Page 26 of Saved By the SEAL

“I know.” I hang my head low, shame washing over me in painful waves. “I just can’t do this.”

An ice-cold, hard object presses against my stomach which I quickly realize is a gun. Probably the same gun that she shot Jordan with. Holy shit, as I think about him dead, it makes me want to fall apart. I hate the idea of losing someone who very quickly became so important to me. The only thing holding me together is the idea that I need to save other lives.

“Okay. I’ll get out there.” I step backward from Katya with my hands in the air, letting her know that I’m surrendering. “I’ll do whatever is needed of me. I don’t want there to be any more death. I just want all of this to be over.”

“Then get the fuck out there and stop this depressing shit.” Katya rolls her eyes without even a scrap of sympathy. “Get out there and do wild things to that man until he’ll give you everything you want. That’s why you were brought to America. You have a duty, and you know why you need to keep on with this. So don’t fuck around anymore. Get shit sorted.”

She pushes me out of the bathroom, leaving me very little choice but to get on with the mission. The man at the bar still has his head down. He still looks like he has the weight of the world on his shoulders. I don’t know exactly how I’m going to pull him outof this mood when I don’t know what’s bothering him, but I’ll have to find a way to make all of this work.

Then I can sort out the rest of my life and the mess that it’s become.

“Don’t think of the mess that your life is,” I remind myself. “Don’t worry about any of it. Just do this one step at a time.”

My next step is toward the bar. I don’t even need to plan what I’m going to say when I sit down. I just need to keep on going. Katya is in here somewhere with a gun pointed at me, even if it isn’t obvious. Alexander wants me dead too.

This is a nightmare.

21

JORDAN

What happened?My head aches as I attempt to part my eyes and let the world in. It’s almost so agonizing that I can’t do it. I kinda want to remain in the blackness where everything feels a lot less intense.But what the hell happened? How am I here?

I try and think back over everything that I can remember, but there’s nothing. Just a big, black hole. I can see glimpses of little things such as Michelle’s gorgeous smiling face and a strong sense of discomfort. I can also recall arguing, but I don’t know who with or what became of everything. My brain doesn’t want me to remember for some reason, which is very frustrating.

Open your eyes, I tell myself firmly. Wake up and everything will immediately become clearer. Just see what’s going on…

But I can’t do it. I don’t know why, I can’t exactly explain it away, but I’m afraid to let reality in. I’m scared to know what’s going on. My instincts deep down are yelling at me that I won’t like it, any of it, that life has taken a really bad turn.

“Michelle.” I barely recognize my own voice. It’s like a weird croaking sound. “Michelle, where are you? Are you alright?”

Something happened to Michelle, I can feel it deep in my gut. Something that’s my fault. I did something wrong…

“Michelle isn’t here anymore, buddy. You don’t need to worry.” The soft-spoken voice stuns me to the core. It’s a distinctly male voice, so not Michelle, clearly, but one which I know well. One I can always rely on. “It’s only me. You’re safe.”

Even though my head continues to pound and my eyes ache painfully, I just about manage to get them to see. It’s Max, staring over me surrounded by a terrifying white glow which drags a new terror out of the pit of my stomach. The brightness, the whiteness, it’s all too wrong. IknowI’m in a place where I don’t belong, a place I want to escape from.

“What… what’s going on?” I attempt to push myself up, but it seems like I’m trapped. “Where am I?”

“You can’t get up at the moment, Jordan. You need to stay where you are so the doctors can take care of you.” Max rests a hand to push me back down. He might be trying to help me, but it feels like he’s on the wrong side right now. “You’re in the hospital. You aren’t in the worst state in the world right now, but if you try to fight this, you’ll end up injured.”

“In the hospital? But why?” Max’s eyes pop in surprise. “I don’t remember anything, and it’s weird…”

“You…” He sucks in a deep breath before he really dives into things. “You had an interaction with someone who identified herself as Kate. An American spy, or so she told you. She discussed some things with you about Michelle earlier today.”

“What things?” I should be able to recall this. It isn’t fair that my brain is giving me nothing. “I don’t remember this.”

“She told you that Michelle is married and that her father is in the Russian government. She warned you that Michelle is working against you to try and take my company down. Apparently, I’ve been involved in Russian operations before, which as I expressed earlier definitely isn’t the truth, so this is some sort of revenge plot with you at the center.”

“Michelle… but she doesn’t seem like she’s against me. Me and her… we… get along really well.”

“And I believe Michelle too, but Kate got under your skin,” Max reminds me, not that it jogs any memories. “And you left your post. I don’t blame you, so you don’t need to panic. As it turns out, Michelle wasn’t exactly honest with us about every little detail. But she’s missing now. We’re struggling to locate her, and you have been shot. You’re lucky you didn’t die.”

An ice-cold wave washes over me. “Someone shot me? Who was it? Oh, God, was it Michelle? Is she the one who did this?”

I don’t want to immediately blame her, but if I was suspicious about her and she wasn’t honest with me, and now she’s gone missing… well, it could all fit together a little bit too well, couldn’t it? Michelle could be something a whole lot different to the person I have in my mind. I know I must have been really suspicious to walk away like I did. I’ve been trained never to leave my post, so it has to be incredibly bad. Oh, my God, I’ve been dreaming about the woman who tried to kill me. NowthatI can remember. While I’ve been in this hospital bed sleeping, she’s been floating through my mind the entire time, making me fall a whole lot deeper into love with her. A love that isn’t real and that I definitely shouldn’t be consumed with.

“We aren’t sure of that yet,” Max admits. “It’s something that I’m working on right now. But we also need to keep you under protection at all times. I do believe that whoever shot you wanted you dead, and when they find out that you survived, they could come back to finish the job. It was actually a miracle that nothing major was hit by the bullet. You got lucky.”

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