Page 42 of The SEALs' Single Mom Baby Surprise

And heryesis almost silent.

He’d have had to for her to have been left with so little. With the methodical way she plans, all of her attention to detail. Her ex didn’t have to swing a fist to abuse her.

From the cursory look I had online, he’s around my age. A professor. The story fills itself in, and I am fuming at how it unfurls in my mind.

My knuckles are white where they grip the steering wheel. We pull up to the gate, show our IDs, and it’s only minutes until we park.

Sloane is out of the door fast, but she’s not speeding away. Which makes it easy to catch up to her. To block her path so that shehasto look at me.

Fuck, the raw pain that flashes across her face is utterly heartbreaking. I barely refrain from reaching for her.

“You can’t protect me from him. You’re already five years too late.”

This time, she holds her ground again, staring up at me and daring me to contradict her.

She’s right. I can’t protect her from what’s already been done, but that doesn’t mean I can’t keep him from doing it again. To her or to someone else.

It also doesn't mean I can’t devise a way of paying him back what he’s owed.

My every muscle screams to touch her, a simple palm to her cheek, a short hug… something. Because what I truly want more than delivering karmic justice is to erase the damage that man has caused the only way I know how.

By showing her how worthy she really is.

A car door slams shut somewhere behind her, jarring us from our stare down. I step to the side to allow her entrance to her office.

She’s halfway to her desk when her steps falter and she freezes. I nearly collide with her. One arm braces around her shoulders as I slide to a stop.

A plain cardboard box is waiting on her desk. No postage or markings other than her name written on top.

19

SLOANE

My nerves are shot when I see my name printed on the top of a package with no other marks. It’s too early for mail delivery, and there’s nothing to show how it got here.

I step away from my new bodyguard and up to my desk to take a better look. But Sterling Elias Cole grabs my hands when they shake above it.

“Let me,” he says in my ear.

What is it about having this man at my back that shakes me up even further?

The generally encompassing warmth? How safe he makes me feel simply by being around? That he can somehow see through my bullshit and still wants to protect me from everything?

I retreat, moving around to the side of my desk to give him room.

Sterling pulls a knife from his belt and carefully cuts the box open. Under a layer of packing paper, there’s a bullet nestled at the bottom with my name carved into the jacket. The inside of the box reads,Let it go, in a black marker scrawl.

The words mirror the warning Caspian Vorn gave me.

A weak part of me takes heed of the warning. Maybe I should have just let it go. Dropped it. Then, all I would have to worry about is my stupid, overbearing ex and his empty threats to make my life even more miserable without him.

Only, his threats aren’t completely empty. And neither is this one.

The look Sterling gives me makes my blood boil, turning that fear into rage. I shake the mouse on my computer to wake it up, and it takes too long. My anger builds higher and higher with every passing second.

I print off the new manifest and storm back into the warehouse to find something, anything that will help us figure out who these guys are.

Sterling shadows me. Unlike Rhett and Jack, he doesn’t pretend to work through the shelves with me. He simply watches, staying near enough that I can feel his presence at every moment but far enough that he doesn’t get in my way.

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