Chapter 9

January 15th

3:04 A.M.

Pain.

Why was that always the first thing to register?

Scarlett dragged open heavy eyes as she heard the sound of voices.

After all the abuse her body and her mind had taken in the last several days, it was hard to summon enough energy to do much of anything, but the first thing she caught sight of was Tate.

Lying as he was, slumped in his seat, half draped over the steering wheel, he looked so vulnerable. So not like the Tate she had met and spent the night with, or the Tate who had saved her life even if he believed her to be a traitor.

Maybe she shouldn't care what happened to him, he'd been a jerk to her even before she'd been framed, but jerk or not, he was one of the good guys, just not a guy who was good for her.

If their positions were reversed, Scarlett honestly couldn't say that she wouldn't believe he was guilty.

Didn"t mean his automatic rejection and willingness to believe the worst of her like they hadn"t had sex and slept tangled in one another's arms hadn"t hurt. Because it did hurt. A lot. More than it should since she had already known he was a jerk.

Why couldn't her stupid heart get with the program?

Or maybe it wasn't her heart so much as her deeply ingrained desire to find love and happiness, and her interpretation of the connection she and Tate had shared that night.

The connection wasn't real.

All in her head.

The man unconscious beside her didn"t even like her, much less feel any sort of connection to her, but still keeping them both alive was the right thing to do.

The only thing to do.

She wasn't a traitor, and she wasn't a killer.

"Yeah, she's in the car," a voice outside spoke.

There was no doubt she was the "she" in question. The voice had a slight Mexican accent and who else would be shooting at them?

Just because Tate was intent on making her the villain didn"t mean it was so.

She hadn"t written any email to anyone offering to sell the Reactivator, and she would continue to repeat that to everyone until it finally sunk in.

"No, she's not alone," the voice spoke again. Then after a short pause continued, "No idea who he is. Some guy. Doesn't look like they're friends, though. He put her in his car and drove off with her. I'm guessing he's from whatever agency was watching her house. What do you want me to do with him?"

Since she hadn"t done more than open her eyes, whoever—and however many whoevers—were outside Tate's car didn"t yet realize that she was awake.

Problem was she didn"t have a lot of options here. They already knew that the men chasing them were armed, they'd been shooting at the car and must have managed to hit the tires from the way Tate seemed to lose control. Fighting wasn't an option, she didn"t have a weapon and she was too weak to do much in hand-to-hand combat right now. Running was out, she wouldn't get far, there was a chance that if she ran, she could lead them away from Tate though. Once they caught her, he'd just use it as further evidence to convict her but at least he'd be alive.

"All right. I'll kill him, grab the girl, and we'll be gone before the cops show," the man continued speaking.

Kill Tate?

No.

She couldn't let that happen.

She wouldn't let that happen.

Whatever it meant for her she didn"t care. Chances were, she'd be spending the rest of her life in a prison cell unless she could somehow prove her innocence, the least she could do was keep the man who had saved her life alive. He might not like her, might believe she was a traitor, but nonetheless, Tate had saved her in Mexico, and he had saved her again tonight.

Throwing herself over Tate's limp body just as a loud crack sliced through the night, the searing pain near her right shoulder blade told her that the bullet had got her.

Had it got Tate, too?

At this close range, it could easily have passed through her body and into his.

While Raul had a reason to keep her alive, he had no such reason for Tate.

"What the—?" Tate's angry growl filled the car, and the next thing she knew, Scarlett was being shoved sideways back into the seat she'd just jumped out of, and a series of pops echoed through the car.

Then silence.

Blessed silence.

When light suddenly flooded the car, Scarlett winced. It was too bright, and now that she thought about it, the silence was too quiet.

Everything seemed magnified.

Light.

Sound.

The thump of each beat of her heart.

Was it supposed to be that loud?

Was it supposed to be that painful?

Or was the pain coming from her back and not her heart?

"Are you shot?" Tate demanded as a featherlight touch whispered over her back right across the epicenter of her pain.

Sucking in a breath, she flinched away from the touch. Light as it was, it felt like a burning poker aggravating her bullet wound.

"They were going to kill you," she mumbled as a way of explanation.

"You don't ever do something so stupid," he raged, and she wondered why he was yelling at her.

Was she supposed to let him get shot?

That seemed mean even if he had been nothing but nasty to her. Two wrongs didn"t make a right, and in this case, they would have made a dead body.

Tate's dead body.

Why was she even surprised that she'd just saved his life and he was still angry with her?

Didn"t seem to matter what she did, that man she'd spent the best night of her life with had vanished, and she was no longer sure he had ever even existed at all.

"You were unconscious," she reminded him. With great effort, she shifted in her seat so she was upright again instead of sprawled across it. Catching a glance at his face as she sunk down into the soft leather, Scarlett was surprised by the fear in his stunning eyes.

