Page 5 of Savage Escape

Figuring he was in for a long silent night with the possibility of interrogation/torture thrown in there somewhere, Nathan settled himself as comfortably as possible against his wall and rested while he could.

3

CADEN

Nathan Savage.

Wasn’t that just a kick in the head.

Caden couldn’t help the upward curve of her lips at the sight of him all bare-chested and scowling. That scowl, laugh lines turned into frown lines, eyebrows bunched, and those thick lips pursed like he was eating something sour brought back old memories. Good gloating ones Caden rather cherished. The bare chest was new and not at all hard to look at.

He’d been bouncing off the front end of her car the last time she’d seen him, which, she was sure, she should feel bad about. But it wasn’t like she had been aiming for him. He was the genius who’d stepped onto the road and decided to play chicken.

And screeched like a newborn when he bounced off the hood of the Mini Cooper.

Besides, it wasn’t like it had hurt him all that much. Nathan Savage was a big man. He towered over her at six-foot something and then there was all that finely toned muscle packed onto his frame. Nathan was a big man, and it had been such a tiny car.

That had been two years, thirty-some-odd jobs, and five scars ago.

She heard a rumor that he was in Prague taking down a human trafficking ring a few months after the car versus man thing, but then he had dropped off the face of the earth.

Optimist to the core, Caden had figured he’d either gotten killed on the job or had been captured by one of the baddies he’d pissed off and was rotting in a dungeon somewhere.

It was nice to see that he was alive.

But maddening as all hell to be sharing a cell with him.

Sure, she liked him, well, about as much as a mercenary could like a lawman. Out of all the G Men governments had sent after her, Nathan Savage was her favorite. He was ten shades of competent, very capable in a fight, and was always either one step ahead or behind her. There was nothing to hate about him. He made her job all the more fun.

On top of that shining list of character traits, he was a good man.

A genuinely good man.

Caden Quinn knew no good men anymore. All the good men were long since dead.

Now they were all either king pins, psychopaths, sick fuckers who liked to inflict pain, selfish assholes only looking out for themselves, and general dicks. There was no other version of man. Which maybe wasn’t all that surprising, considering the circles she ran in.

Nathan Savage was the exception.

And sharing a cell was maddening as hell because his presence fucked with her golden ‘caught and tortured’ rule. Bunking with a bad man was all well and fine. She could bunk with a hundred bad men and not so much as blink when they went off to be executed or didn’t survive the latest torture method.

Bunking with a good man, at least for Caden, was a different story.

And there he was, a good man, asking if she was okay when she’d told him she’d murdered another human being and being all scowly and good citizeny.

When all she wanted to do was die in peace. Or, well, relative peace, having to factor in the torture and all.

Well, it was not gonna be any skin off her ass.

He got himself caught, so he sure as hell was gonna deal with the consequences all by his little lonesome. She would feel no obligation to help the man. Or feel an ounce of guilt when he took a turn on the rack.

Caden would simply ignore his existence.

And she did so for about seven hours. Alternating between pretending to sleep and glaring at the wall beside his head.

But when the four heavily armed men waltzed in and whisked him off to be interrogated and probably tortured, she couldn’t help the twinge of guilt and anger that pulled at her gut.

Caden attempted to squash those treacherous feelings and put all her energy towards dying.

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