Page 26 of Torment

“Then you need to keep focused on what’s important here. Your feelings, and whatever the fuck you’re carrying inside you, don’t matter. Keeping her safe does. And no matter what she says, or what happened between you two, she needs you. I can see that.” James grabbed Hunter’s collar and pulled him closer, his eyes shooting blades of warning. “So you pull your shit together. And if you ever hurt my daughter again like you did in my office, I will kill you before Riggs even gets the chance. Am I clear?”

Hunter stared right back at him. “Crystal.”

He let go of Hunter’s jacket and patted him on the chest. “Good.” He turned around, but paused halfway. “And take it easy on Riggs. He has his own demons he needs to deal with on a daily basis. Plus, you’re not the only one around here who cares for my daughter.”

Hunter stayed outside after James stepped back into the house. His head was fucking spinning with way too many revelations. How the fuck was he supposed to think clearly, to try to process everything that happened during the last twenty-four hours. It felt like his mind was about to explode.

He crouched down, folding his arms around his gut. Soldier boy packed a mean punch.

Although, maybe it wasn’t his gut. Could it be his heart causing the ache inside him? He closed his eyes, and this time he didn’t see Blue’s face. No. He saw Scarlet’s. Pain and heartache plastered all over her beautiful face. And the way she looked at him—he recognized that look. It was the same look he saw every time he stared at himself in the goddamn mirror.

Regret.

And it killed him. It killed him knowing that she probably regretted ever meeting him, trusting him with her body, and possibly even her heart. He betrayed that trust. He hurt her after he had promised he would protect her.

Hunter sat down on the ground, leaned back against the wheel of the car behind him, and hung his head down.

Now, losing Blue wasn’t the only regret he carried around. The realization that he had made the motherfucker of all mistakes was now another cesspool of fuck ups he could add to his shit bucket filled with regrets. But maybe, just maybe he could make this right again.

The promise he made Scarlet a few days ago, to keep her safe, was the one last thing he would do for her. Maybe it was his chance to finally be able to atone for at least one of his mistakes. He would go to the ends of the earth to keep that promise, even put up withColton Riggs’sass for an undetermined time. But once it was done, once Brent was dead and buried, securing Scarlet’s freedom from the nightmare she had been living, then he’d do the right thing—something he should have done the first night he met her.

He’d walk away.

Chapter 8

Scarlet stared at the plate in front of her. It was a choice between chicken and mashed potatoes, or chicken salad. She glanced at the plates of the men around her.Or both.

Just thinking about opening her mouth and trying to swallow the tiniest bit of food had her stomach churning.

Whiskey. That was what she needed—and a lot of it too.

“You need to eat.”

Scarlet glanced up at James. He was looking at her like she was glass, and the tiniest little nudge would cause her to crack. She hated it. She wasn’t a little porcelain doll that would break when handled a little roughly.

She pushed the plate away. “I’m really not hungry.”

“You need to keep your strength up.”

“I think it’s a little too late for you to start acting like a caring dad, don’t you?”

He stared at her for a breath longer, and then concentrated on the plate of food in front of him.

Riggs wasn’t eating either, and she caught him staring at her a few times too. Why would he attack Hunter? Why would he feel the need to beat the shit out of Hunter? And what did he whisper to Hunter before he stormed off?

So many questions, so little answers.

Hunter hadn’t returned yet. She figured he’d probably left by now. Made sense if he did. Ever since he got involved in her shit, his life had just gone from bad to worse. Scarlet was willing to bet that if someone had told him a few weeks ago his life was about to make a turn for the worse, he would have straight out laughed.

Fuck. She couldn’t sit there anymore. She needed to get up and do something before her mind took her to places she really didn’t want it to go.

“I don’t suppose this place has something like a gym?”

James wiped his mouth with a napkin. “As a matter of fact, we do. I’ll show you.”

He got up from his seat, and Scarlet rolled her eyes, not in the mood to spend even two minutes alone with him. He would probably want to use the chance tobondwith her. Fuck that.Bonding with your daughter time passed twenty-four years ago.

The chair screeched across the floor as she stood up. Riggs glanced at her from under his lashes, and again she wondered what his deal was.

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