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Chapter 18

January 18th

8:52 P.M.

Why wasshe so used to being alone and yet it still hurt so badly?

Scarlett sat huddled on the bed in her cold, lonely cell. It was possibly the most uncomfortable mattress she'd ever had the displeasure of sitting or lying on. Worse even than the one she'd had as a kid. That one had been secondhand, the metal springs were starting to poke through, and when she'd timidly asked if maybe she could have a new one, she'd been told that the men and women serving their country—protecting her—slept in worse places.

The military weren"t the only ones who slept in worse places than that bed.

Prisoners did, too.

And while she wasn't comparing those who had committed crimes and were suffering the consequences of their choices to the men and women of the military, there were innocent people in prison, too.

Like her.

She wasn't paying the price for her choices, she was paying the price for someone else's.

She hadn"t asked to be targeted by some greedy colleague who cared only about themselves. She hadn"t asked to be kidnapped by a weapons trafficker who bought and sold weapons for fun and thought he could do whatever he wanted. And she hadn"t asked to trust the man she could so easily fall in love with to turn on her and hand her over to the authorities.

In the hours since she'd been driven to the police station—she had no idea why she was at the local precinct instead of some defense agency—Scarlett had had a lot of time to think.

Toomuch time to think.

Enough time to have started doubting everything and everyone.

There had been crickets from Prey. She hadn"t heard a peep from Eagle, or Fox and the guys, or her team.

None of them had come by.

None of them had called to check on her.

Well, not as far as she knew.

Wasn't like she had her phone here, that had been confiscated from her as soon as they arrived, and she was led down to this quiet cell. There were no other prisoners here, so at least she guessed she ought to be grateful that Tate had carried through on that promise.

Guards hadn"t come other than to bring her food, and the doctor who had checked out her head wound and other assortment of injuries and then given her a pair of scrubs. There had been no interrogation, she hadn"t been fingerprinted, or had a mug shot taken, she'd just been brought here and left here.

It was strange, and Scarlett desperately wanted to believe that it was because this was all just some big game that was being played, and she hadn"t really been arrested, but then she looked around the cell she'd been kept in for the last several hours and …

It didn"t feel like a game.

It felt like being arrested.

It felt like being imprisoned.

It felt like everything had shrunk until all that existed was her and this cell and her fear which seemed much too big for the tiny space.

Too big and growing.

And growing.

Consuming her.

Memories of being locked up in Raul's dungeon, dreading whatever was coming next tumbled through her mind. The pain of being whipped, her skin splitting, warm blood dripping down and puddling on the floor under her feet. Blows striking her all over while she was powerless to do anything to block them because she was restrained.

The absolute horror of begging for an orgasm she didn"t want but needed.

Breathing accelerating as memories mingled with her current situation, she pressed a hand to her chest, above her heart, in a feeble attempt to slow its racing beat. Were any of the guards here on Raul's payroll? It might sound crazy, but no crazier than someone from Prey working with the weapons trafficker. Was it really his game she was tangled up in and not Prey's? Had he organized for her to be isolated and vulnerable?

With a small whimper, the only sound other than her own ragged breathing, Scarlett shoved to her feet.

She couldn't sit still any longer.

She had to move before her panic swallowed her whole.

Prey said they believed in her, the guys, her team, and they were on her side, but then why had they just left her here?

Were they working on a way to get her out?

Was this just Prey's way of keeping her safe and attempting to draw out the mole?

Had they turned on her and now thought she was guilty?

Since she was locked up, there was no way she could get any answers, and it was making her doubt everybody, even the people she thought were her family.

Doubting Tate, too.

How could he do this to her?

And why was she being so unreasonable about it when she knew exactly why he was doing it?

His job.

It meant a lot to him. He'd told her about his dad and how the man was serving a sentence for a crime he didn"t commit, so she knew this had to be hard on him. If nothing else, she did actually believe that Tate believed in her innocence. It had been evident in the guilt and remorse in his tone when she figured out his plan to have her arrested.

He believed in her, and it didn"t change anything.

It wasn't enough.

Even though he knew she was innocent, he was still prepared to hand her over to protect himself.

How could she blame him for that though?

They hadn"t known each other long. They'd only met just before Halloween, not quite three months ago. Was it fair for her to hope that he would prioritize her over a career he'd been building for years? Just because he wanted to go out with her didn"t mean he was prepared for the risks continuing to protect her would come with.

It was understandable that he would walk away to protect his job and freedom.

Why should she be angry about it?

"Because it's not fair," she hissed, beginning to pace around the small cell feeling like a caged animal.

It wasn't fair.

Not really.

