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Forcing her eyes open, she fought past the bleariness of her sight and the headache building at the back of her head. When she tried to lift her hand to feel the tender area, she realized her hands were restrained. She’d been placed in a chair, and not a very comfortable one, with her wrists and ankles tied to the arms and legs.
When her sight finally cleared, she found herself in the warehouse she’d come to check out. And she wasn’t alone.
In the center of a walled-off partition of the warehouse stood three tall, lighted stations, with wires running from the ground. Standing in the center of them was a young woman. Blond hair pulled into a low ponytail, blue eyes, no more than five-four. She was dressed in jeans tucked into worn leather boots that went to her knees, a T-shirt, and a brown leather bomber jacket.
She stood still and silent, unblinking and without expression. And staring straight at Poppy.
“Hello?” Poppy called out tentatively.
Something flickered in the young woman’s eyes.
“Are you okay?” Poppy asked with concern, looking around again, trying to figure out exactly what was going on.
“She can’t hear you, and wouldn’t speak to you even if she could.”
Poppy’s head swung around, and she watched in shock as Saige walked into the room.
“Saige? Saige, hurry, untie me.” Poppy tugged at her bonds, even as she felt the dark, oily shadow of knowledge slipping through her consciousness. “Saige?”
Saige’s lips turned down a bit in false regret as she walked toward Poppy. Dressed in a snug, short black skirt and short-sleeved blue blouse with the high heels she preferred, Saige was as pretty as ever, but this wasn’t the woman Poppy knew as her friend.
“You should have kept your nose out of this,” Saige sighed, coming closer. “I never expected to lose track of that box of papers, though. I warned Caine about hiring anyone new right now.”
Poppy fought her tears, her grief.
“I love you like a sister, Saige,” she whispered. “I’m closer to you than to my sisters.”
Saige gave a patently false little moue of sadness. “And I encouraged that after you returned from college,” she admitted. “But, we all changed during those years we were apart, don’t you agree? Erika lost her ambitions, Lilith lost herself, Sasha thought it was okay to sleep with my brother and hide it from all of us, and you…” Saige tilted her head and watched Poppy curiously. “And you…” She clucked her tongue sadly. “You came home and thought you could be indispensable to the company. Then fell in love with a traitor.”
“Jack isn’t a traitor,” Poppy snapped angrily, pulling at her bonds again. “He retired…”
Sarah laughed at that. “This is true,” she agreed. “I didn’t mean he was a traitor to the Navy, sweetie. But he betrayed you.”
The door to the room opened again and Jack stepped inside, his gaze flickering from Poppy to the mute woman.
“So, what’s the plan, boss?” he drawled, looking down at Saige.
Poppy couldn’t speak.
She stared at Jack, dressed as though for war, weapons strapped across his body, his expression so cold and merciless it was like a dagger in her soul.
“No. Jack…” she whispered, the words passing through her lips as she felt that first tear track down her cheek.
“The plan is, when she awakens”—Saige nodded to the woman standing in the middle of the room, obviously awake—“you’re her protection once she leaves. She’ll give you her plan then. I’ll take care of Poppy, but you’ll have to find yourself another bed buddy once I do.”
His icy gray gaze flicked back to Poppy, then away, as though he didn’t give a damn what happened to her.
What the hell was going on here?
“Jack,” she whispered again, but when he turned his gaze to her, she didn’t say another word.
The stormy gray orbs were filled with fury, but at her or at Saige, she didn’t know.
“You’re mine, Poppy. Remember that. Mine.” The vow he’d made her the night before whispered through her mind.
“Those were monsters. A man doesn’t feel guilty for taking out the monsters of the world. It’s a woman’s job to regret the need for it, maybe. But it’s my job to do it.” He’d told her that a week ago, when he’d told her he’d kill anyone who tried to hurt her.
“Poppy, I could bathe in the blood of anyone that dared to try to hurt you and step out of it feeling good about myself and what I’d done…”
