After the Storm (KGI #8)(106)

“She said that she couldn’t, that she wouldn’t involve me because it was too dangerous and she didn’t want anything to happen to me. When I asked her why she was leaving her brother and sister, she said that of the two, her stepfather or Donovan, whom would I prefer they be with? That she knew her stepfather would hurt them, but she didn’t believe for a moment that Donovan would do anything but love and protect them even if she wasn’t included in the picture. Damn it, Sean. She walked away because she thought Donovan was going to work a trade. Eve for the kids, and she was just collateral damage. She believes that with all her heart. And it breaks mine.”

This time Sean did pull her into his arms and hugged her gently. She could feel his breath against her hair and she closed her eyes, savoring the warmth—and comfort—of his body.

“This is going to destroy Donovan,” Sean said in a grim voice. “How long ago did she leave, Rusty? How much of a head start does she have?”

“I hit the alarm the minute she left. You got here in about five minutes, I’d say, so she hasn’t had that much of a head start.”

“Okay, then here’s what I want you to do. You get in touch with Donovan. Figure out how to tell him. I’ll put a BOLO out for your Jeep and Eve and get everyone I can on the case so we locate her as soon as possible.”

“Thanks, Sean,” she said softly.

His brow wrinkled in confusion as she pulled away.

“What for? For doing my job?”

She shook her head. “For not jumping to conclusions when you learned what Eve had done and for looking for her instead of swearing out a warrant for her arrest.”

His eyes narrowed. “Do you think so little of me, Rusty?”

She shook her head even more adamantly. “No. But you’re a cop, Sean. Your duty would be to arrest her for a crime that she did, in fact, commit. Kidnapping. Armed robbery. I’m sure there are a dozen other charges that I’m not even considering. Someone else wouldn’t have listened to me and they wouldn’t have just accepted what I said as fact. And they would have adhered to the letter of the law and arrested her as soon as she was located. You won’t do that. Not until you have all the facts.”

CHAPTER 35

“I don’t like it,” Donovan said grimly as he watched Walt Breckenridge drive away. He turned to his brothers, seeking their assessment. They didn’t look any happier than he was.

It had been too f**king easy. And Walt had worn this smug, superior smile and Donovan could swear the man was laughing at them all. Was he that arrogant or was Donovan not getting a huge missing piece of the puzzle?

“I need to get home. This worries me. I want to make damn sure that Eve and Cammie and Travis are safe. Eve wasn’t doing that well when I left her, and I’d hoped to bring her good news today so she wouldn’t have cause to worry, and now I don’t know what the hell to tell her.”

“We’ll get him,” Garrett vowed. “He’ll f**k up and we’ll nail his ass to the wall.”

“And until then we have to keep careful watch on Eve and her siblings because I don’t trust the bastard not to make a grab for them. He’s too arrogant. He’s far too self-assured. He thinks he’s untouchable. By us. The law. Anyone. And the ass**le probably does have at least a few policemen in his pocket. Up the chain, if I had to guess. It’s why Eve never got anywhere when she went to the police for help.”

“The entire situation sucks balls,” Joe said with a scowl.

None of his team looked as if they felt any different.

“He hates women,” Skylar observed.

The others turned to her in surprise.

“I wouldn’t say you were wrong, but what makes you say that?” Joe asked his teammate.

“It was pretty damn obvious,” Edge growled. “He was pissed that Skylar was here. That she held a position of power. And he didn’t like that she could kick his f**king ass if she chose to.”

A glimmer of a smile curved Skylar’s lips. “That about sums it up. He looked down his nose at me in this superior way and when I didn’t cow, it pissed him off. When he figured out that I wasn’t intimidated by him, it made him even angrier. He feels women are inferior. His wife. Eve. Likely Cammie as well, though he has a fixation with her that didn’t extend to his wife or Eve.”

“You sound like a shrink,” Nathan muttered.

Donovan smiled. Yeah, Nathan would have issues with psychoanalysis. There’d been plenty of people wanting to pick his mind apart when he’d returned home after months of captivity and torture.

“I was a psychology major,” Skylar said cheerfully. “Sam knows.”

Nathan glowered at his brother as if it were a betrayal for him to hire a woman for Nathan’s team who had a degree in psychology.

Sam chuckled. “I didn’t hire her because of her psychology degree. I hired her for her ability to kick some serious ass.”

“That she can,” Edge defended.

Skylar sent him a sharp glance that suggested she didn’t need him to defend her. The two had become close friends now that they roomed together. Donovan thought it was a prime example of the odd couple. Edge was a mountain of a man, muscled, tattooed, quiet, but like Swanny, when he spoke, others paid attention.

Skylar was his complete antithesis. Bright, cheerful. She had a sunshiny personality. If it weren’t for the fact that Donovan knew firsthand her ability to kick a man’s ass even if he was twice her size, he would have even called her perky. But somehow a woman who could take a man down in two seconds flat and have him begging for mercy didn’t qualify as perky.