Page 44 of Witness Protection

“You should rest.”

“No, you need to apologize!”

He was not in the mood to humor her. And she was way too feisty right now. “Listen, princess, as far as I’m concerned, I paid back my debt in full.”

“You think you can repay me for killing my dad? We’re not talking about eating my slice of pizza here.”

“So why am I helping you if I can never repay you? No matter what I do, you’ll always hate me. Always blame me for taking your father’s life.”

The small trailer snapped with emotion. It was all coming out to air.

“Don’t forget Hawk. You left him for dead and ran off like a coward.”

He bolted forward, his hand to her throat. Something inside him stopped him from squeezing too hard. Cayden had killed men for so much less.

“This isn’t even my fight. I could have left you at the factory to get slaughtered by your father’s men. Or taken the bounty and fucked off. I’ve lost everything because of you. All because I can’t kill you.”

“Why not? You’re a killer, aren’t you?”

He turned around, massaging behind his neck. No way could he say the truth and expose his heart—she’d tear it to pieces. “I have a thing about killing little girls.”

“Bullshit, Cayden. If you haven’t noticed I’m not a child.”

Oh, he’d noticed. She had everything he could want—soft rounded hips, perky tits, and long legs. He may be over a decade older than she was, but he didn’t care about numbers as far as Sophia was concerned.

“What do you want me to say?”

“Tell me something real, Cayden. Something that won’t make me hate you more than I do right now.”

“Hawk’s alive.”

“You know that for a fact?”

“I don’t play games.”

She nodded. “Okay, that’s a start.”

“Let me see your arm.”

He hoisted her up to sit on the kitchen table, holding her arm out to examine it. “Just a graze. You’ll live.” He grabbed gauze and medical tape from his first aid kit and patched her up.

“What now?” she asked, her anger subsiding.

Cayden tidied up the kit. “I have frozen pizzas in the freezer and a stove.”

Her tension visibly faded, her shoulders slumping, her steam petering to nothing. She gave him a little smile. “Good answer.”

A lot was at stake. All the “what ifs” were like an elephant in the room they chose to ignore for their own sanity. Sometimes you had to survive day to day or even minute by minute. She didn’t ask more about Hawk, and he didn’t worry about their next move.

This was a minute by minute kind of day.

They ate in comfortable silence. Then she looked for the bathroom.

“Out of order, well the toilet anyway,” he said. “You’ll have to use the outhouse.”

“Outhouse? Are you being serious?”

“Too good for you?”

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