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Knowing that and actually doing it were two different things though, and my heart hurt for all of the potential I was walking away from.
I was nearly to the bank of elevators, walking past the laundry room, when, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed someone laid out on the floor. I turned and yanked the door open—Gabe was on the ground with a sizable gash on his forehead, like he had been struck by something heavy and blunt. The laundry room looked like someone had taken a baseball bat to it…and I realized the bat was likely the unconscious man at my feet, fighting like hell against whoever had taken him down.
“Gabe!” I rushed to his side, careful not to touch him. “Gabe, can you open your eyes for me? Gabe?”
He needed help. Head wounds bled a lot, I knew, but there was a good puddle around him, and whoever had hit him hadn’t stuck around. Which meant that the person was still lurking. “I’ll be right back, all right?” I said, even if he couldn’t quite hear me. “Don’t worry, I’m going to get you some help.”
I stood and hightailed it back to the hallway, intent on sprinting back to the room and bringing back reinforcements, but the second I turned back, hands grabbed me. Whoever it was held on so tightly that I knew I’d be bruised. I tried to scream, but a meaty palm smacked over my lips, nearly blocking my nose in the process—I was barely able to breathe.
“It’s nice to see you again, bitch,” a voice murmured in my ear.
Oh shit. I thrashed in the goon’s grasp, kicking back wildly, trying to get purchase and deal some blows at the same time. “Adrian!” I tried to scream around the palm over my face.
As punishment, he cut my airway off completely and let me struggle until I saw black spots dancing in front of my eyes. Only when I stopped fighting did he let up enough to allow me to breathe. “Let’s go for a ride, huh?” he said. “Boss wants to meet you.”
TWENTY
ADRIAN
“She’s not entirely wrong,” Zach said haltingly, anticipating the look of betrayal I gave him in response. “Look, look, if we do what you want—” He gestured to me, and by extension, Drake, Owen, and Nate who were on the phone. “There’s a good chance he gets a slap on the wrist.”
“You can’t be fucking serious,” I snarled.
Zach and Gabe had split up for their loop, and he had been the first one back. Thus, he’d gotten to witness my embarrassing rant to Drake, Owen, and Nate, who were wisely just lending me an ear without saying anything. “I’m not saying she’s completely right,” Zach said.
“Then what are you saying?”
“Ease down, Adrian,” Drake barked over Zoom. “We’re all teammates here, right? We trust one another to be honest.”
Drake wasn’t wrong, and his tone reminded me why he was chosen as my replacement after I retired from the SEALs. He talked like a leader. Ugh. I hated that feeling of pride and exasperation beneath the anger still simmering away in my gut. “Thanks for keeping me in check, Shep,” I muttered.
“Any time, man. Now, Zach, what are you trying to say?”
“Nat’s biggest concern is that Ian Hayes will find a way to slip out of this—or he’ll face some consequences, but his company will keep doing what it’s doing.”
“Nat?” Nate asked over the phone. “You gave that woman a nickname, dude? Do we need to call and tell Marissa about that?”
Zach flushed. “Shut the hell up,” he muttered. “Gabe is the one who gave it to her, and I’ve been using it because it chaps Adrian’s ass.”
Drake smirked. “Nat it is then.”
Hearing them joke about her was like driving a red-hot poker into my face. “Can we stop talking about Nataliya?” I snapped. “Please?”
I heard one of the men on the phone say, “Oh shit, dude.” Drake and Nate were, no doubt, texting each other while the whole fight was happening. “That seemed…personal,” Owen pointed out.
“Called it,” said Nate.
“Fuck off, all of you.” I rubbed the heel of my hand into my eye; it was the only way to stem the growing headache. “There’s nothing going on between me and her.”
Especially not now, after she walked out on me. She hadn’t actually said she was done with me, but I knew how to read body language. She was as withdrawn from me as she could possibly be while still standing in the same room—and then she’d fled from the room as fast as she could. It really couldn’t be clearer she wanted nothing to do with me anymore.
I tried to tell myself that I was fine with it. Parting ways now, before anything deeper had taken root, was the way to go. This niggling disappointment would eventually go away, and I’d forget all about her.
Yeah, right, I thought. Shit, I wasn’t even good at lying to myself. How would I ever convince anyone else?
Fake it till you make it, right?
“If you let her go,” Zach said, “you’re a bigger idiot than we thought. The fact that you don’t even want to consider her point of view is already bad enough.”
