Page 78 of Taming Achilles

“We don’t know if Rhodes was working alone.” Cal was perfectly reasonable. But still, I couldn’t move.

“I swear to God, Lea, you better save her. Fucking save her or else…”

“You better not be threatening my wife,” Cal grabbed me by the throat and this time brought me to a stand.

He roughly shook me and I had absolutely no doubt he’d completely destroy me if I so much as breathed wrong on his wife.

Lea didn’t seem to care and ignored us entirely. I was grateful for that because she was working on Pippa’s wounds. No doubt, Lea was the only thing keeping my woman alive.

“I’m not threatening your wife,” I scoffed, pulling from Cal’a grasp. “But I swear to God, I cannot exist if she’s not breathing.”

That made Cal rear back in shock.

“I mean it, man,” I said, running my hands through my hair and tugging at it to feel the pain. Anything to reduce the growing despair in my heart. “If she doesn’t open her eyes, I will suck-start my own pistol because I cannot breathe without her.”

I was holding on to his shirt, shaking him as if he could control if she lived or died and I just needed to convince him to make the right choice.

“The last five years have been sheer misery,” I confessed because I had broken the dam. I had completely opened up. “But I could cope because I thought she had a chance of having a life. Of being happy, even if it meant cutting her out of my soul with a knife. I’d do it. I would do it for her.”

I was George fucking Campbell, former Major in the SAS and one of the highest paid security personnel in the world. And I was the biggest liability, in the middle of an insecure location, having the equivalent of a mental breakdown.

“But if she’s not somewhere in the world, breathing, then I have no reason to exist. I will cut my own throat.”

Cal looked appalled. Whether that was because of my confession, or my current lack of professionalism.

We stood, staring at one another, never losing eye contact. I was just slowing down my breathing, until my rhythm matched him.

“Are you done being a prat, now? Are you ready to do your job?” He waited patiently for my answer.

I let out a laugh. A small one. But he had modelled calm, and from simply looking at him, I started to reflect his serenity.

“A’right man?” he asked me.

“Aye. I’m a’right.” I took my spot on the other side of the women, looking through the crowd, scanning for a threat.

Brett was in the crowd, still hidden like Joe Shmoe, peering like a spectator to blend in. Ajax had a knee on Jason Rhode’s neck.

We should have been safe. Human nature wasn’t a thing that changed often. If a man was a sniper, then he would snipe. If a man stabbed or killed up close, then that was his M.O.

Jason Rhodes was the rare dynamic type. A jack of all trades killer. I secretly hoped that Ajax would get careless and drop his knee a little too hard. I wanted him to press too deep into his throat, cutting off his airway and silently killing him.

But that wasn’t good enough. He deserved far worse. He deserved my knife in his guts, slowly ripping off his visceral fat, one slice at a time until he hung open from the waist, his intestines exposed to the air.

I’d get my answers from him, one way or another.

Chapter 38

Pippa

“What did I tell you about letting me protect you?” Those were the words that greeted me the second I opened my eyes. “And why didn’t you tell me that your father was your handler?”

Pain radiates up my chest. Not a heart attack kind. Then again, how would I know? I had never had a heart attack. But this definitely felt muscular. Or … bone? Maybe I broke a rib? I took a breath, and pain seared my entire torso. Definitely a broken rib. Maybe two. Fuck.

“No more lies, Pippa. I’m tired of being in this seat.”

I turned my head, and even that felt exhausting. Geo had an industrial sized mug in his hand, the smell of his thick coffee filling the sterile room.

“You act like that’s my fault,” I groaned.

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