Was he angry or afraid?

"Doesn't matter." Tate blinked and the fear was gone, replaced by what she was used to seeing, cold disinterest.

"So, I should have just let you die?" Maybe pushing him wasn't the best move to make right now, but she was hurting, she was sick of being accused of things she didn"t do, she was sick of Raul sending people after her, and she'd reached her limit. Apparently, at the end of her limit was a whole big pile of anger just waiting to be ignited.

Tate was the match.

The spark that was going to set her off if he didn"t stop saying stupid things.

"Did you kill them?" she asked when he didn"t respond. Instead, he tried to get the car to start up again.

A grunt sounded like an affirmative so she relaxed a little.

Only a little. The cops would be here soon, the gunfire would have woken neighbors who would have called it in. Once they got there, she'd be taken back into custody. Probably not by the local police department, but some agency would take her in.

"I don't think your car can drive," she said when he managed to get the engine to start.

Ignoring her as he always seemed to—unless he had more insults to hurl at her—he merely jerked the car into reverse, and it stuttered backward.

"Why are we leaving? The cops will be here any moment."

"Because the cops will be here any moment," he said.

Scarlett frowned. "Right, I just said that. I would have thought you wanted me arrested," she said.

All she got was another growl, and then he was somehow driving the mangled car.

"I don't get it. Where are we going?"

"My place."

"Why aren"t we waiting for the cops?"

"Because I don't want you arrested."

"Afraid they won"t be hard enough on me?" she mocked because one thing she was sure of was that Tate Laurier wanted her to suffer. Why? She wasn't sure. It was fine he hadn"t felt the connection she had, but he seemed to hate her. Like actually hate her, and that made zero sense.

"You took a bullet for me," he said, sounding shocked by the idea.

"Of course. I wasn't going to let them kill you."

"Why?"

"What do you mean why? I"m not a killer." Did he have to keep offending her? Thinking she was a traitor was bad enough, but now he thought she was okay with cold-blooded murder?

"What are you then?" This one time he seemed to be genuinely seeking an answer.

"Doesn't matter what I say, you've already made up your mind." Suddenly bone weary, Scarlett let her head fall back against the seat. "You know what? I think I"d rather wait for the cops."

If she didn"t know better, Scarlett would have been certain that his growl was possessive. "You"re coming to my place."

She didn"t get this man at all. "Why?"

For a long moment the only sound was of the ruined car creaking and groaning its way down the street. Then his quiet, anger-free, almost confused voice answered, "I don't know."

January 15th

3:19 A.M.

She'd takena bullet for him.

A bullet.

Scarlett was currently sitting in the passenger seat of his car bleeding all over the place because she had thrown herself in front of a bullet meant for him.

Meant to end his life.

Tate knew he wouldn't have been able to stop it from happening. He'd woken up just to hear a man's voice saying he was going to kill the man and take the girl. By the time the words had registered through his throbbing head, and he'd gathered enough strength to reach for his weapon, the crack of a gunshot had already sliced through the night.

In that split second, he had been prepared to die.

While he hadn"t wanted to leave his dad behind, or his team, he was at peace with death if it was his time. You didn"t live the kind of life he did, have the kind of job he did, and then be surprised when death came for you at a young age.

But tonight, he had quite literally dodged a bullet.

Because of the woman sitting silently beside him.

Her question continued to echo in his mind as he somehow managed to get his mangled truck to drive the short distance to his house, only three miles away from Scarlett's.

Why?

Why was he taking her to his place?

The answer that rang through his mind was one he wasn't willing to acknowledge.

Not yet.

Maybe not ever.

At the very least, not until this whole mess was sorted out.

But one thing he knew was that a woman who would throw herself in the path of a bullet to save a man who had been nothing but horrible to her and was taking her into custody was not one who would willingly sell a drug to someone who would not use it for its intended purpose. Athena Team had created the Reactivator to save the lives of their colleagues in the field, and the lives of American men and women serving in armed forces across the globe. Not so a weapons trafficker could get his hands on it and sell it to one of their country's enemies to give those seeking to destroy democracy the upper hand.

The only reason Scarlett would have made that deal with Raul was if she had no other choice.

All he had to do was gain her trust enough to get her to open up to him and tell him what she had been threatened with, so he knew how to help her. Maybe if she was open and transparent from here on out, given that she had taken a bullet for him, they could even work out a deal, so she didn"t serve any prison time.

For now though, he wanted to keep her somewhere safe, where neither Raul nor any of the agencies who wanted her would find her. There was a bullet wound to take care of, and he wasn't sure whether she'd had any chance to rest after her team left her last night, but that was also a priority.

After that they'd talk.

Honestly this time, and when they did, he had to find a way to keep his own trust issues under control and not keep using them as a weapon against a woman who didn"t deserve his anger.

