Page 76 of When He Protects

“Stop.”

Tyler froze the screen. She stared at the man on the far-left side of the image. Caught for the briefest of seconds. His profile was so familiar to her. Even the old,black flat cap he wore. The cap her mother had tried in vain to replace so many times.

I would know him anywhere.How could she not? “That’s my father. He was there that day.” She could barely breathe, much less speak, so the words trembled as they spilled out. “I was told…” She’d paid so much money. Worked in the darkness so long to obtain the intel. “I was told that the man who’d really pulled the strings was in the café right before the blast. Jorlan had proof. He had power because of his proof.” It hurt so much to have her suspicions confirmed. “He was there.”

Her father walked out. She hadn’t seen him at the café when she arrived because he’d gone out through the back door. She could see him rushing that way.

She’d come in the front door. “I saw Louis looking down at his phone. I called his name. I don’t think he ever heard me.”

Tyler’s index finger tapped. The video played once more. Louis looked down at his phone.

The world exploded.

Chapter Sixteen

In that instant,Tyler absolutely hated himself. He could feel Esme’s pain like a living, breathing beast in the room. He closed the file. Stared at the screen and tried to figure out how the hell to comfort her. But what comfort could he give?

She’d watched the video, and now Esme thought her father had killed the man she loved.

Esme loved him.

It had been in her voice. A softness. A wistfulness. He’d heard it and hated it.

Tyler released his clenched jaw. “You can’t jump to conclusions. There was no proof that your father planned the bombing in that video. He could have just been getting a coffee or something.”

“He doesn’t just get coffee. He has people for that.” Wooden. “He didn’t know I was going to be in the café that day. I-I wasn’t supposed to be. I told him about all the other times I was meeting Louis, but not that day. Not that time.”

Tyler stood up and slowly turned to face her. He needed to hold her because her pain was wreckingsomething inside of him, but he was almost afraid to touch her. “Esme.”

“Louis believed my father was a monster. He told me that on day one. I told him that he was wrong. He had to be, didn’t he? Louis was using me in order to try and get intel on my father. I was using him so that I could tell my father everything the CIA and the Feds were thinking. All of their nasty plots.” Soft, bitter laughter. “Not like Jorlan’s party was the first time a big, joint task force was at work in my life. I’ve certainly seen the play before.”

“You thought your father was innocent.”

Her eyes seemed even darker. “I thought he wasn’t a monster. There’s a difference between being innocent and not being the devil himself. I knew my father wasn’t a saint. I just didn’t think he was the man who wanted the whole world to burn.”

The café had burned.

“There isn’t proof in that video,” Tyler had to say the words.

“There are two more videos left to play.”

Shit. “I am a bastard.” He’d done this. She’d begged, and he’d still sent her straight to hell by playing the first video.

She gazed at him. He expected to see tears in her eyes. There weren’t any. But there were plenty of shadows.

“I can watch,” he told her, his voice more gruff than normal. “You don’t have to see what’s there.”

“It’s not me who will be hurt by the next video.”

What?

“I saw the date on it.”

Curious, he turned back.

“You had a really nice life growing up, didn’t you?” Esme’s tone was guarded. “A mom who loved you. A fatherwho came to every football game. A great house. Plenty of money. Maybe a little too much money?”

“My grandfather was wealthy,” Tyler said. He chose his words with care. He’d always needed to be careful when he talked about his grandfather. A lesson he’d been taught as a child. “Dad didn’t want anything to do with the cash, but it kept coming. My grandfather always sent it.” Until he’d died, and then Tyler had inherited everything. Good and bad.

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