Page 7 of His To Protect

“What kind of trouble?” Jack frowned, holding back a curse. She shoved her hand through her hair and he noticed it shook. Foreboding crawled inside him. She took a few deep breaths, and he kept silent, giving her the time she needed. As much as he needed to hear the whole the truth, he dreaded it.

“He’s been taken hostage.”

“Hostage? Jesus! Fuck! By who?”

“They called themselves Los Sánchez Hermanos. I was only supposed to transfer money but… I had to come, Jack!”

She suddenly looked a lot younger than her twenty-four years, more innocent, and very afraid.

“When they called me, there was yelling in the background. I heard them hitting him, demanding money.”

“Jesus! How much do they want?”

“Five-hundred-thousand.” She dug through her purse and handed him a scrap of paper with an address, the name of a bank and an account number written in curly pink cursive on it. “I’m going to demand they bring him to his apartment before I transfer the money.” Her face fell into her hands. “I don’t even know him, not even his last name—I lied on the forms you gave me. But I have no one left, and I can’t let him die.” She began to sob.

He knew crocodile tears when he saw them and he never fell for them, but Alexis wasn’t crying false manipulative waterworks. Her tears were real and they hit him right in the heart. He still didn’t take her in his arms like he wanted though. He was still too upset with her lies.

He looked at the paper and shoved it in his pocket. He didn’t trust himself to speak and thankfully they’d be at their destination soon so he didn’t have to—yet. He needed to know more, but if he blasted her now, she might never tell him the rest. Five-hundred-thousand wasn’t a lot in the game of abduction, but he shoved that little sand of thought away for later. Sometimes those thoughts stayed sand, but other times they turned into pearls.

He glanced at Alexis. Her shoulders shook and her beautiful crazy curls shook along with them. But God, he wanted to shake her more, yell, lecture her, but mostly, in this moment, while she cried, he wanted to comfort her. He reached out, but stopped himself from actually touching her.

She should have been honest from the beginning, especially since the trip was a hundred times more dangerous than she had originally led him to believe. Then again, if she had told him, he would have refused and told her to contact the authorities. Naive, foolish, reckless, heedless as she was, he knew she wasn’t dumb. She’d known lying was the only way he’d help her.

“Look at me,” he demanded pithily, setting his palm on her leg.

She sniffled behind her hands but finally let them drop to her lap to look at him. Jack considered her wide, watery, caramel-swirled eyes and swallowed his anger. She was terrified and likely to get herself killed without him. Hell, she was likely to get killed even with him. So fine. He wouldn’t leave her. He’d help her. But dammit, he was going to show her exactly what happened to little girls who lied to him.

Jack assessed her, searching her eyes with intensity and she began worrying her hands in her lap, nervously awaiting his decision. His heart squirmed uncomfortably in his chest. This little girl needed a daddy’s discipline. She’d obviously been spoiled by her grandparents. His eyes dropped down to her lap, to the wrap skirt that opened enough to expose her creamy smooth thighs, to his pinky finger that sat at the edge of her lightly tanned skin. She needed the attention of a daddy-dom.

She needed him.

Jack moved his hand over her fidgeting ones and pinned her in place with a steely glare.

“I’m going to get you out of this but we’re doing it my way.” She nodded before he could finish. “I’m not done yet, young lady,” he growled, raising his hand to swat the bare skin of her thigh. “And…” Still glaring, ignoring the flip in his gut that told him he wanted her—all of her, he continued, “I plan on spanking your ass for lying to me and anytime I think you need it thereafter. Got me?”

She swallowed hard, drew in a slow breath and nodded. “Yes, sir.”

She definitely looked like a little girl then. A stunningly gorgeous, but anxious, little girl about to get her naughty bottom punished.

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