Chapter 4

January 12th

6:06 P.M.

Finally.

Finally, someone had come for her.

Scarlett was so relieved that all she could do was cling to her savior and weep. Huge, wracking sobs that made her chest ache.

Someone was here.

Someone had come.

Someone cared.

Relief was so overwhelming that in this moment nothing else seemed to matter. Not that she'd been kidnapped, not that she'd been tortured, not that there was currently a firefight going on all around them.

Nothing.

Just this.

Someone had come for her because she mattered.

Maybe not to her parents, or grandparents, or possibly even her twin brother, but she mattered to her Prey family, which meant the world to her.

"What's this?" a voice snarled, and a hand brushed lightly across her back, making her flinch as pain came screaming back.

Then the voice clicked, and Scarlett froze. The voice didn"t belong to anyone at Prey, but she recognized it.

Slowly, she lifted her head—which suddenly felt much too heavy—from the shoulder of the man whose arms she had been sobbing in. Her savior was dressed all in black with paint smeared over his face, but she would recognize him anywhere.

For months, those eyes had haunted her dreams. Months.

Despite her assurances to him the night they'd spent together, she wasn't a one-and-done kind of girl. She wanted the whole fairytale romance. Wanted to fall in love and live happily ever after. Wanted fun dates and roses, holding hands, long walks along the beach, and lying in the sand staring up at the stars. She wanted someone she could talk to about anything in the world, someone who would understand her.

Wanted to be loved.

Stupid maybe, but she'd felt this weird fluttery feeling in the pit of her stomach as soon as their eyes met. Even stupider she'd thought he'd felt it too. His amazing eyes—one brown, the other a beautiful blue-gray—had flared to life like he was experiencing the same weird feelings she was.

That was why it had hurt so much when he'd never called or texted. And the time they'd bumped into one another at the grocery store, and he pretended he didn"t know her, that they hadn"t spent an amazing night of lovemaking and sleeping in one another's arms, hadn"t just been humiliating, it had hurt her.

Gutted her.

Tate Laurier didn"t work for Prey, he was a SEAL.

Why had Prey sent in a SEAL team to get her instead of coming after her themselves?

All at once, that wonderful high she was riding … vanished.

"T-Tate?" she murmured, voice hoarse from all her screaming the day before. "Wh-what are you doing here?"

Something flashed across his face that she didn"t understand. It almost looked like he was … angry with her?

What would he have to be angry about?

She hadn"t done anything wrong.

Maybe he thought she'd talked? Told Raul Castillo about the drug? Could he even know that was why the weapons dealer had taken her?

"What are these?" he growled again as he brushed a hand down her back, not bothering to avoid the gashes from the whip.

Wincing, she shifted slightly to get away from his touch. Well, she tried to shift away, but Tate's hands clamped around her biceps, right over the bullet wound from the night she was abducted, and she sucked in a pained breath.

"Why do you have cuts on your back? Why are your wrists and ankles all torn up? Why did you have a rock tied around your ankle?"

The rapid-fire questions were too much for her stressed-out brain to answer. She was tired, she was in pain, she was afraid, and all she wanted was to be surrounded by people she loved, but instead, she was with a man who she'd had sex with and then been tossed aside like trash.

If anyone should be angry here it should be her.

Okay, he didn"t have to offer more than their agreed upon one night, and she could have imagined that he had felt anything at all for her beyond lust and attraction, but he hadn"t had to be cruel about it.

Assuming he was angry, she might have said something she shouldn't, Scarlett gave her head a small shake. "I didn"t tell him anything," she whispered.

There was no exclamation of agreement or reassurances that he knew she was loyal to her team and would never betray any of them. Instead, there was an almost … suspicious pause. Like he doubted that. Doubted her.

Still, he didn"t say anything, and for that Scarlett was eternally grateful.

While she would have loved to be able to brush away his hand when he gripped her elbow and pulled her to her feet, she knew she was running on empty and needed his help. Her skillset was woefully inadequate to deal with any of this, and if she wanted to get home alive, she needed his help.

