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“Mind cluing me in?”
I hear the urgency in his voice as he ignores me, and half-yells at the driver, “Turn left! Turn left!”
“Justin, what the hell is going on?”
“Sorry, I’m a little preoccupied at the moment. We had a spray of bullets, some mass confusion, and now it appears we’re chasing them down in a truck.” His voice is wrought with tension and stress.
“What?”
“Look, Nick, I have to hang up. I’ll call you back in a few.” The phone disconnects, and I sit here stunned for a second, not believing he actually hung up on me.
The anxiety grows thick in my chest, as the chase has yet to end. I stand up and stretch, needing to rid my body of this nervous tension. I’ve been at this damn computer all morning, watching my monitor and tracking Julianna’s whereabouts. Things were going pretty smoothly up until five minutes ago, and then it looked as if all hell broke loose.
Since my nerves are damn near shot, I decide I need a break to stretch my legs and let my men handle this. I take a walk down the different hallways of the facility, stretching my tension-filled legs while trying to clear my mind.
I have to let these men do the job I’ve hired them to do, but a large part of me can’t help but think I need to be there physically. The team here at the facility felt it was too dangerous for me to step into the line of fire, and the program has already suffered from Travis leaving us. The bastard.
Travis’ words echo in my mind. You know, a real man would’ve come after his woman, but instead, you sent a team of dysfunctional dumbasses. What does that say about you, Nick? I clench my fists with the need to punch something. I’m used to being the one in the fray of chaos, controlling and dictating orders. I pray to God this group of men is sufficient for the task at hand.
Just as I round a corner, I hear a scuffle behind one of the doors. I pause in front of the door to listen. It’s room five. Shouting ensues, and my forehead wrinkles with growing curiosity. I hear another struggle, and I figure whatever is going on, it isn’t good. I wave my hand over the sensor, and the door clicks open.
One of my new men is struggling to contain my female captive, Tara, the one who had it out for Julianna since the beginning. “That’s enough,” I sharply bellow. Both of them stop in their tracks and look at me in surprise and a little fear.
“I can explain,” he says, breathing heavy with exertion.
I raise my brows at the new trainer. “I just bet you can.” He doesn’t need to explain. Since Travis has been gone, we lack having someone with his charisma. I thought his job was a cakewalk until he left. I couldn’t believe all the shit he handled while keeping the peace.
I turn to Tara and eye her up and down, taking note of her disheveled appearance. “You can leave us,” I tell the new trainer, not even bothering to remember his name.
He quickly leaves without a word, and not sure of what my mood is, Tara cautiously steps forward. “It feels as if I haven’t seen or had you in weeks,” she purrs with a pouty lower lip as she runs her long, manicured fingernail down the front of my chest. “I’ve missed you, Nick.” I suppose she thinks the look is sexy on her, and maybe at one time I thought it was cute, but it’s not any longer. I stop her hand from traveling farther south by grabbing tightly onto her wrist.
“Don’t.” I clench my jaw, feeling somewhat disgusted by her touch.
“Why? I don’t understand,” she asks confused, and if I’m not mistaken, she looks a little hurt. I used to get hard at the thought of tying her up. Now…now, the thought repulses me. Looking at her now, I don’t know what I ever saw in her to begin with, with any of these women, for that matter, other than they might have filled a void for a time until I could have Julianna.
“It’s her, isn’t it?” she asks in a snarly tone. “I’ve been yours for the better part of a year, and this…this is how you treat me?” She yanks her hand away from my hold and backs up a step, shaking her head in disbelief. “We have something, Nick,” she then pleads.
“No, we never had anything. It was never permanent. You knew this. You’ve been promised to Rick Meyers after I’m done with you.”
“You don’t mean that,” she softly whispers. “You can’t let me go…you just can’t.”
“Sometimes, when we want something we don’t have, it isn’t everything we imagined it to be once we get it, but that wasn’t the case with Jules. She is everything and more, and now that I’ve had a taste of her, there is no comparison, and I’m hungry for more.”