Because she would have risked everything to save someone she loved. As much as she loved her work at Prey, she would have risked it if their positions had been reversed and Tate had been the one who needed her. Risking her freedom would have been scary, but again, she would have done it. She would have put Tate above her job and her freedom. Why couldn't he do the same for her?

Wishing that he had, especially when they had really only connected in the last couple of days, might be wildly unfair of her but she couldn't help it.

Being here, knowing the man who she was falling for was responsible, it was driving her crazy.

"Why did you have to do it, Tate?" she whispered into the silence. "Why did you have to go and be like everybody else in my life and make your job your number one priority? Why couldn't you have just let me go and then honestly told everybody you didn"t know where I was? I could have taken care of myself."

Story of her life.

For as long as Scarlett could remember, she'd been taking care of herself.

Sure, her grandparents had provided for her physical needs, clothes to wear, food to eat, and shelter. But that was it. There was more to caring for someone than providing them with the bare necessities.

Why did no one ever want to give her those things?

Even her own twin brother had eventually walked away, followed in their family's footsteps, leaving her behind like she didn"t matter.

Footsteps told her a guard was coming, and while she knew these weren"t the same as the guards in Raul's house, Scarlett couldn't help but tense and shrink in on herself, attempting to become as small a target as possible.

The man slid a tray through the opening in the door and she crept over to collect it. "Umm, excuse me," she said softly, unsure if she was allowed to speak to the guards or if she'd be punished for it.

"Yes?" The guard sounded impatient but not angry, so she asked the question she'd been dying to since she got here but hadn"t had the courage to.

"Umm, has anyone tried to come to see me?"

"No. You've had no visitors."

The next words were even harder to get out. "Has anyone called, to ask about me?"

"No phone calls," the guard said, his footsteps echoing in the quiet corridor as he walked away, leaving her alone with nothing but her thoughts, her doubts, and her fears.

"The answer to why no one is ever there for you, Scarlett, is a simple one," she told herself, brushing at a stray tear that rolled slowly down her cheek as she stumbled back toward the bed. "Because you"re not enough. Not for your parents, not for your grandparents, not for your brother. And not for Tate."

Not for anyone.

January 18th

9:03 P.M.

The cool windwhipping past him was the only thing keeping Tate together.

Each brush of the wind against his skin made him think of Scarlett and the way her fingers felt as they caressed him.

As soon as they had the mole in custody, he was going to put his entire focus into doing whatever it took to gain Scarlett's forgiveness. Nothing was off the table. But first this.

They'd gotten off the helo about fifteen minutes ago and were going the rest of the distance on a zodiac. The boat they were heading toward hadn"t moved in all the hours since they'd managed to track Warren Barone to it.

The anger raging inside him was desperate for an outlet and he was about to find the perfect target.

On paper, there was nothing suspicious about Warren. He had a high IQ, no criminal history, and graduated at the top of his class in high school and college. Had an exemplary reference from his prior job, came from a good family with no history of substance abuse. The man was even in a committed relationship before taking the job at Prey although he had broken up with his girlfriend only a couple of weeks after starting his new job.

There had been no indication the man would have done something like this. No way to predict it. Tate had no idea what had changed, if the man had been jealous of Scarlett and her team, of their permanent positions at Prey, or the drug they were working on. If he had a problem with women in general, or if he felt he should have been promoted and was angry that he had been overlooked. If the pressure of working for such a big company had set off his drinking, and he'd simply spiraled.

Whatever the reason it didn"t matter.

Warren Barone thought he was going to get away with this. That he could try to sell a drug he hadn"t created and take the money that rightly should have gone to the four women of Athena Team if they decided to sell it. That it was okay to set someone up to take the fall for him so he could take the money and be in the clear.

Not going to happen.

Nobody messed with his girl and got away with it.

Thankful for the overcast winter night, and the rough seas, since both would help to disguise their approach, he locked his gaze on the boat they were fast approaching.

To the best of their knowledge, Warren didn"t have any training in hand-to-hand combat, and he had no weapon registered in his name. Not that either meant that the man wasn't going to be armed or try something stupid.

Part of him was hoping Warren did something stupid. If he didn"t unleash some of his anger and helplessness soon, he was going to lose his mind.

Just because he had never worked a mission with Rocco and his team before didn"t mean they didn"t move as a cohesive unit. Pulling the zodiac up close enough to board the small boat Warren had fled on when he realized that the walls were starting to close in on him, they jumped onto the deck.

All was quiet.

Almost eerily so.

If the tension rolling through Rocco's team was anything to go by, the guys felt it too.