Even if he seemed reluctant to be here.

Thinking that he didn"t really want to be here rescuing her made Scarlett feel horribly guilty. Whatever their history he had come, risking his life in the process.

Reaching out, she rested a hand on his forearm, frowning when his other hand moved slightly, shifting his weapon as though he thought she was about to tell him she'd noticed an imminent threat. "It's okay, I didn"t see anything, I just wanted to say thank you for coming to get me. I thought I was going to die in that hellhole."

His unusual eyes looked at her, but there was no hint of the warmth she'd felt that night they'd spent together. If she didn"t know it had happened, she would have been tempted to think she had dreamed that whole thing up.

The man she'd spent that night with was funny, smart, gentle, a tender lover, and easy to talk to. He was warm and open, and they'd had fun together. The man she'd seen afterward and the one here right now were the opposite. Cold, hard, and dangerous.

This man reminded her of the ones who worked for Raul.

A cold shiver rocketed through her, and for the first time, Scarlett realized she was still naked. Of course, she'd known she hadn"t been given clothes after she'd been whipped, and the only way he could have seen some of her wounds was because her body was bare for all to see, but somehow, it hadn"t sunk in until this moment.

Suddenly feeling small, vulnerable, and oh so very exhausted, she swayed and then wrapped her arms around herself, doing her best to shield what she could.

Instead of offering her something to cover herself like she thought he would have, Tate merely grabbed her hand and dragged her toward the house. "You do exactly what I tell you when I tell you to do it, or else," he growled.

Taken aback by the viciousness in his tone, Scarlett flinched. "I"m not stupid, Tate," she murmured. "I know this is your skill set, not mine. I won"t do anything to get either of us killed."

He merely huffed, then began to drag her along with him.

Moving much too fast for her shorter legs to keep up with even if she wasn't teetering on the edge of complete exhaustion, Scarlett did her best to shove everything else away and concentrate on the fact that she was going home.

So what if Tate wasn't pleased he'd had to traipse through the Mexican jungle to find a woman he had slept with and obviously regretted it. At least at the end of all of this, they'd be home.

Well not home to her house.

After what had happened, there she never wanted to step foot in the place again. She'd put it on the market as soon as she could and look for another place to buy.

Assuming they were going to the house to meet up with the rest of his team when they bypassed the building and instead headed down toward the front gates, she wondered what was going on.

"Aren"t we going inside?" she asked. Not that she particularly wanted to go back inside the house, but she did want to get somewhere she didn"t feel as exposed.

"No."

Ooookay.

More than a single-word answer would help.

What exactly was Tate's problem?

So, she might have wanted more than one night with him. Did that really make her such an awful person that she deserved to be treated like this?

Reaching the end of her rope, Scarlett dug her heels in. "What does that mean? I don't understand. You got Raul Castillo, didn"t you? Why can"t we go inside and wait for whatever ride home you and your team have organized?"

With what could only be described as an irritated grunt, Tate spun around, grabbed her off her feet, threw her over his shoulder, and took off at a dead run toward the front gates of Raul's estate.

Why did she get the feeling that something more was happening here than she was aware of? Tate's anger seemed directed specifically at her, not the situation, and not the weapons trafficker who had abducted her.

It shouldn't hurt so much.

Scarlett knew that fairytales were just that. Stories.

They weren"t real.

In real life, you didn"t fall madly in love, you didn"t form an instantaneous connection with a man you didn"t know just because you locked gazes with him.

There were no happy endings.

There was nothing but loneliness.

January 12th

6:31 P.M.

What game areyou trying to play with me, little traitor?

As he ran with Scarlett draped over his shoulder, Tate felt uneasy. A sensation he hated. He liked to be in control of himself and his environment, and when something happened to shake up that control, it always threw him.

Right now, nothing seemed to be adding up.

Scarlett certainly wasn't acting like she had been at Raul Castillo"s of her own free will. The wounds on her body told a story, and it wasn't one of a woman who had decided to betray her team and her country and sell secrets to the enemy.

