Page 33 of Lethal Game

Con gave her a grim smile. Good. She hadn’t hesitated to take action.

“Looks like I’ll be busy.” Roger glanced at Con. “I’m a surgeon and that is an arm I’m going to have to put together like a puzzle.”

“He’s lucky I didn’t break his neck.”

Roger took a wary step back.

“Connor,” Sophia said, staring at the guy he had pinned to the floor. “Can he breathe?”

Con glanced down and let up on the pressure a little. The guy beneath him sucked in a couple of frantic breaths before yakking away in Arabic, telling his partner to get up and get out.

Con leaned down and said in the same language, “His arm is in pieces. He’s not going anywhere. You attacked an American inside an American military hotel. You’re not going anywhere either. Except prison for the rest of your worthless life.”

The guy on the floor stopped talking.

Right about then, the MPs arrived.

It took a couple of hours for Sophia to give her version of events, and Con his, for the reports to be written and signed and everyone dismissed. He never let her out of his sight the entire time. At one point, the psychologist on duty tried to talk to Sophia in private, but Con nixed that idea, pulling theI’m the bodyguardcard. Sophia had backed him up, thank God, and after giving Con a searching look, the psychologist had compromised by talking with Sophia where they could be seen, but not heard.

The possibility of not being able to see her had him fighting the need to pace. If they noticed, he might be reassigned or removed from active duty. He expected the psychologist to want to talk to him privately after she talked to Sophia, but instead she allowed Sophia to remain while she questioned Con.

Con went through the takedown in an even tone, answered the shrink’s questions as succinctly as possible and said nothing more than he had to.

Max made an appearance and seemed surprised at how easily Con had taken down the two men. It was the psychologist who smiled and said that most Special Forces soldiers were quite capable of taking down several adversaries.

It was almost midnight before Con walked Sophia to her quarters. They hadn’t spoken to each other since Max scowled at them and told them to get lost.

Sophia unlocked her door and turned to look up at him. “Thanks for doing your ninja thing.”

“Ninja?” Had she watched too many movies or what?

“You came out of nowhere.”

He angled his thumb over his shoulder. “Down the hall actually.”

She didn’t follow his gesture, her gaze unfocused. “I couldn’t believe anyone would try to kidnap me in the middle of the Navy hotel.”

“If they timed it right, it would be no more difficult than taking you off the street.”

He should have never left her alone.

Maybe he shouldn’t have said it so matter-of-factly, because her face lost all its color.

“Oh.” She swallowed hard and looked at the floor. A couple of seconds later, she met his gaze wearing a pasted-on smile and the saddest eyes he’d ever seen. “Still...not very nice of them. Thanks for interrupting their plans. Good night.” She turned away, unlocked her door, and slipped inside.

Oh, no you don’t.Pretending it hadn’t happened wasn’t going to make things better. She needed to vent, the sooner the better. He’d learned that the hard way.

Con stuck his foot in the door before she could close it. “We need to talk.”

“Oh.” She hesitated, her gaze darting down the hall.

She was afraid and was trying to tough it out all on her own. He knew how fucking useless it would be and that was unacceptable. A soldier needed his battle buddies to get him through the shit. The loss of his had damn near killed him.

“I get it,” he said with a sigh. “You’re probably scared, angry, and fifty other emotions no one likes to deal with, but you and I, we’re a team, and I need to make sure you’re okay. That includes checking your room and talking about this shit.”

She stared at him for a long moment, then backed up and let him by. “Okay.” She closed the door behind him and locked it. As soon as the door was closed, she let out a huge pent-up breath and her tense shoulders came down.

Yup, she was scared. But not of him.

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