Forbidden (Blood Ties #7)

The smile that saidI won.

Goddamn her…GODDAMN HER!

I strode toward my office, slammed the card against the scanner, and pushed in. My hands shook with anger, my jaw was clenched tight as I rounded the desk and yanked out the chair. It had been her…it hadallbeenher. My knuckles ached from the tension as I unfurled them and grabbed the mouse.

Barely three clicks later and I had the video of the night the bombs had detonated on my screen. That night…thatfailure,was never far from me. It was stuck like a thorn in my fucking side, one that dug a little deeper every goddamn time I watched it. I stared at the black and white image of the corridor minutes before the explosion, watching the timer countdown.

I knew it all.

The silence. The emptiness.

Then the blur of the intruder, wearing a mask.

How many times had I stared at the thief, memorizing that dark, calculated stare the moment they’d seen the camera? A hundred? A thousand? I lifted my hand and pressed the button, playing it one more time.

The seconds counted. The hallway was empty, until it wasn’t. I slowed the playback, watching in slow motion as the gunman appeared, turning to fire their gun. That bullet alone had taken out one of my most trusted men…right before they turned and lifted their gaze.

Dark eyes found the camera a second before they were gone, tearing from the frame. I pressed the button, changing the camera’s view. Blinding white light exploded in the camera. I counted the seconds until there was nothing. Just emptiness…just a giantmotherfuckinghole, right where that section of the building had been.

It was almost instinct now, east camera 6 finding the intruder again. Only this time, they weren’t alone. Jack Castlemaine’s arms were wrapped across their shoulders as they led him out of the blown-out section of the building and through the forest to where a car was waiting.

I knew now.

It had been her.

I hit the controls, moved back again to the moment those dark, careful eyes had met the camera, and pressed pause, staring at them. They were the same eyes I’d seen the moment I’d punched the brakes and skidded my life out of control. Every glare she’d given me since that moment returned.

All her rage.

All her desire.

All her pain.

Those thick, raised scars on her side returned. Jagged and pink. Remnants from the explosion.

She’d played me.

That woman…she’d fucking played me.

My jaw popped with the strain.

My breath burned, trapped in my belly.

No.She’d playedus all.

Crack!

The mouse buckled in my clenched fist, one side now split. Only it wasn’t just rage that consumed me, was it?

I jerked my gaze back to those big brown eyes, and that vehement hunger roared inside me. I wanted her.No,I fuckingcravedher. I wanted to strangle her and fuck her, tear open her goddamn chest to capture her heart for my own weak fucking needs.

She’d made me feel dangerous.

More than I’d ever felt before.

“I bet that day haunts you.”

I swallowed the flinch, holding still…so fucking still I barely moved, until I slowly turned my head. That samebastardwho’d barged into me standing in Hale’s office now stood in mine—right at my back—and I hadn’t heard a thing.