Chapter 2 #2
“Did you even wait a week after you left my bed before you hooked up with this clown? Or were you already with him while we were together?” I snarled.
I knew the latter wasn’t possible with the amount of time we spent together. But the first possibility made my gut clench, and I wanted to puke. Had I meant that little to her?
A roar told me her new man was coming at me again.
I assumed a defensive position. When he began throwing punches and even kicks, I deflected them and landed a few of my own.
I hated to admit it, but he wasn’t bad. In the background, Danae’s screams were muted.
I’d reassure her as soon as I got past this asshole.
Suddenly, there was no more screaming. The abruptness of the silence made Johann and me turn our heads at the same time to look at her.
What I saw made me drop my fists and then bound toward her, but that son of a bitch beat me to her.
He was the one to pick her crumpled body off the floor.
He carried Danae to the nearby sofa. I was on his heels.
He placed her tenderly on the sofa and hovered over her. I squeezed closer. He cast a threatening look my way, which I ignored. I went down on my knees. My hand reached out to touch her, but he slapped it away. I glared at him.
“Motherfucker, if you touch me again, I’ll stop holding back. You want me to tear your throat out, push me,” I warned.
“You don’t scare me. You may think you’re a badass, but I can hold my own. As for Danae, you have no right to touch her, to speak to her. You left her,” he spat out.
“It’s not what she thinks! I didn’t abandon her. I can explain it,” I protested.
He sneered, then looked back at her. His hands came up to cup hers.
A growl rumbled low in my chest. He ignored me.
I placed my hand on her cheek. Her skin was warm, but as I examined her, I saw she was paler than usual, and her face was thinner.
Underneath her eyes, the skin appeared sunken, almost bruised.
“Danni, wake up. Don’t do this right now. I have to keep an eye on this fucker,” he muttered. Hearing him call her by a nickname made me grit my teeth.
“Danae, open your eyes. You’re scaring me,” I added.
He rubbed her hands as I caressed her face.
It felt like it took hours for her to blink her beautiful hazel eyes open, but it was probably no more than a minute or two.
As she tried to focus, I saw confusion on her face.
First, she saw him and smiled. Then, when she caught sight of me, she frowned.
Her head shifted, moving away from my fingers.
“What happened?” she asked hoarsely.
“You passed out because of this fuckwad,” he told her.
“Fucktard, keep it up,” I warned with my tone.
“Heath, you shouldn’t be here. Please, leave,” she said shakily as she pushed herself up into a sitting position.
“You need something? You’re shaking,” Johann stated.
My woman hesitated, then nodded.
“I’m gonna get her something. You touch her, say anything she doesn’t like, or attempt to take her out of here, and I’ll kill you before you make it to the door,” Johann threatened.
“I’d never harm her.”
He snorted and rolled his eyes before he walked into the nearby kitchen.
When he turned his back to me, I saw it.
At the base of his spine, underneath his shirt, was a telltale bulge.
It wasn’t huge, but if you knew what to look for, it was easy to guess what it was.
He was carrying. Well, good, because so was I. Danae avoided eye contact.
“Baby, I know that you’re upset with me. I get it. And I can’t say sorry enough for what I’ve put you through, but I swear to you, there’s an explanation. I need you to hear me out,” I whispered.
When she met my gaze, the pain was clear to see in her eyes.
“The time for explanations was two months ago, before you walked out of your condo and never came back—no call, no text, just radio silence for months. I thought you’d been in an accident.
I was beside myself as I called every hospital in Hampton, checking if you had been brought in or if a man matching your description had. Zilch.”
She paused as if she couldn’t continue. She hugged her chest. Before I could respond, he was back again. He carried a small glass of orange juice and peanut butter crackers.
“Here you go,” he said, handing them to her before dropping onto the sofa at her feet. He lifted her legs and placed her feet on his lap. That casual, familiar move made my gut tighten. Jesus-fucking-Christ, she was so at ease with his touch.
“You can leave. You heard her. She’s not interested in hearing your pathetic excuses. There’s no good reason to drop out of sight for two goddamn months. If she meant anything to you, you wouldn’t have done that,” Johann snapped.
