fucking typical.
I wanted to cry. That’s what I would have done ten years ago. That’s what any normal woman would have done. But instead, I went limp.
I allowed it to happen, as my mind went foggy, and the fight I had worked so hard to cultivate at the MMA gym left me. I was defenseless once again, caged in my traitorous brain. He easily man-handled me, and he could do so much worse! There’d benothingI could do about it.
Let him do what he wanted. I would retreat into myself, into the last vestiges of my pride. If I could keep that flicker alive, then I could survive. If I didn’t… then I was sure that I would simply stop breathing.
He dropped me to my feet in a move that was so gentle, it surprised me far more than violence.
“What the hell are you thinking?” Cobra said, his voice vicious. “What were you going to do, huh? Fuck our daughter’s friend? Is that why shit’s so god damn tense between you and Trinity? Are you more Mrs. Robinson than you are Mrs. Guerro?”
I felt the blow of his insult. But I did not react to it. The best thing I could do was stand still. To take what was coming. To let it happen with little resistance.
I clenched my jaw and blinked the sting of tears away. I could breathe through the pain.
I summoned what frail shreds of dignity I had, and whispered, “You know nothing. Neither does my daughter.”
“Ourdaughter,” he corrected.
I simply rolled my eyes. Apparently no one had managed to strip me of my sarcasm, even when my dignity was ripped to shreds.
Cobra’s fists clenched tight; his knuckles white.He might hit me.
But I would not recoil. I would not back down. As he was unmoved by my slaps, I would be as unaffected by him.
I said, “My daughter thinks I’m the villain? Fine. As long as she is safe, she – and you – can believe whatever you wish.” My voice wavered as despair seeped into my veins.
His hand shot out, and I whimpered, recoiling, my hands up, defensively protecting myself like a wounded animal.
So much for pride…
He didn’t hit me. Instead, he cupped my jaw, and forced me to look back at him. I withered more under his gaze. He was too difficult to look at.
“I’m never going to hit you, Princess.” His voice was gentle, reassuring, with just a hint of surprise beneath it all. “Why does my daughter, a Green Beret—a fucking warrior!—need to be kept safe?”