This was not a boat meant to be driven long distances, so he had no idea what Warren's plan had been. If he'd been hoping to just hide out long enough for the heat to die down, or if he'd thought it could make it all the way to a country he could hide out in. Maybe he thought he'd wait out here a couple of days and then head down into Mexico to meet up with his buddy Raul, who they hadn"t been able to track since he'd fled his jungle estate.

Since Warren hadn"t done a particularly good job of covering his tracks, Tate half expected this to be some sort of trap.

But no one shot at them as they approached the cabin, and there were no explosions like the one that had almost killed him and Scarlett this morning.

Just silence from the boat and the roar of the wind and waves around them.

Because these guys knew how personal this was for him, they had his back as he made entrance to the boat's living quarters.

Nothing moved as he took the few steps down below deck. Weapon ready, he scanned the area, but when he didn"t see signs of Warren, he moved further into the space, Rocco and the others at his back.

Something felt off, and he was beginning to wonder if this wasn't a trap so much as a false lead. Something to focus everyone's attention on so that Warren could slip away somewhere else. The man might be a scientist, but he was working with a wealthy weapons dealer, surely, people would have made sure he didn"t leave such an obvious trail.

Too obvious.

With the small living and kitchen area cleared, Tate headed for the closed door at the other end of the room. It likely led to a bedroom and a bathroom, there was no space for anything else, and if Warren was on this boat, and it wasn't a red herring, he had to be in there.

As soon as he opened the bedroom door, he knew why he'd had such a bad feeling.

Warren was on the boat, but he wasn't hiding from them or preparing an assault for the second they stepped through the door.

He was lying on the bed bleeding out.

The man must have realized they were onto him because he'd slit his own wrists.

Blood was everywhere, and it was already drying in places so he hadn"t heard them board the boat then rushed in here to end his own life before they could arrest him. How had he known he'd been discovered? Not many people had been briefed on this mission. In an attempt to keep closed any avenue the mole might have set up to keep apprised of the goings on at Prey, they had limited the number of people being kept informed on this op.

Still, despite their best efforts, Warren had been expecting them.

And tried to outsmart them.

Trusting the men at his back, Tate lowered his weapon and ran toward the bed. Kneeling on the mattress beside Warren, he pressed his fingertips to the man's neck and felt the faint throb of a pulse.

"He's still alive," he called out to the others, then grabbed one of the pillows on the bed, yanked off the pillowcase, and wrapped it around Warren's left arm. Clamping a hand over the wound to keep pressure on it, he muttered, "Oh no you don't. You"re not getting out of everything this easily."

If they were going to clear Scarlett's name, they needed proof. Proof that only Warren could give them.

"Hey, wake up," he yelled, slapping Warren's face. On the other side of the bed, Rex stripped the other pillow of its case and used it to wrap Warren's right arm.

A moan was all the response he got, but he wasn't giving up.

Another slap had the man's eyelids fluttering, and a third had them finally opening.

"Who …? What …?" Warren whispered weakly.

"We know what you did, Warren. You sold something that didn"t belong to you to a very dangerous man, and now Scarlett is paying the price for that," Tate growled. "You"re going to fix it." Nothing else was possible. Because if he'd gotten Scarlett arrested to keep her safe, only to be unable to get her out again, he would never forgive himself.

"Did …?"

"Tell us what you did," he demanded. "Give us something that can clear Scarlett's name."

"Was …"

"Was what?" They were running out of time. There was no way they could get Warren to help in time to save his life, he'd already lost too much blood. A field transfusion might work, and Tate was a universal donor, but the idea of giving blood to the man who had destroyed Scarlett's life made him feel ill.

Near vacant eyes stared up at him, and from Warren's labored breathing, he guessed they had a couple of minutes at the most until the man died.

"Didn"t do it … wasn't me … not mole …" Warren mumbled.

About to scoff at the man's audacity, lying on his death bed and telling lies, Rex's dark eyes met his. "There are bruises on his arms, around his elbows, looks like he could have been held down while somebody slashed his wrists."

If Warren was just another patsy, then that meant somebody in the small group of people in the loop had leaked that information to Raul. There had been three names at the top of their suspect list, and Warren was one of them. Raul must have sent his people after Warren, set up a trail to lead them all right here, and once again outmaneuvered them.

"Who was it, Warren? Who did this to you?"

But Warren didn"t answer, his eyes drifted half closed, and a gurgle rumbled through his chest as he took his final breath.

No.

Not happening.

Abandoning his grip on the man's wound, Tate shifted so he could start CPR.

"Who was it, Warren? Who killed you? You tell me right now," he shouted as he started chest compressions.

They couldn't lose this lead.

Scarlett couldn't afford for them to lose it.

Without proof someone else was the mole, she'd be kept locked up indefinitely. Letting her get arrested might have cost both of them a price that could never be paid.

What had he done?

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