Page 209 of Protective Heroes

Caden looked between the two of them. “IT has checked over your phone. They pulled nothing on the hang-up calls you received last night, but they did track down the server the pictures were sent from. They’re digging deeper to verify if it’s legit or a decoy server. They’ll get back to us on it.”

Abigail dragged her attention away from Caden when her phone vibrated in her hands. Her sister must have gotten her message. She flicked it on and caught an image loading on the small screen.

Her heart sank to her feet and she had to wrangle her stomach back into place.

Not again. She stared at herself sandwiched between Reece and Caden boarding their corporate plane. She quickly scrolled to the end and read the large bold words at the bottom of the message.

NO ONE CAN PROTECT YOU

She bit into her lip, her mind racing a mile a minute. She turned to Caden then Reece, holding up the phone for them.

Their mouths set in grim, flat lines. The creases around their eyes deepened and anger rolled off them in violent waves that sucked the air out of the cabin in mere seconds.

Their emotions jacked up her tension and she struggled to calm down and take a couple of deep breaths. Her chest rose and fell sharply but nothing she did to slow her breathing helped. Her head began to spin and silver spots danced in her vision.

A firm hand grasped the back of her neck and shoved her head between her knees.

“Breathe, Abigail. Once through your nose, then out your mouth.”

She tied herself to the sound of Reece’s voice and did as he commanded.

“Again. Nose, mouth.” She did it five more times before her panic attack released its tight grip. Reece helped her up and Caden handed her a glass filled halfway with amber-colored liquid.

“Drink this. It’ll take the edge off.” He winked at her and she knew it was to make her shift focus. Reece slipped her phone from her fingers and handed it to Caden. God, would the surprises ever end?

“Gracias.” She tipped the glass in salute, then downed half the contents in one swallow. She raised the glass again and finished off the last of the liquid and welcomed the burn with every swallow.

“Easy, darling.”

“Or you could give me another.” She cocked her head to the side and shook her now empty glass between them.

“Maybe or you could talk to me. Tell me what’s going on in that pretty mind of yours.”

“Do you think they’ll have any luck finding the van we saw by my house? OR catching these guys? It’s obvious they have no problem finding us.”

“It always looks bleak at first. Especially when you’re working in the dark, so to speak. It will take some time, but not too long.” Reece pulled her hand into his and turned it over to trace the lines in her palm. The small touch created a wonderful sensation of calm to settle over her and ground her chaotic, rambling thoughts. “We’ll find whoever is behind this, Abigail. We’ll protect you. Trust us.”

There were those two words again.

He raised his eyes and immediately she felt the clash of his dark stormy gaze with her own. Conflicting emotions ran across his face before he settled on one—sincerity.

Abigail frowned. Trust. Both men had put their lives on the line for her tonight and they had damn near taken a bullet for it in the process.

She could afford them their request.

Tiny droplets of poison from her past dripped into her mind and tainted her resolve. Like a snake set to strike, her subconscious coiled, ready to flood her veins with the venom from her screwed up past.

An alcoholic mother who’d abandoned her for the bottle and a father who’d died when a girl needed her dad the most taught her people rarely stuck around. No matter how much they told you they would never leave.

With only her sister to care for her, between school and work to support them, Abigail was left on her own more often than not. And bless her sister, she didn’t blame her. She did the best she could, but what could a seventeen-year-old do with a twelve-year-old kid sister? There were times when neither of them thought they’d make it past the day.

And tonight brought it all back front and center, the chaos she worked so hard to rid her life of and the unstable home she had shed years ago. She loved her sister and would do anything for her. She knew her sister would do the same for her, but this was her life now. Her job, her own little world and someone was trying to tear it all away from her. She’d be damned if she let anyone take the little piece of happiness she’d claimed for herself. But she couldn’t do that from a thousand miles away.

A heavy weight of uncertainty pressed on her shoulders. “Since the cops are already in on this, maybe we should let them handle all this mess? They can put me in some kind of protection services until this mess gets sorted out.” As soon as the words were out of her mouth she regretted them.

Reece gave her a hard glare that glued her where she sat. “Don’t go there, Abigail. You know as well as I do that the cops can do very little about situations like yours. And any protection you need is right here. We haven’t let them harm a hair on your head, and that’s not about to change.”

Caden cleared his throat from beside her. “Besides, they wouldn’t give you protection. Not until a real threat against your life was proven beyond a doubt. By then you’d be dead. And like Reece said, that’s not happening. Right now, as far as the cops are concerned, all they have is a burned house that could have been set by any number of things and a vandalized car.”

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