Page 3 of Chase's Kind of Trouble
I’m not worried about the lightning flashing through the sky, if anything is going to spark, it’s going to be a bolt of energy that shoots out of my vibrating body.
I turn my face up to the rain, curse myself. “Fucking tell her, Chase.”
My fingers find the business card in my front pocket. The card is black, rectangular, and sturdy. No name on the front—just a burner email.
On the back is my private cell number written in my own handwriting. For her. It’s the one no one gets except for my inner circle. The three former SEALs I trust most in the world.
I’ve held this card for weeks. Thought about passing it to her a hundred times…no, a thousand times. Maybe more.
Don’t do it, Chase. Don’t drag her into your hell. Don’t stain her with your killing hands.
I clench my jaw and shove the card deeper into my pocket. Rack the nozzle and head to her window with my throat stinging and my jaw locked tight.
Two taps on the glass and I back away, soaked now, aching, with my heart skewered.
I’m doing the right thing. Staying in the shadows. Protecting her from a distance.
But my fingers are still curled tight around that card. I almost gave it to her.
I’m slipping. Getting too close.
And when I break, I will fall, and a man like me knows the harsh truth…I’m taking her with me.
TWO
Chase
Tonight is the first night I’ve been close to her since the gas station incident. One thousand four hundred sixteen hours, to be exact.
Two months since I almost crossed the imaginary line I’ve drawn, that she has no idea about.
She’s still too young. I’m still too…dark. Too unhinged. And definitely still too battled-hardened.
No, this beautiful woman is light and soft smiles, an even softer voice, and everything that I can’t let myself have.
I hunt people for a fucking living.
There’s no way her normal world can coexist with my gritty, tainted world.
But something is wrong tonight. She’s?—
Wait…
I hinge forward, spine snapping straight, vision honing like a falcon’s until only my beautiful obsession exists.
Are those tears in her eyes?
No. Fuck. NO. Someone as beautiful and sweet as my waitress shouldn’t be crying.
But she is.
Before I can drag another breath of curry-scented air through my constricted throat, there is only one singular focus in my world: her pain.
The rumble of voices surrounding our dining table fades. Nothing else exists but her distress.
My mission comes into crystalized clarity: destroy whatever upset her.
“Everything okay?” The SEAL sitting across the table from me asks, his gaze on pivot as he scans the small restaurant.
