Page 102 of When He Protects

“Custody?” What bullshit! “She’s already in the custody of a U.S. Marshal! She’s in Tyler’s custody!” He twisted and strained and couldn’t get out of the freaking cuffs.

“Tyler is compromised. I could see it when he looked at her. She has him under her spell.”

“She isn’t a fucking witch!”

“He will do whatever she says. Believe any lies she tells him.” Clay’s voice deepened. “I can’t let her spread those lies. I was just doing what I was supposed to do.”

Kane stopped struggling. “When?”

“Everything will be all right. Tyler’s safety has been guaranteed. It’s just Esme who needs to vanish.”

“Whenwere you doing what you were supposed to do? Now? You’re following orders now? Or did you do something in the past?”

No response.

“You did,” Kane charged. “You’ve been on the take for a long time, haven’t you?”

“I was following orders. Just like you. When our team had a mission, we completed that mission. Collateral damage happens.”

Ice poured through his veins. “You were in Paris.” The day that haunted Kane.

“We were all in Paris.”

“You didn’t run into the café with us.” He remembered this. At the time, he’d just thought that Clay had been shell-shocked because Clay had never seen a detonation up close.He just made things explode from a distance.But the things that were supposed to explode? Not people. Munitions stockpiles. Stolen vehicles. Even a tank once. They had never, ever sent Clay out with a target on a person. Those hadn’t been the type of orders they received.

Unless Clay had been getting different orders.

A heavy stillness stole over Kane. “You blew up that café, didn’t you?”

“There was a CIA double-agent inside. If he’d gotten away, a lot of people would have died.”

He surged toward the cage. “Peoplediddie that day! And you didn’t help! You stayed outside while I ran in with Tyler. Youwatched!”

“I had to make sure he didn’t get out. Louis Turner was a very dangerous man. I was supposed to watch the front to make sure he didn’t get out—and he never came out the front!”

I’m staring at a very dangerous man.“Who did you talk to on the phone? Who did you call, Clay?”

No response.

“Your boss? The same person who told you to blow that café to hell and back?”

“I didn’t set that bomb in Paris—” Clay stopped. “You don’t understand.”

Then make me understand.

Clay made another turn. The SOB knew exactly where to go. “I came home after Paris. I was promised that my past would be erased. No one would ever know…But there are some things you can’t forget. I would see that scene in my head, over and over.”

“Yet you just tried to blow up one of your closest friends! You tried to kill Tyler, so don’t give me that BS and act like you’re some traumatized victim!”

Clay slammed on the brakes. The patrol car screeched to a halt. He whipped around and glared through the old cage. “I was trying to get the evidence back.”

What evidence?

“I couldn’t find it. I didn’t have time to search longer, so I blew up the safe house.” He snapped his fingers. “Evidence destroyed, just like that. And I made sure Tyler got out of the house. I waited until I saw him running on the porch before I detonated. I knew he’d come busting out of the home as soon as he saw the wreckage I’d left during my search. He was never in danger. Never. I wouldn’t kill a friend.”

But you would kill plenty of other people, wouldn’t you?“What about Esme? Would you kill her?”

“I won’t be the one who pulls the trigger.” Clay turned back around to face the front of the vehicle.

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