Page 53 of Witness Protection

The man holding her chuckled. “It wasn’t easy, that’s for damn sure. There were seventeen stolen cars within thirty clicks of the factory the day you took her. Some were older models with no GPS, others were dead leads or already stripped. Then I traced the last known location of this one.” He nodded to the car they’d driven here in almost a week earlier. “And here I am. Patience pays off.”

“You alone?”

“Don’t try anything funny,” said the man.

“I just want the girl.”

He laughed. “I don’t plan to split the bounty, if that’s what you’re thinking. Not with you or anyone else.”

“Last chance. Let her go.”

“Fuck you.”

Sophia screamed when Cayden’s gun fired, deafening in the natural calm. A bullet hit the man in the leg, his weight dipping, and then she felt the spray of blood as a head shot took him out. She stood rooted in place, the body sprawled out beside her on the ground.

So much blood.

Her trigger.

Her voice stopped working, and she began to shake.

Cayden carried her inside the trailer, her mind a blur. He took her into the small bathroom with the broken toilet. He kept cursing under his breath as he turned on the shower.

She felt like a rag doll as he stripped her completely naked and helped her under the water. Sophia looked down as the blood swirled down the drain. She was too dazed to focus.

“Sophia!”

He jostled her, and she looked him in the eyes, reality slowly seeping back in. It was the story of her life. She’d go into shutdown, her survival mechanism to spare herself the horrors. Without Hawk. Without Cayden. She would be lost.

“Am I shot?”

“You’re fine. And clean.” He wrapped a towel around her as she stepped out of the shower. “Get dressed. We have to leave here now. I’m not waiting until tomorrow.”

“Where will we go?”

“I’ve tracked Hawk’s car. It’s time for you to go home.”

She didn’t have a home. Not anymore. Home was a feeling. She wanted Hawk and Cayden. Both pushed her away, supposedly for her own good.

It was an impossible dream to hope she could have both men.

Which meant she’d never be happy. Imagining life without Hawk, her rock, was indigestible. But she’d fallen in love with Cayden, despite what he’d done. She couldn’t stomach the thought of never seeing him again.

Maybe it would have been better to have gotten caught in the crossfire.

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