Raw Redemption (Crossing the Line #4)(57)

Now her own life had come into the equation.

“What you were doing…I couldn’t let it be on my head,” Ailish said, thankful for the note of steel in her voice. Thankful for the shadow Henrik’s big body cast over her father’s desk as a reminder of his presence. “It wasn’t fair for you to put me in that position without my knowing the consequences.”

Caine appeared surprised she’d spoken up. Which was fair, considering the only stand she’d ever taken had been behind the scenes, in secret. Never to his face. After a pause, her father’s surprise turned into disgust once again. “That there? That’s another thing your mother never understood. You earn your keep in this house. No one gets a free ride. You had a gift with numbers, so I put it to good use. In return, you got all the shit I never had. Private school, food, a house.” He ran his tongue along the inside of his gums. “Good news is, you’re going to make it up starting now.”

Dread balled up in her stomach. “How?”

“I don’t have time to go through every line of chicken scratch you made over the last five years. I want to know whose debts I have to call in—and you’ve got two days to give them to me. Every last one.” Caine shot forward, pointing a finger at Henrik. “You. You obviously don’t take her shit. Maybe I should have taken a page out of your book while raising her, huh?” Her father didn’t wait for an answer. “You make sure she’s working. Getting me those names and figures. If you get a sense she’s slacking off, you have my permission to shake her until the information I need falls out of her pretty little head.”

...

Henrik saw everything through a filter of deep red. Ailish stormed down the hallway in front of him, putting on a show for her father, who watched from his office door, laughing at the display of spirit. Henrik could just about achieve an even gait, just about keep his fists from turning to stone at his sides. As they rounded the corner at the hallway’s end, Henrik turned and gave Caine a serious nod, letting him know Ailish wouldn’t get away with any nonsense on his watch. When he really wanted to charge the motherf*cker and put him down.

She looked so fragile, her blood-streaked sundress fluttering around her thighs in a breeze entering through the window up ahead. A window overlooking the pool. Tearing his gaze from the injured Ailish—which took a concentrated effort and a vow to fix her wound as soon as humanly possibly—Henrik took the opportunity to scan each room they passed. All available exits. Possible weak spots of Caine’s superior security system.

Ailish stopped at the final door lining the hallway, still not looking up at him. Good. She wasn’t taking any chances. Derek had no doubt impressed the importance of maintaining cover at all times, but that didn’t stop Henrik from wanting to throttle his captain. No matter what it took, Henrik would get her out of this situation alive. If he had the same luck—throttling notwithstanding—it would be his last mission with the squad. No one put Ailish in danger’s path and maintained his loyalty. He would complete the mission, but he would do it for her.

Henrik followed Ailish into her bedroom, holding up a finger when she opened her mouth to speak. His willpower was already maxed out, but throw her husky voice into the mix and he’d have her out of that dress before she knew what hit her. When Ailish nodded, Henrik began moving around the perimeter of the bedroom, relieved by its size. She might have been held captive inside her own home, but at least she’d had space to breathe. While discreetly checking for cameras on the ceiling, bookshelves, fire alarms, Henrik couldn’t help but register everything else. The pastel pink bedspread. Pictures on the nightstand of a young Ailish swimming in the backyard with a pretty woman, no doubt her mother. Everything in her closet had been thrown into a pile at the room’s center, probably left there after Caine had found Ailish’s hidden books.

Wordlessly, she picked up an armful of discarded clothes and disappeared into the closet. It took Henrik a few more minutes to ascertain the lack of cameras before he joined Ailish in the unlit closet where she stood on her toes, stowing a stack of clothes on the upper shelf. When his body blocked the muted light shining in from the bedroom, she turned. Waiting. Fingers picking at the hem of her bloody dress. Until that moment, he’d managed to keep the reality of their situation at bay, but now the fear streaked across his sky like jagged lightning—and he went for his girl. Went for her like a man who’d been robbed of sanity.

Just before he reached Ailish, he somehow remembered to hold a finger to his lips—quiet, baby—and attempted to sweep her up into a hug.

She dodged him. Feinted to the left to avoid his embrace. And his senses were immediately confused. His lungs were full of summer scent, but he couldn’t feel her. Couldn’t see his smiling Ailish in her closed-off expression. There was no mistaking the betrayal swimming in her hazel eyes. Or the fact that she’d withdrawn from him. “I had to cut you out.” His whisper felt harsh leaving his throat. “You don’t know how far I would go to keep you from being hurt.”

“Yes, I do.” She stepped back even farther, dislodging his heart. But there was awareness in her demeanor that hadn’t been there before. “I do know. I know…everything.”

The evidence. She knows about the evidence I destroyed. A multitude of reactions speared into Henrik at once. Relief that Ailish finally knew about his sacrifice. He no longer had to downplay his instantaneous devotion to her, to keeping her out of prison. A place she could never belong in a million damn years. But there was also royal f*cking rage. She’d been coerced into aiding him in the mission. “Derek shouldn’t have told you that.”