Page 83 of Covert Temptation

She trusted you. Even when she should have hated you, she gave you trust.

She gave you her goddamn heart.

You kissed her. Held her. Promised without words to protect her.

Fell in love with her.

Now she was out there alone.

There was no doubt in Dante’s mind who was behind this.

Cipher.

The bastard didn’t need to leave a calling card. The method alone screamed his name—clean entry, no trace of the intruder, and that photo of her dancing was psychological warfare at its finest.

He hadn’t come for information. He hadn’t come to kill. He’d come totake, to pull Kennedy out of the safe haven Dantehad built around her, and dangle her like bait. This wasn’t just about control.

It was personal. Dante had gotten too close to finding out his identity, and Cipher knew it. So he reached in and stole the one person Dante couldn’t bear to lose.

Dante’s knuckles whitened around the steering wheel as he tore down the snow-slicked back roads, his pulse a war drum in his ears.

Rage and panic warred inside him. Each breath he took was another blaze of torment. God, he could still smell her skin and feel her arms around his shoulders.

He could feel the press of her lips when she said she was falling for him. She’d let him in—and he hadn’t been there to stop them from taking her. He’d been too wrapped up in his own demons to see the play happening right in front of him. Now the woman who had started to bring light into his fucked-up world was gone.

But not for long. He wouldn’t let her be another of Cipher’s casualties. He didn’t care if the barn was booby-trapped, crawling with mercs or rigged to blow. He was going in.

And he wasn’t coming out without Kennedy.

If Cipher wanted to test his limits,fine.Let him. Dante had been built for war, goddammit. He’d been raised in chaos and trained to end things before they could ruin the world. Before they could destroy things, the way his childhood had been destroyed.

He just never imagined the most important mission of his career would involve saving the woman he loved.

He clenched his jaw with the determination of the SEAL he was trained to be.

Dante would get her back…or he’d die trying.

* * * * *

She’d stopped crying hours ago. At least it felt like hours had passed since her kidnapper forced her into the SUV and brought her here.

The barn’s only windows were coated in oil and grime, letting in bluish beams of light that did little to illuminate the space. Not that she wanted to see his face.

A single bulb swinging from the ceiling buzzed intermittently, like it could short out at any second. Somewhere above came the light tap of icy rain on the metal roof in sharp patters. The air smelled like old hay, rusted farm equipment and gasoline.

Kennedy sat on the knotty wood floor that was grayed with age and dry enough to go up in flames at the drop of a match. Just as she thought that, the man watching her without pause shook a cigarette out of a crumpled pack. He stuck it in the corner of his mouth and flicked a lighter. Not once did his stare leave her.

She didn’t meet his eyes directly but saw him bring the orange flame to the mashed tip of the cigarette. Smoke curled around his head and filled her nostrils.

Disgust rolling through her, she darted a look around, wondering where the odor of gasoline was coming from and hoping they didn’t go up in a blaze.

Kennedy pulled her knees to her chest. The soles of her boots did nothing to stop the cold of the floor from seeping into her feet. Her hands were already frozen from the cold barn and the lack of blood flow from being zip-tied in front of her.

It could be worse. That was what she kept telling herself.

But “worse” felt like it was coming.

The man’s eyes were flat and unreadable. He sat on an overturned bucket across the barn, lazily pulling nails out of anold coffee can and flicking them one by one at the opposite wall.Ping. Ping. Ping.

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