Forged in Desire (The Protectors #1)(43)

Margo doubted that she would ever forget that day. “I freaked out, nearly hit a post and jumped a curb before bringing my car to a stop and rushing out. Luckily there hadn’t been much traffic on the road. I don’t want to think about what could have happened if there was.”

“How did you find out who was behind it?” She could tell Striker was trying to hold back his anger.

“My college roommate, Sharon, whose wedding gown I made, is married to an FBI agent. As a favor, Walter checked out a few things after the local police claimed they had more serious crimes to investigate. It was easy enough to trace who’d recently purchased that many snakes. When Walter paid Freddie Siskin a visit, he confessed. Said he was a college friend of Scott’s and was doing him a favor by scaring me. Scott claimed he hadn’t known about the snakes, and that all Freddie was supposed to do was make those phone calls.”

“You knew Siskin?”

“No, never met him. I still haven’t met him. I let Walter and my attorney handle everything. I had no desire to see a man who could be so despicable.”

“And you didn’t press charges?” Striker’s tone was furious.

“No. Scott agreed to pay for the damage to my car. Since there were no injuries, I didn’t get the police involved. I just wanted Scott out of my life. He wanted to make it up to me, but I refused to let him. Then I decided it was time to move home, which I had been thinking of doing anyway.”

Striker was quiet for a minute, and then he said, “I hope I never get the chance to meet Scott Dylan.”

Even with the dim light shining through the window, she could see the tightness of his jaw. “Why?”

His dark eyes stared at her. “Because if I ever do, I plan to pulverize his ass.”

“I told you I handled it.”

“And just how did you handle it, Margo?” he asked in a voice she could tell had reached its boiling point. “You just said you didn’t press charges.”

“No—instead both Scott and Freddie Siskin agreed to give a specified amount to my favorite charity.”

“And what charity is that?”

“The Foster Child Foundation. When I lost both my parents I was lucky to have Uncle Frazier. Other kids aren’t that fortunate. This particular foundation provides college scholarships for kids in foster care.”

“How much did they have to pay up?”

“One hundred thousand dollars each. And they had only thirty days to get the funds together. It was either that or acquire records as felons.”

As far as Striker was concerned, she still had let them off too damn easy. What man would do something like that to a woman he claimed to care about? Like he told her, he hoped his path never crossed with Dylan’s. He’d meant what he’d said about what he would do. And the crazy thing of it was that the man expected her to take him back after all that bullshit. How would Dylan handle it if he ever found out Margo was loaded and hadn’t really needed his six-figure salary anyway?

Margo shifted on the sofa, and Striker’s gaze moved over her. She was now sitting cross-legged on the love seat. “How much longer do we have to just sit here?” she asked.

He glanced at his watch. It was close to two in the morning. They’d been sitting down here for almost an hour now. “It shouldn’t be too much longer. They want to see if that same car drives by again.”

“Is that what assassins do? Scope out where the person lives before making a hit?”

“I wouldn’t know.” He was lying because in a way he did know. While in the slammer, one of his fellow inmates had been an assassin for a drug lord. The man claimed his method of elimination was dependent on the target. Of course, Striker wouldn’t tell Margo that. She had enough to be stressed out about already. Although he agreed they needed to take precautionary measures, he was hoping the car was a false alarm.

At that moment his cell phone went off. It was Stonewall. “Yes, Stonewall?”

“It’s been an hour and nothing has happened. Go on to bed and we’ll continue to keep an eye on things over the monitors here. If anything develops, we’ll let you know.”

“Okay.” He then clicked off the line.

“Did Stonewall say we can go to bed now?”

Why did she have to make it sound as if they were sharing a bed and not sleeping in separate rooms? “Yes.”

“Good.”

He moved across the room to turn on the lights and then glanced back over at Margo. She had eased from the sofa and was stretching her body again. He stood there, almost spellbound, and watched her. He couldn’t breathe. Could barely swallow. At that moment he almost forgot his name. He couldn’t help it and was all but shivering at the sensations racing through him. Evidently she didn’t know how good she looked stretching her limbs like that or she wouldn’t be calling attention to herself. Or maybe she did know and was being coy about it.

Striker dismissed that notion immediately. The one thing he did know about Margo was that she didn’t have a coy bone in her body. A few nosy ones and a couple of flippant ones that went along with that luscious mouth, but there was nothing coy about her.

His nostrils flared when he picked up her scent, the same one he’d been inhaling all day. How could she still smell so good at this hour?

“I thought we had to keep the lights out.”