He had to prove to her that she could trust him. But how Tate was going to do that when his ability to trust had already been so badly damaged he had no idea.

One problem at a time though.

Thankfully, they'd managed to get away from the scene before the cops arrived. The last thing he wanted was to be explaining why he, a Navy SEAL, had just killed three people on US soil.

Not when time was of the essence.

Tonight had made it perfectly clear that even if Scarlett had been coerced, Raul had no intention of letting her go until he got what he wanted from her. It was pretty ballsy to make another attempt on her life, right out in the open on a public street, even if it was in the early hours of the morning, immediately after Scarlett was released from custody.

Once he'd pulled into his driveway he turned to Scarlett, who hadn"t spoken a single word after he'd told her he didn"t know why he was taking her to his place. Even if he told her that was a lie and he knew exactly why he wanted her close he doubted she would believe him.

Her eyes were closed, and even though he could see the rise and fall of her chest, Tate reached out and touched two fingertips to the base of her throat. It wasn't until he touched the smooth, silky skin that he saw the bruises marring it.

Scarlett had told him she'd been attacked in her home, and that was why she'd run, and he'd had trouble believing her.

Which now that he had calmed down a little sounded ridiculous even to his own ears.

The evidence of her innocence was right in front of him, his own issues just kept blinding him to it.

Obviously, someone had attacked her because she didn"t have those bruises when he'd delivered her to Prey, and no one had laid a hand on her during the time she'd spent there.

He knew. He'd watched her the entire time, and if anyone had done anything close to hurting her physically, he would have … done something that would have ruined his career.

Tate hadn"t even realized he was stroking his fingertips over the darkening marks as though he could somehow erase them and the pain and terror Scarlett must have suffered when they had been inflicted.

Each one was fingertip-sized and shaped, and even if she hadn"t told him that someone had wrapped their hand around her slender neck and squeezed he would have known that was what had happened. He sincerely hoped that whoever had tried to strangle her was one of the men he had killed.

"I kneed him in the groin," Scarlett's soft voice spoke, and when he glanced up, he saw her eyes were open and she was watching him somewhat warily. "That's how I got away. I know you don't believe me but?—"

"I do," he interrupted. Maybe if he had believed her at the time, she wouldn't have gotten shot.

Because being this close to her, touching her so intimately, was likely to make him do something he shouldn't, Tate abruptly pulled back, ignoring the hurt that flared in Scarlett's beautiful big brown eyes.

"Let's get you inside so I can assess the damage," he said briskly, already reaching for his door handle. Since it was so badly damaged, the door creaked and he had to shove at it to get it open.

Not making any progress with her door, Tate could tell from the way it was caved in that it wasn't going to open, he reached over the driver's seat and grabbed Scarlett under the arms, pulling her over and out into the cold night, doing his best to ignore her muted grunts of pain.

She swayed, and he locked an arm around her waist, holding her tightly against him. For a moment their eyes met and he felt that same spark that he had that first night. As much as he knew he never should have touched her, Scarlett had the romance vibe down to a tee, and he was happily single, Tate found he didn"t have it in him to regret the night they had shared.

He should.

And he shouldn't have her here now.

But he couldn't let her go yet.

That one night of light, peace, and happiness was going to have to last him a lifetime.

Scooping her up, he carried her inside and set her down on the couch in the living room. He laid her on her stomach so he could examine her wound, then left her there while he went to grab his first aid kit. It was well stocked, and he had the supplies to stitch the wound, he just hoped the bullet wasn't still inside her.

Once his supplies were laid out, he knelt beside the couch and ripped at her sweater where the tear from the bullet was, exposing a ragged, bloody wound. From the angle, it looked like the bullet had scraped along her shoulder blade, deflecting off the bone rather than actually passing through her body.

That was something, and although she'd bled a fair amount, she hadn"t lost even close to a dangerous amount of blood. A few stitches, a shot of antibiotics, more bandages, some painkillers, and she'd be fine.

An easy fix.

Yet the wound would leave a scar that would join the marks from the whip that scattered across her back, and those that circled her wrists and ankles. Then there were the psychological scars that would last a lifetime and take much longer to heal.

"You don't take a bullet for me again, Scarlett, you hear me? It's my job to protect you," Tate said as he began to clean the wound. Although he hadn"t thought about the words before he said them, he realized he'd never spoken truer words.

Somewhere along the way he had taken on the job of Scarlett's protector.

There was no answer, and when he leaned over so he could see her face he saw that she had already passed out. Exhaustion had sunk its claws into her, and she no longer had the strength left to keep her eyes open.

In sleep she looked so innocent, so young, so vulnerable, and so very beautiful.

"What am I going to do with you, little fighter?" he whispered as he smoothed a lock of hair off her pale face.

The problem was, he truly didn"t know the answer to that question, but he feared even if the insidious voice whispering inside his head was right and she was guilty he was going to have a hard time walking away.