Page 72 of Lacey's Fight

Lacey was no coward. If she was in there and she didn’t want to talk to him she’d come out here and tell him, not hide away. He was the one who had been hiding from what was growing between them, hell, he’d spent the last three years hiding from anyone and anything that might force him to confront what had happened with Jemima.

But not Lacey.

She didn’t hide, she faced her fears head-on.

She was the bravest woman he’d ever met, and he knew with absolute certainty that if she was in there, she would have opened the door and either given him a chance to talk or told him to take a hike.

Pulling out his cell phone, he tried calling her. He had her number because they’d been working together and while he thought she might have blocked him the call went through, it just wasn’t answered.

Second-guessing himself only meant that if something was wrong he’d waste time. Time Lacey might not have if she was in trouble. If he was wrong, and she was fine, and just hiding out in her apartment—or one of her sisters’—and just not answering his calls then at least he’d know.

Pulling up another number he dialed it. The call was answered within the first two rings.

“Rabbit, what’s up?” Eagle asked. While he couldn’t say he knew the man well at all there was one thing he knew for certain. Eagle Oswald was always calm and in control. Focused. The man on the other end of the phone sounded distracted. Confirmation that something was going on.

“I can’t get in contact with Lacey,” he said bluntly.

A long pause grated on his already frayed nerves.

“Why do you want to talk to Lacey? I don’t make it a habit to get involved in the personal lives of my employees, what they do on their own time, or even on a mission so long as it doesn’t compromise the objective, is not my business. But those girls are special. They’ve been through enough. Lacey in particular thinks no one sees through her smiles, but I do. I know she’s hurting and won’t talk about it. I know about your past, about your wife, and while I’m so very sorry for your loss, I won’t allow anyone to hurt one of my girls.”

That Eagle was protective of Lacey and her sisters was more than obvious. Given that they had been rescued by Prey he likely felt a responsibility for them that went beyond what he felt for the men and women working on his other teams.

“I made a mistake,” he admitted. No one liked admitting when they were wrong, but everyone knew he was so pretending otherwise was futile. “One I came to rectify. I’ve … laid my demons to rest. I’m ready to stop living in the past and focus on the future. I know it won’t be easy, and I can’t promise I won’t hurt her again, but I can promise I’ll never walk away again.”

A vow he’d made when he walked out of the house he’d shared with his wife to go straight to a realtor to have it put on the market.

A vow he hadn’t made lightly.

A vow he intended to honor no matter what. No matter how his grief and guilt taunted him, urging him to give in to their darkness, let it consume him. He had his family back, his team back, although they’d been there physically all along they had been miles away emotionally. And he had an amazing woman who’d taken a chance on an angry, cold, hard man like himself.

“Lacey was supposed to have a phone consult with Prey’s temporary psychiatrist, but she never made the call,” Eagle told him. Although the retired SEAL hadn’t mentioned what happened in the hospital in England again, Ben assumed since he was handing over intel that Eagle had determined to give him a chance to make things right with Lacey.

“If she said she was going to make the call then she wouldn’t just back out.” Again, he was in awe of how brave Lacey was. Obviously, bad memories had been stirred up by the assault in England, and there she was handling things like a rockstar.

“She’s not answering her phone, even for her sisters and me, and there’s no way she would decline a call from any of us let alone all of us. If she’s not answering you either, then that’s further proof something’s wrong.”

“What are you doing about it?”

“She told her sisters she was going to go hang at the beach this morning. We pinged her phone’s location and it’s still there, but when Ivory and Roman went to check it out they couldn’t find any signs of her.”

If her cell phone was there then she had to be there.

At least he prayed she did.

Because the alternative wasn’t something he was able to acknowledge.

The alternative was that someone had taken her, not an easy thing to do. Even injured as she was Lacey was fit, strong, and smart, making a move on her would require a worthy opponent.

Ben hoped that opponent wasn’t The Master. That psychopath had already caused enough damage to Lacey and her sisters.

“Where are you?” Eagle asked.

“Standing outside Lacey’s apartment.”

“Pick the lock and wait for me inside, I’ll be there shortly.”

As Ben did as Eagle said, he sent a silent message to his girl.

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