Total pages in book: 144
Estimated words: 133531 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 668(@200wpm)___ 534(@250wpm)___ 445(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 133531 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 668(@200wpm)___ 534(@250wpm)___ 445(@300wpm)
“I’m not leaving her unprotected, Javier. I did this to us. She’s alone because of me. Something or someone is after her. If I hadn’t betrayed her, she’d be safe with me right now.”
“I can agree with that, Gideon. But you tearing open that wound and bleeding to death isn’t going to save her life. Watch and listen, fine. Give me some time to figure this out. You know I’m going to help whether you give me the okay or not.”
Gideon glanced over his shoulder again, his piercing eyes ringed with silver, never a good sign. “She knows what you look like, Javier,” he repeated.
“She’ll never see me. And in case you’re wondering, I like her. I’m not just doing this for you. Whether Whitney programmed her or not, she’s a good person and she deserves better than she got.”
“She has no idea about her past. Whitney was very successful in erasing it. She isn’t a part of whatever plan he’s conceived.”
Javier nodded. “I’m very aware of that. Don’t send your spies, Gideon. Let me work on this. You keep watch yourself. She’s safe while she’s working. It’s been a couple of days. She’s staying with Lydia. Her friends are keeping close to her.”
“She gave her notice to her boss.”
“Yeah.”
“He was upset. Tried to talk her out of leaving. She was adamant that she has to go.” Gideon turned back to look at the bar. “When she goes, I have this really bad feeling I won’t be able to stop myself from following her.”
“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.” Javier glanced at his watch. “I’ve got to handle something. I’m going to keep an eye on her though. She’s not going to just be hanging out there alone. Don’t do anything stupid, Gideon.”
Javier made his way down the stairs and back out onto the street. Rhianna was draped in her usual sexy fashion against the wall outside Gideon’s home. She couldn’t help the way she looked, with her thick curly black hair and incredibly blue eyes. Every movement she made was enticing and sexy. Beside her was Ethan Meyers. He was Gideon’s friend, a very hard man to spot in the shadows.
“How is he?” Rhianna asked.
Javier knew Gideon better than any of the others in their close-knit family of GhostWalkers, and by the concern in Rhianna’s voice, she was aware of it.
“Not good. We’re going to lose him if we don’t find a way to fix this.”
They fell into step with him as he started toward the warehouse Mack and Kane called home. “Can you talk to her?” Ethan asked.
“I tried the night she walked out on Gideon. The thing is, he did betray her. He told her she was safe with him. Everything she told him was in confidence. If a woman said those things to me and then turned around and told all her friends everything I said to her, I wouldn’t forgive her. In fact, I’d probably slit her throat.”
“That isn’t good,” Ethan said.
“No, it’s not,” Javier said. “And he couldn’t tell her anything about himself or what we do. To make matters worse, she realized he told us for our sakes and not for hers. He was looking out for us, not her. It wasn’t like he was trying to save her from Whitney. He was trying to save us. So that betrayal went even deeper.”
Ethan swore under his breath. “How do we make this right?”
Javier glanced at Rhianna. She shook her head. “That kind of betrayal had to devastate her. If she found it hard to trust in the first place . . .” She trailed off.
“We all know what having trust issues is like,” Ethan said.
They stopped in front of the three-story warehouse that Jaimie, Mack’s wife, had found first and begun to renovate into a home for herself. When the others found her, Mack had moved in and never moved back out. Now the place was completely finished, with Kane Cannon; his wife, Rose; and their son, Sebastian, residing on the first floor. The second floor was where the GhostWalker team met and planned their missions. Jaimie and Javier had computers set up on another part of the same floor. The entire top floor was home to Mack and Jaimie.
The three made their way to the second floor, where the rest of their GhostWalker family was waiting for them.
“It’s bad,” Javier announced without preamble. “We’re going to lose him if we don’t do something. He’ll take matters into his own hands; in fact, he’s planning to do just that.”
Mack sighed. “I’ll talk to her.”
“What can you tell her that Gideon couldn’t? We’re classified. Until we know she isn’t a threat, you can’t tell her anything. You can’t say he told us to protect her, because she’s intelligent and she already figured out he told us because he was worried Whitney may have sent her after Sebastian. Or to harm us in some way.”