Page 55 of Silver Secrets

She stopped, but before she could even give an answer, he closed the distance between them and gathered her up into his arms.

“I’m sorry, Sloane. So fucking sorry.” He apologized as he set her on the couch, crouching down in front of her and taking her right foot in his hand. “You have shards of glass in your skin. What happened?”

“I forgot. I dropped a glass in the kitchen earlier.”

“Christ. Don’t fucking move.”

She watched as he walked into her kitchen, wet a washcloth and stomped back into the living room.

“I’m going to get your feet cleaned up now. Is that okay?”

She nodded, afraid to hear how pathetically small her voice would be. She’d never seen Gage so gruff before.

And then his words slammed back into her mind. “Wait, you said an FBI Agent was here? Kimi’s here?”

Gage nodded.

“You have to know, she told me so many times that I wasn’t allowed to give away any details of my past. That it would put me in even more danger than I was in when I first got away. I’ve lived for over a decade as Sloane, and I don’t ever want to go back to who I was before. It’s too painful, Gage.”

“You still should have told me. After the accident, I poured all of my past out on the table for you to see. You should have told me then. You should have told me you were in danger!”

“I couldn’t!” she shouted. “I didn’t know… or I was holding out hope… I don’t know. I wanted to. I know how hard it was to share about Melody and Mikey with me. I know the price you paid for that. You can’t see that telling you, asking you to protect me, would have put me in more danger? That saying my old name… Sierra is dead, Gage. All anyone knows is that she didn’t survive being taken. And fourteen years ago, as hard as it was because I was truly ready to give up, I chose to go on living as Sloane.”

“If Agent Liu never came here, if she never contacted us and asked for our help, would you have told me?”

She didn’t even hesitate. “No.”

Gage’s eyes closed and Sloane held her breath. She wouldn’t blame him for walking out the door and never looking back. She would completely understand if he was done with her.

“Your feet need to be properly bandaged. There’s one cut I’m really worried about.”

“My feet are fine. I don’t even feel any pain right now.”

“I think we both know that’s because you’re in a state of shock. I’m going to carry you out to my truck and I’ll come back for your things after.”

“No. You don’t need to carry me. And besides?—”

Gage surprised her, abruptly standing up. He walked over to the suitcase, picking it up with his free hand. Before she could protest, the deadbolt was unlocked and Gage had the door open. Then he turned to her, with his hand held out.

“Fine. Let’s go back to Montgomery Defense and figure out what the next step is. If you say you can walk on your feet, then I trust that you can.”

“You don’t have to?—”

“Red. I’m telling you right now, I’m not leaving you here. I’m not letting Mae come out here to get you. I understand why you thought you had to handle this all on your own, but you don’t. I’m going to make sure everything is okay.”

“You said that already.”

His brows furrowed, but his hand stayed stretched towards her. “When?”

“That night in the woods. You told me you were going to keep me safe.”

“I meant it. Not just for that night. I see now that I need to do a better job of showing you that. So, what do you say? Are you finally ready to let us in?”

“I need to clean up the glass. God, there’s probably blood all over the house.”

Gage smiled. “I’ll send Hawk and Nash over to clean up.”

“You can’t ask them to do that.”

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