I had. I’d made a choice to commit a crime.
For him.
For nothing.
“Pack your things,” Burns ordered. “I’ll text you the address in Spokane where you need to be tomorrow. I’ve got a job for you.”
The goons, who’d been quiet all this time, opened the front door for Burns, and he strode out, taking the dagger with him. My dad set his hand on my shoulder and leaned in. “It’ll be like old times, Meggie. We’re going to have so much fun.”
I heard the door close behind him as I stood there.
What had I done?
I ran for the bathroom and threw up the coffee that had curdled in my stomach. I messed up. So badly.
What was I going to do?
I couldn’t arrest Burns. He hadn’t done anything wrong. Sure, he had a stolen dagger, but he had proof I took it. Had he even had a buyer for it?
Probably. The one thing that man wanted was money.
I sat on the tile floor, leaned against the side of my tub, knee bent. I set my head on it.
My dad had organized this whole thing. He wanted me back in the business, and he’d used my emotions against me. I’d hated him for so long, I should have told him no. I had, but I’d let my feelings, my love for him, sway me.
I was a doormat. An idiot. I couldn’t even love the right people.
Instantly, I thought of Hayes. Of loving him. Because while the sex the night before had been kinky and dirty as it had ever been between us, it had been intimate. I’d given myself to him. Opened up. Cried. Admitted I wanted to be with him.
Except that was never to be.
He’d spent the past week having sex with the good Megan. The law enforcement officer. The one who’d broken into someone’s house and robbed them because I cared about someone. I’d thought I was honorable, but I’d been wrong.
I’d ruined my life all on my own. I couldn’t go back to work. I’d go to jail. No question.
If my father allowed himself to get beat up as part of a ruse to play at my emotions and get me to commit a crime, there was no question he’d turn me in if it kept him free.
Burns wasn’t related and would do so in a heartbeat. He no doubt hated the police and seeing an officer take the fall for a crime? It’d make his day.
I had to go to work for him. At least until I could figure out how to bring them down. But then, would it be too late? Would I have committed enough crimes by then that I’d be complicit?
And Hayes?
God, Hayes.
I couldn’t pull him into this. He’d proven last night he was willing to corrupt his honor for me. He’d been on that roof!
He was good. His entire team was. They’d dedicated years of their lives to the service of the country. Willingly served knowing they might die. Now, they did security. Good things.
I couldn’t taint him.
I didn’t deserve Hayes, and he sure as hell was too good for me.
No. I had to go. To leave.
Now.
I pushed to my feet and saw myself in the mirror over the vanity.
“You’ve been alone before. You’ll be fine. You survived once. You can survive again.”
Except I hadn’t had Hayes before. He hadn’t spanked my ass and told me he was there for me. He hadn’t fucked me and told me I was his. He hadn’t held me as I cried.
I had to do the one thing to Hayes that had destroyed me when I was seventeen.
I had to walk away from him. Abandon him.
Unlike what my father did for me, it was for his own good.
Because Megan Hager was all bad.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-THREE
HAYES
She wasn’t home. The alarm was set, but she wasn’t inside.
The house was silent except for the hum of the fridge. She hadn’t answered my text about having dinner at Alpha Mountain because Mrs. L was making that pot roast she promised. She hadn’t answered the one I texted a few minutes ago.
Her car was gone. I went and opened her safe–watching her type in the numbers didn’t require SEAL training–and her gun was gone. So was the Viking dagger.
“Fuck,” I muttered.
It was supposed to be there until we met with Burns to get her father back.
Had she gone on her own?
“Son of a bitch.”
Of course, she had. Why would she change the way she did things–alone–after what we shared the night before?
Hadn’t I made myself fucking clear?
I pulled out my cell, dialed Kennedy.
“Yo.”
“Pull up the feed on Megan’s place. Work backward and see when she leaves.”
“Hooyah.”
I hear his fingers clacking on the keyboard. I paced her space, waiting to know what she’d done. A coffee cup was on the kitchen table. Her bed’s not made.
“Her car pulls out of the garage at three twenty-two.”