Defending Morgan (Mountain Mercenaries #3)(24)

“I’ll call Rex first,” Black said. “He’ll connect with the others.”

“I’ll clean up this mess,” Ball offered as he began to collect the empty food containers and trash.

Arrow twisted so he was facing Morgan. His knee brushed against her, and he was grateful when she didn’t flinch. “If anything gets to be too much, you can take a break,” he told her.

“I’m fine,” Morgan replied immediately.

“Okay, but as long as you know this isn’t an interrogation,” Arrow insisted.

She took a deep breath, looked over at Nina, who was still out like a light, then back at him. “I know. I want to figure this out more than you do, Arrow. To tell you the truth, I’m scared to death to go home. I can’t help but think the person who did this is there waiting for me. He obviously never expected me to escape my captors, but now that I have, he’ll probably be even more determined to send me back. Without you and your friends, I know I won’t figure it out until it’s too late. So while I’m not all fired up to tell you about the mistakes I’ve made in my life and the stupid stuff I’ve done, I know I need to. I have to.”

“Morgan, I—”

“I wasn’t done,” she said, interrupting him. “Every day for the last year, I’ve wanted to give up. Wanted to find a way to kill myself so I wouldn’t have to deal with what I was going through. But then I realized that if I did, no one would ever know what had happened to me. My mom, my friends, Lane, and even my dad would always wonder. I didn’t want to put that kind of burden on them. So I did what I could to fight through the depression. I lived one day at a time. One hour at a time. Sometimes even one minute at a time.

“I know part of my feelings are because of the situation, but . . . I’ve never trusted anyone quite like I do you. If you think it’s best I don’t go back to Atlanta, I’ll actually be relieved, and I’ll go wherever you tell me to if it’ll keep me safe. You and your friends have all the expertise here. I’m willing to do whatever it takes to get to the bottom of this so I can get back to my life.”

Arrow had never been so impressed with anyone. He’d told her as much before, but every time she opened her mouth, he was that much more awestruck by her. He suspected he was falling head over heels already, but it was way too early to be muddying the waters with his feelings. “We’re going to figure this out so you can go wherever you want to go and do whatever you want to do.”

“Thank you.”

“You don’t ever have to thank me,” he told her, picking up her hand and kissing the palm before closing her fingers, as if helping her to hold on to the kiss. “You living your life is thanks enough. I’m so relieved you didn’t give up.”

“You ready?” Ball asked.

Arrow raised an eyebrow at Morgan.

She took a deep breath and didn’t look away from his gaze as she said, “I’m ready.”

“Morgan?” a disembodied, digitally altered voice asked from the super-fancy phone Ball put on the foot of the bed. He’d explained earlier that it was some sort of satellite phone that couldn’t be hacked.

“Yeah. I’m here.”

“I’m Rex. And first, I’d like to say how happy we are that we found you.”

“Thanks. But I’d venture a guess that I’m happier than you are,” Morgan said.

The sounds of several men chuckling came through the phone line and echoed around the hotel room.

“I’m Gray,” a deep voice said. “I apologize for me and the rest of the guys not being there with you right now.”

“It’s okay,” Morgan told him.

“I’m Ro,” a man with a British accent said. “Anything you need, all you have to do is ask and we’ll get it for you.”

“And I’m Meat,” another man said. “If it’s okay with you, I’ll be doing some searches as we talk. So if I ask seemingly random questions, bear with me. I’m trying to verify information that I’m pulling up on my computer as we talk.”

“I appreciate it,” Morgan told them. “But seriously, I’m not that interesting. I lived a really normal life. I don’t understand why anyone would want to do this to me.”

“Let us worry about that,” Rex told her. “Your job is to tell us everything, no matter how silly or inconsequential you think it is.”

Arrow hated how stressed Morgan looked but knew there wasn’t much he could do about it. They needed information. Information only she had. Until they had it, they were shooting in the dark. He slowly reached out and covered her hand, which was resting on her belly, with his own. Everything inside him melted when she visibly relaxed. He’d done that for her. He vowed to do whatever was necessary to make this easier on her.

“Tell us about the day you were taken,” Rex ordered.

“Jeez,” Morgan said under her breath. “I see we aren’t going to start out with something easy, huh?”

“It’s better to get the hard stuff over with,” Rex responded, obviously having heard her.

Morgan took a deep breath, then began to speak. “It was a normal night, at least I thought it was. I went out with a group of friends and we—”

“Who?” Meat asked. “And where?”