If she and Raul had a business arrangement, then why had she been tortured?

Those wounds on her back couldn't be self-inflicted. Not possible. And the ones on her wrists and ankles were similar to those he'd seen before when a victim had been restrained and tortured.

And she had been about to be murdered, horribly, when he and his team had shown up. There was no reason Raul would have had to do that if Scarlett had been there to do what she'd said she was in the email that had been found.

Had she gotten cold feet?

Decided that she couldn't go through with it after all?

From what they knew of Raul Castillo, the man wasn't a sadist, he didn"t get off on torturing people. More businessman than anything else, Raul appeared to do what he did because he liked the money, excitement, and living his life on the edge. There were no accounts of him crossing those he did business with, it was one of the things that made him so successful. You knew what you were getting with him. While he might rip you off price-wise, he wasn't going to double-cross you. Raul wanted to have a good reputation with his potential clientele.

The idea of him going off the deep end with Scarlett made zero sense.

Then again, none of this made sense.

Having put enough distance between them and the mansion, Tate slowed to a walk, checking around them to ensure they were safe. Once he was convinced they hadn"t been followed and could wait things out until the extraction time in the early hours of tomorrow morning, he stopped.

While he'd heard her small grunts and moans of pain as he ran full out through the thick jungle, Scarlett hadn"t protested, hadn"t asked him to stop, hadn"t complained. She'd just hung off his shoulder like she didn"t have the energy to do anything else.

There had been a moment when he first got her on her feet, when he thought she was going to try something stupid. Something like trying to kill him in a desperate bid to escape her fate.

But she hadn"t.

She'd thanked him.

Thankedhim.

Why would she do that?

Did she regret her choices and was happy to go home and face the consequences, even if they were life in prison because at least she was alive?

As much as he'd like to believe that this was all some big misunderstanding, it was there in black and white. In Scarlett's own words, she'd said she wanted to sell the Reactivator and had negotiated a price of just under five million dollars.

No matter that there was a part of him that wanted to protect her, wrap her up in his arms, and soothe the suffering she had endured, he had to remember that she was not to be trusted. She was a traitor, she'd betrayed her team, Prey, and her country.

Whatever game she was playing he wasn't going to fall for it.

With that in mind, he set the woman on the ground in front of him and immediately felt gut-punched when he saw her beautiful face was streaked with tears.

She made no move to hide the fact that she'd been crying, but he could see the pain in her big brown eyes. There was confusion and a tiny hint of anger, maybe at being caught. But it was the relief that made him want to second-guess everything he knew to be true.

Why was she so relieved to have been found?

The only logical explanation was that she was an innocent victim, but he knew that wasn't the case.

Acting.

That had to be it.

She was trying to con him.

Nice try, sweetheart, but it's not happening.

Instead of saying that aloud, he merely pulled his pack off his back, unzipped it, and rifled through it in search of his first aid kit. Traitor or not, Scarlett was injured, and he'd need to attend to those wounds if he wanted her fit and healthy to stand trial once she was returned home.

When he had his kit open and everything he needed laid out, he turned to find Scarlett standing right where he'd put her. There was a glassiness to her eyes that he didn"t like, and she was worrying her bottom lip just like she had that first night when she'd been all adorably nervous.

At least he'd thought she was nervous, now he wasn't so sure. The woman had mad acting skills, he'd give her that.

"Need to clean your wounds. Out here they're just asking for infection to set in." It was only seven hours to exfil, but he wasn't taking any chances.

"Raul was giving me antibiotics," Scarlett whispered as he knelt before her, took one of her hands, and began to clean her wrist.

For a second he stilled. Why would the man order injuries to be inflicted on her but then give her antibiotics to keep her healthy?

He wouldn't.

Another lie.

Seemed like Scarlett just couldn't help herself.

