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Raul was talking quietly to Declan as he restrained Fake Cop’s ankles. Nothing for her to do here. She walked into the bedroom to pack. For how long, she had no idea.
She packed as if she were going on a business trip for a week, plus a light non-work wardrobe. She looked around her room. She loved her room. She loved her whole house.
For the foreseeable future, her pretty little apartment was going to be off limits and she had no clue when she could come back. Or even if she could ever come back.
15
Raul clenched his teeth as he drove to Black Inc’s safe house, keeping back all the words he wanted to say, but wouldn’t. Everything about this situation made him angry with nowhere to put his anger.
He was mad at the world because Emma was going to be staying in San Francisco instead of Portland, where she’d be safe, he was mad at Toby for involving her in this, he was mad at whoever the fuckheads were who were doing whatever the fuck they were doing.
It enraged him.
He welcomed the rage because it hid what was lurking underneath – sheer terror.
He’d been in battle and knew how to push fear way down, so it didn’t affect him. His teammates, too, were unaffected by it. He knew they could handle fear. They’d been trained for it, had been taught how to deal with it. Had had fear pounded out of them, or at least knew how to ignore it.
So, nothing prepared him for the sheer terror he’d felt when that SSS fuckhead had grabbed Emma and screwed the muzzle of a gun against her temple so hard it broke the skin. Watched the blood trickle down her face.
Raul had had no idea how stable the man was. Whether this was a ploy to grab her or whether he got off on seeing brains splatter. His former commander had been one of those. He enjoyed planting bullets in human heads. Considered it almost an art form.
Raul had seen a lot of bullets plow their way through a lot of heads. What was left was pitiful. A human dropped where he stood like a puppet whose strings had been cut. What made them human – their brains – were reduced to gray matter mixed with blood and skull fragments, in a puzzle that could never be put back together again.
And that could happen to Emma.
The thought nearly brought him to his knees.
All SEALs knew that going into battle, they could lose teammates. Raul had lost two teammates – good, brave men who were mourned. But also men who knew the risks they were taking and had the tools and the training to fight back.
Not small, delicate Emma. Not beautiful, smart, lively Emma, who vibrated with life and intelligence. He’d been falling for her since he first set eyes on her, but right then, with a gun to her beautiful head, he realized he wasn’t falling, he’d fallen.
This was the one. He’d never felt like this before. Never been so fascinated, never been so attracted. Never felt so excited and relaxed at the same time. She was everything he wanted without knowing she existed. A miracle of smarts and humor and kindness. Easy to be with, fun to be with, but also serious and dependable.
It was like some giant algorithm in the sky, some celestial Tinder, had reached inside his head and pulled out the formula for the ideal woman.
Emma.
The thought that any second that miracle woman could drop dead at his feet, a pink mist clouding the air, drove all tactical and strategic thoughts from his head. He was reduced to jelly, sweat breaking out all over his body.
All he could think about, over the drumbeat of his heart, was Emma’s lifeless body lying boneless on the ground. All that liveliness, all that spirit and beauty – gone.
Gone before he could explore her – this fascinating woman who spoke languages but would not speak of her family.
He’d half planned it already in his head – Emma in Portland, reunited with her best friends, creating magic for the ASI operators. He’d already planned on introducing her to his abuela, who’d love her. True, the Martinez clan were a rowdy lot, but she didn’t seem like the kind of woman who scared easily.
All this was already in his head, when all of a sudden Emma had a gun at her temple, and the bottom dropped out of his world. The man holding her was an operator. His gun was rock steady. When he ordered Raul to drop his weapon or he’d pull the trigger and annihilate Emma, Raul didn’t know if he meant it or not. It was possible the man was bluffing. That he needed Emma alive. It was also possible he wasn’t bluffing and had orders to bring her or drop her.
When Raul tossed his gun, he was well aware that he was sacrificing himself. That it was almost impossible that he was going to walk away from this alive. But he had no choice.
It broke his heart to hear Emma wail with terror. To see her tremble in panic and fear. To hear her weep with fear.
Only – no tears. And her crying and shuddering had the effect of making her slippery. Slowing the fake cop’s progress toward the door. He was finding it hard to hold onto her.
And then – she winked! Raul’s heart soared when he saw that. She wasn’t panicking and out of control with fear. She had a plan. He had no idea what the plan was but he trusted Emma and whatever the plan was, he would do his damnedest to help.
It was a ploy. She hadn’t given up. He couldn’t either. So, while she trembled and writhed in fuckhead’s grasp, making it hard for him to hold her and keep the gun at her head, Raul had started pulling in air. Preparing himself for God knows what, but whatever it was, he was going to follow Emma’s lead.
He wasn’t expecting her to fucking run up a wall.
