Page 27 of Savage Protector

He didn’t seem surprised, knowing the news would reach me. He’d been waiting for this call like a spider sitting in the center of a web. With a snicker, he asked, “Oh, you got my invitation?”

“What invitation?” I snapped.

“I invited you to come out and play. I assume that’s what this call is about.”

That’s how he wanted this to go? Fine with me. “I’m afraid you might not know exactly what you’ve done.”

“Let me see. I looked at the footage from outside the restaurant where we had our unfortunate meet-up. I noticed you talking with that old man. I looked up his car registration, did a little research. I think I know exactly what I’ve done,” he concluded. The motherfucker had the nerve to sound cheerfully smug. What I wouldn’t give to have him in front of me so I could wipe that smugness off his face.

Half-blind with rage, I snarled, “He had nothing to do with this. He was a fucking civilian.”

“A detective,” he replied.

“Retired, and you fucking well knew it.” He’d been looking forward to retirement for so long. There wasn’t nearly enough time for him to enjoy it.

“These things happen,” Dominic informed me with a sigh, almost like he meant it. After all, he had a whole lifetime of pretending to be somebody he wasn’t—somebody with a soul. “Maybe he should’ve been more careful about who he associated with. A man like him, coming from his line of work? He had to understand the dangers of aligning himself with a fucking traitor.”

“I’m going to make you regret this.” It was the only thing I knew for sure to the depths of my soul.

“Is that a threat?” he asked in a light voice.

“You know exactly what it is.” Standing at the window, I gazed out over an idyllic landscape yet saw nothing in front of me but carnage. “I’m going to be there when you take your final breath. I’m going to watch you reconsider every shit decision you’ve made in your life. The last thing you’re going to see is my face.”

“Well, there’s only one way to see whether or not that’s going to happen,” he replied, his voice now cold, devoid of humor. “You have to come out of hiding, pussy.”

“Are you sure that’s what you want?”

“Why don’t you find out?” He hung up, leaving me with nothing to do but throw the phone across the room while a cry of pure rage tore its way out of my chest. Jack. I had underestimated that bastard, and he had killed Jack. I might as well have pulled the trigger myself.

“Grayson?” Scarlet’s wary voice rang out on the other side of the door. “What happened?”

“Leave me alone,” I warned, barely short of a shout. “I mean it. Don’t come in here right now.”

I was afraid of what I might do if she did. The guardrails were off now. No holds barred. Losing Jack meant losing whatever decency he saw in me.

I would never be anything but a liability to her.

Better she find that out now.

12

SCARLET

It was the silence that woke me up, strangely enough. The lack of another person’s breath in the room. Grayson must have floated out of bed if he was able to make his escape without me noticing. I wasn’t sleeping deeply, always dreading the next nightmare about Dominic or Mom.

Rolling over to face his side of the bed, I touched a hand to his pillow. It was cool. He had been up for a while. Should I leave him be? Part of me knew it would be better to stay where I was after the fit he threw earlier in the morning. He never did tell me what it was all about. He only left the bedroom looking like he was ready to kill someone, then spent a lot of time sitting outside on the porch. The few times I had dared peek out at him, I found him on the steps, staring out at the mountains, so still I wasn’t sure he was breathing.

He didn’t have to say a word for me to know it would be a bad idea to bother him. Instead, I spent the day worrying, wishing there was something I could do, knowing it was probably about me. He didn’t even say much when he got into bed after spending most of the night on his laptop, scowling at the screen. He was a mystery. A very angry, very appealing mystery. Maybe I really was doomed to be attracted to all the wrong men.

It was that attraction that got me out of bed and made me tiptoe to the door. Opening it slowly, I listened for any signs of movement in the cabin. He wouldn't walk out and leave me here alone, would he? He didn’t even do that in the daytime—he was always within my line of sight.

I inched out of the room and into the darkness, shivering a little in my tank top and shorts. There was something beautiful and eerie about being out here without the city lights that had always been part of my life. The only light filtering into the cabin came from a three-quarter moon that was barely bright enough to illuminate Grayson’s form. He sat in a high-backed armchair, facing the window, looking out to the porch. What was he watching for?

My foot hit a squeaky floorboard, and I cringed, holding my breath before he briefly looked my way. He said nothing, turning his gaze back toward the window while I asked myself what the hell I was supposed to say.

Naturally, I settled on the dumbest possible choice. “What happened? Was I snoring?”

I was kind of hoping he would chuckle, at least. Instead, his complete lack of a reaction made goose bumps cover my arms. The most he did was clench his jaw, making that thin scar twitch. Where had it come from? I wanted to ask so many times but didn’t have the nerve.