Page 68 of Radar

The tracker was on the right road and nearly to the airport.

Xander didn’t, in fact, know if Elyssa was in the car with the tracker. Someone could have gotten hold of her, and it was only the tracker that headed in the right direction.

Until Xander got eyes on, he wouldn’t trust that Elyssa was safe.

He was flying down the highway when Finley called back. Xander tapped the call on speaker.

“Finley here. She gave you the right number.”

“Did she do an advance check-in with her flight?”

“Affirmative. I know you’re in the thick of it. I called our team, and they know everything you said to me.”

“Good,” Xander replied. “I’ll call in when I have an update. Out.”

Such a shitty twist.

There had been a connection between them. It was sublime. And then the revelation.

If the world didn’t implode and Elyssa wasn’t part of that effort, he hoped …

This wasn’t the time for hope.

It was such a mindbender to think that something was actively brewing and ready to explode, a seismic shift that would shake the world into a new configuration.

Until it happened, it was all academic, all theory, all potential.

Xander’s brain wanted him to think that he would wake up tomorrow, and the month after, and a year from now in the world as he knew it today. That he could live in a world where he met the woman who sparked his excitement, and they could learn about each other and grow their relationship with an eye toward the future.

Last night, when Elyssa was in his arms, he thought this was the first time that he’d been with a woman who wasn’t just looking for a conversation and a stress-relieving roll in the sheets.

By design, he reminded himself.

Elyssa was the kind of woman who made him think about last calls, about hoping for ways to make things easier for her. He found himself thinking about how much he wanted the callwhere her car had broken down, and she needed him. He’d roar into the parking lot like some kind of suburban knight on a black steed.

The box was too heavy, and she needed him.

She had a bad day and needed him.

This was whatthatfelt like.

It was a power that radiated from his core.

It always seemed cockamamie when he heard people on deployment lament that they weren’t home to be the sword and the shield for their family. But he got it now.

For the first time, on an intimate level, Xander wanted someone to turn to him to ease their life. And their relief would be the reward.

How much did it suck that she was from the enemy camp?

Xander would take the blows from Bratislavan street thugs over these feelings any day.

Elyssa haunted him the entire ride.

What the hell had he done?

What in thehellhad he done?

Chapter Twenty-Four