“There is when you do the work I do. I told her it was possible,” I defended myself.
“You told me you might have to leave suddenly without warning or go radio silent, but you’d contact me as soon as you could.
You never mentioned zero contact for months.
I’m sorry, but I don’t believe you. So if you’re bored and here to hook up until you find the next stupid woman, forget it. I’m not interested,” Danae spat out.
“Hey, forget him. You need to drink and eat. Your sugar is too low,” Johann warned.
“Since when do you have low blood sugar?” I asked. I was ignored. Danae took two sips of the juice and then nibbled on a cracker.
“A lot has changed while you were off doing whatever you were doing. I’m not letting you put her health at more risk than it already is. If you care for her as you claim, then leave. She doesn’t need the added stress,” Johann’s tone was filled with nothing but concern.
My heart jumped for a different reason. She was sick. That was what he was alluding to.
“What’s wrong? Should she be in the hospital?” I hurriedly asked, coming up on my feet, though I remained crouched next to her.
“I don’t need a hospital,” she said swiftly.
He didn’t say a word, just hiked up an eyebrow at her. It seemed that Danae was keeping something from me. Johann knew it and wasn’t exactly in agreement with her doing it. I saw the look he gave her and the shake of his head. She gave him a beseeching glance and nodded.
“I can sit here all night if that’s what it takes. You’re hiding something. And before you make more threats, go ahead, fucknut. Call the cops. I can promise you, my ass will be out on bail in no time, and I can have you behind bars or whatever before morning,” I growled.
The Dark Patriots didn’t arbitrarily cause trouble with regular citizens who hadn’t earned our type of retribution or justice, whatever you called it.
However, if there were a single skeleton in his closet, anything he wanted to remain hidden, a shady spot, they’d find it, and I wasn’t above exploiting it.
“You can try, but I’m not without friends and resources, too.
I know you told Danni that you supposedly work for a company that sometimes does government work.
Nice line. But the US government doesn’t just work with random entities.
You have to have hellacious connections, and everyone involved has to have top-secret-and-above clearance.
The money and time involved in making that happen for numerous people is astronomical, so why don’t you stop lying? ”
Now that I wasn’t so pissed off, the way he held himself, the knowledge his words revealed, made me take a minute to study him.
I scanned him up and down. He had the build of a man who worked out, but not just as a gym rat.
Physical labor had helped him. The steadiness of his gaze.
The way he hadn’t lost focus when we briefly fought.
And the moves he made all pointed to someone with professional training.
The kind you might get in the military. I ran with my hunch.
“So, which branch of the military were you with? Or currently with?”
He stared at me. His face remained impassive. I thought he wasn’t going to answer me, but after a few beats, he replied.
“I’m still on active duty. I’m out of Little Creek-Fort Story Joint Expeditionary Base in Norfolk,” he said without inflection.
I knew that base well. It was the merged Little Creek Naval Base and Fort Story Army Base.
It was the main base for the amphibious forces on the Atlantic coast. In fact, it was the biggest operating amphibious base in the entire world.
It was home port to twenty-seven ships, the last I heard, and thousands of personnel.
And even more importantly, in my book, the home of several Navy SEAL teams. Shit, was he a SEAL?
Or Army? For some reason, he didn’t strike me as Army.
And since he was in the military, the following words should clear up any confusion about who he was dealing with.
“Former Ranger of the 75th Ranger Regiment, Fort Benning, Georgia. And I believe that the Dark Patriots can do all those things you said were impossible when it comes to top-secret work and beyond. They are a civilian company that works with the US government.” I smirked.
His eyes rounded, and then he glanced from me to Danae, then back. “You were a goddamn Ranger? Danni, you never told me that,” he said.
“I didn’t know exactly what he was. He was rather closed-mouthed about that part of his past, just as he never told me the name of his employer.
I thought it was something he’d be comfortable telling me one day.
I know how you guys can be about things, but instead, I learned it kept me from tracking him.
I guess I was lucky he even let me know where he lived, not that it did me any good when he disappeared.
” The pain and anger were evident in her voice.