Chapter 4 #2
Imagining the large man who could crush a human skull with his bare hands fawning all over a woman was pretty difficult.
Steel was always so tightly in control, he was Delta Team’s leader, and he took that responsibility seriously.
She was glad he’d found someone who saw past all that.
Hard to imagine or not, she was happy for the couple if they were happy.
One thing she’d always known about the men of Delta Team was that they were absolutely not the monsters they feared themselves to be.
It was why she had been so adamant about leaving, and staying away, when she learned of their plans to use someone to get their revenge.
Doing that made them monsters, because only monsters hurt completely innocent people.
Yet apparently, Rose had gotten over it. She wished she knew the woman’s secret.
How did you get over something like that?
How did you forgive people who had tortured you?
What kind of woman was Rose Gardner?
Since she wasn’t going to get answers to any of those questions, Cassandra let the curtain slip back into place as she stepped away from the window.
There was absolutely zero chance that she was going back to Delta Team’s Gothic mansion, so she wasn't going to meet Rose and get a chance to ask her questions.
Even though she had no intention of falling back into Dragon’s orbit, she couldn’t deny that she felt safe knowing he was right outside.
Just because she didn't think she was in any danger from the woman who had given her the warning, it didn't hurt to be extra safe in case someone else learned of her connection to the guys and decided to exploit it.
The stranger had had ample time to kill her if that was the goal, even though that would have been counterproductive since she wanted Cassandra to pass along a message, but that didn't mean this Dr. Garnder man would feel the same way.
Knowing she could potentially be in danger wasn't why she couldn’t sleep, though, why she was wandering her bedroom at two in the morning.
Nope, that was all Dragon.
Why couldn’t she make a clean break with her feelings the same way she could with her presence?
Distance had helped these last few months, but as soon as she saw him again, that pull that had first drawn her toward the man with the unusual eyes was tugging at her all over again.
It wasn't what she wanted, but part of the problem she’d been facing ever since she learned the truth about her conception and parentage was that she didn't know what she wanted anymore. How could you know what you wanted out of life when you were struggling to figure out who you were?
What she needed was time to herself, away from her family, to try to figure out all the tangled thoughts and emotions stuck inside her.
While overbearing at times, her family loved her and she loved them back.
How could she be selfish enough to disappear for a while when they’d finally shrugged out from under the burden of finding out the truth about their parents?
That had been the focus of all their lives for almost two decades.
Her brothers had shouldered most of it, and they deserved this time to finally be free and focus on themselves and their partners.
It would be selfish to go and make it all about her, which was why she tried so hard not to let any of them know how badly she was still struggling.
But it got lonely.
Isolating.
And the lonelier she got, the more isolated she felt, the more the darkness inside her grew.
It would be so nice to have someone who was just solely on her side. Someone she didn't have to worry about them feeling torn and having other priorities. Someone who could just be hers.
As she padded down the stairs, her gaze couldn’t not stray to her front door, thinking of the man sleeping in his car in the street outside her townhouse.
Dragon had come here because of her. To try to get more intel about the woman who had accosted her at the park, but what did that mean exactly? Had he just come because he was genuinely worried that Dr. Gardner posed some sort of threat to her?
If he really thought she was in danger, she didn't doubt he would have shoved a syringe in her arm, knocked her out with a sedative, shoved her on a plane, and taken her back to his home.
As much as she hated admitting it, Cassandra didn't hate that Dragon was outside. That he’d cared enough to come. He’d also explained about Rose, was it just to prove he and his team were right about what they'd done, or did he want to find a way to smooth things over between them?
Would a man like Dragon ever really care enough about anyone, though?
Not because he was incapable of caring about another like he believed himself to be, but because he was so tightly controlled that he was afraid to let anyone get close to him.
Only he had nothing to be afraid of with her.
Why hadn't he seen that?
Why couldn’t he have at least listened to her? Taken her seriously instead of just brushing her off like her opinion meant nothing?
Okay, so she wasn't part of Delta Team, but she knew those guys better than anyone else other than Eagle Oswald himself, surely that counted for something.
But it hadn't.
In the kitchen, she opened her fridge and grabbed some chicken. It was supposed to be for tonight’s dinner, but she felt like popcorn chicken, and she was awake anyway so why not make it now?
After all, a midnight snack could be anything you wanted.
Engrossed as she was in chopping up the chicken into little bite sized portions, it wasn't until she moved to the pantry to grab some seasonings that she felt it.
A brush of cold air against her skin.
With a gasp, she turned to find that her back door wasn't latched closed, it hung open just enough to let cold air in.
Enough to tell her that somebody was inside her home.
There wasn’t a single shred of doubt in her mind that she had closed and locked that door before going to bed. Dragon’s presence had shaken her up, and she hadn't wanted to not take a potential threat seriously enough to at least confirm she was locked in tight for the night.
But someone must have picked her lock.
It was the only explanation.
It wasn’t like her door could unlock and open itself.
If it was Dragon, he would have announced himself.
And he wouldn't have broken in anyway. He would have just knocked on her front door and demanded she open up if she ignored him.
If she persisted in ignoring him, he would have just gone ahead and broken her door down, there would have been no need for sneaking around, arrogant man that he was.
Fighting against whoever it was never even entered her mind. She wasn't going to risk it when this person—or possibly people—would be bigger and stronger than her. Sitting just outside, she already had the best defense anyone could ever ask for.
Snatching up the knife she’d just been using to cut the chicken from the kitchen counter, Cassandra darted for the front of the house. She didn't see the person hiding in the shadows until she felt the slight shift of air.
Even though she spun, lifted the knife she gripped tightly in her hand, it didn't stop the sharp sting of pain as the person who had broken into her home sliced her open with a knife of their own.