Page 37 of Witness Protection

“Was that acting?” she asked, almost too quiet to hear.

“What do you think?”

She swallowed and moved her hand onto her lap. “It felt real, but I know it couldn’t be real.”

“Are you a good judge of character?”

“Not when it comes to you.”

He took a section of her hair, now an odd caramel color as the dye began to wash away. Soon she’d be the blonde beauty once again, and he’d be a bad memory.

Like the box of cheap hair dye.

“Maybe it’s because there’s nothing inside me, nothing worth salvaging anyway. Be leery of men without hobbies.” He winked and let go of the strand of hair.

“People change. I can teach you how to draw.”

Damn she was fucking adorable. He began to regret kidnapping her in the first place.

“That’s your thing, sweetheart.” Cayden stood up and scrubbed his hands over his face. “Look, I’m not keeping you, okay. Friday morning I’ll drop you off downtown and you can call up your boyfriend to pick you up.”

Maybe in another life he could have had a woman like Sophia. But he’d done too much shit that kept him up at night.

“He’s not my boyfriend.”

“He’s ready to die for you.”

“Because he’s loyal to my father. Hawk has some twisted sense of duty and feels obligated to protect me. I’m not sure why he cares.”

Because Sophia was a light to their darkness. In only a few days, her appeal was obvious. Hawk must already be infected by her. Cayden needed to cut ties before his sickness was irreversible.

“That’s good. You’ll need a protector with the bounty on your head.”

She dropped backwards, her body briefly jostling until the mattress settled. She draped her forearm over her eyes. “I wish I could go far from here. Far from everywhere. Someplace no one could hurt me. I never asked for this life, but I’m going to pay for my father’s sins until I die. Which is soon, by the sounds of it.”

He wanted to tell her that if she was his, he’d never let anything happen to her. If she was his, he’d have a reason for living.

Cayden kept his mouth shut.

****

“I have her location,” said Hawk. He could hardly speak, his heart still racing from the new revelation.

“Where?” asked Vlad.

“Just outside the city. I’m getting my shit together and heading over.”

Three days had passed.

Three days not knowing if Sophia was alive or dead.

One of his guys found Cayden’s car by hacking a red-light camera, then traced the vehicle location. It was parked in the factory district less than an hour away.

Hawk was busy preparing his cache of weapons, and then he’d do what he did best and get Vasily’s daughter back. He wasn’t a praying man, but he asked God to make sure that bastard hadn’t put a hand on her. Whether he had or not, he still had to die. Cayden had killed Vasily, the only man he’d ever respected. Then he had the balls to take his only daughter.

He must want something if he took her alive rather than leaving a body for Hawk to find back at the hotel. They’d been right under his nose the entire time.

“Give me the address. I’ll meet you there. We can take him down together.”

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