Offering a grunt as a reply, neither spoke as he cleaned and bandaged one wrist and then the other. Scarlett didn"t attempt to help him in any way, but she also didn"t try to move away. Her winces were small, and although he could see her perfect white teeth biting into her pale bottom lip, she didn"t make a single sound even though he knew he was hurting her.

Much as a part of him would like to say he was rough as he dealt with the traitor's injuries, he wasn't.

Couldn't make himself be.

In fact, he flinched along with her as he made sure each open wound was clean before slathering it with antibiotic cream and wrapping them in bandages.

When her wrists and ankles were done, he skimmed his hands up over her hips, wishing her skin wasn't every bit as soft as he remembered. Every bit as soft as he'd dreamed about. It was like silk, and his fingers glided over it. Not even the dark mottling of blacks, blues, and purples could diminish its beauty.

Although seeing the marks on this woman, knowing they were caused by someone hitting her, filled him with a deep-seated rage that was as annoying as it was ridiculous.

Whatever was going on, Scarlett had gotten herself into this mess, she had no one to blame but herself if things had gotten out of hand.

Still, his touch was gentle as he turned her so he could work on cleaning the wounds on her back. They were brutal, angry, and red raw, they'd leave scars, permanent reminders of what had happened. After years as a SEAL, Tate knew the wounds were caused by a whip, and rage bubbled inside him at the thought of Scarlett being subjected to something like that.

It didn't seem to matter what his head knew about this woman, his body could only remember the amazing night they spent together and craved more. All he wanted to do was wrap Scarlett up in his arms and kiss her until the tears shimmering in her eyes disappeared.

Irritated with himself, Tate quickly cleaned each of the wounds and smeared them with the cream. Then he pulled out a vial of painkillers and a syringe. While, in theory, he liked the idea of Scarlett suffering for her crimes, he wasn't a monster. She'd been beaten and whipped, she was in pain, he was giving her the damn drugs.

"You allergic to anything?" he asked, doing nothing to hide the bite in his tone.

Looking over her shoulder at him, Scarlett's eyes grew wide when she saw the syringe in his hand and tried to scramble away from him.

Thinking she was going to try to make a run for it, he gripped her wrist in a hold he knew had to hurt her. Not his intention, but he wasn't letting her go. "Just painkillers," he told her, wondering if she'd been drugged while she was with Raul, and that was why she looked on the verge of freaking out.

Actually, she was beyond freaking out.

He wouldn't have thought it possible for her skin to go a paler shade than it had been when he found her, but it did. She was more gray than white, and she was panting and struggling to get out of his grip, which was ridiculous, she wasn't getting away unless he let her, and he had no intention of doing that.

"I … d-don't … need … th-them," Scarlett stammered, on the verge of hyperventilating.

"Need them or not, you"re getting them." He had no time for a bout of hysterics. All he wanted was to wait out the next few hours, then get on that helo, get home, and hand his prisoner over to face her fate.

Yanking Scarlett up against his body so he could hold her in place much the same way he had in the pool, he swiped the bicep that hadn"t been shot with an alcohol wipe, then administered the drug.

As soon as he disposed of the syringe, Scarlett seemed to calm down. At least, he thought she had, but when he sat her down on a large rock and knelt in front of her, he realized she was holding her breath.

"What are you doing?" he demanded, not in the mood for more games.

She merely shook her head and waited. After what had to be a full minute she finally relaxed, puffing out the breath she'd been holding. "It's okay, I"m okay," she murmured, although more for her own benefit than his, he suspected.

"You'll be thanking me for those painkillers in a minute because I"m going to have to stitch up your gunshot wound." Despite it likely being the cause of the blood that had been found in her closet, the wound still looked open and unhealed five days later.

Scarlett just nodded and then tucked her chin to her chest, her other arm wrapping around her middle as she waited for him to tend to the wound, and once again he was struck by how not right this whole situation felt.

Whatever was going on, whatever he was missing, whatever was running through Scarlett's head right now, one thing was for certain. He was not letting the little traitor out of his sight, not even for a second, because he didn"t believe she wasn't playing him and had some sort of trick up her sleeve.