Page 3 of Rescuing Micah (Prey Security: Cyber Team #3)

Teresa let out a shaky sigh as she sank against the doors of the elevator the second they closed.

Of all the people in the world, she had to run into Micah Hart in the lobby of her workplace.

What the heck was he doing there?

And why did she have to run into him for the first time in twelve years after she’d just been through another trauma?

Granted, this one wasn't nearly as horrific as what had happened to her when she was seventeen, but nonetheless, walking into her home and finding it trashed was definitely violating. After calling her boss, Raven Oswald, head of the Cyber Team and the second-oldest of the six Oswald siblings who owned the company, she’d called the cops.

When they arrived, she went up with them to her place, they cleared it, found it was empty, and took her statement.

A crime scene unit was coming to look for fingerprints, DNA, or anything else that might lead them to the perpetrators, but Teresa wasn't holding out any hope that they’d actually find anything.

Leaving them to do their thing, she’d called an Uber and come straight into the office.

There was no way she was going to risk walking or taking public transportation, not after what had happened to Tobias and Isabella a couple of days ago.

Now she was there, and all she’d wanted was to be surrounded by the people and things that made her feel safe, and get to work doing what she could to identify the people who had invaded her home and destroyed it.

The absolute last thing she needed was to run into that particular blast from the past.

Micah.

There.

At Prey.

Why?

It wasn't because he knew she was there, because if he did, he wouldn't have been shocked to see her. There would be no reason for him to care where she was anyway. After all, he hadn't even cared that she’d been violently gang raped by her brother’s friends just so he could sell her body for money to buy drugs. Micah had wiped her out of his life like she’d never existed while she was still in the hospital, attempting to come to terms with what had happened to her.

Nope, no chance he was there for her.

So what was he doing there?

That question was still running through her mind as she reached the Cyber Team floor and headed out of the elevator and down the corridor to their shared office space.

Although they all technically had their own offices, they never used them, preferring instead to work together in different corners of the larger space.

At least she’d done her best to convince Micah that she didn't remember him.

Wasn't likely to fool him forever, but so what? She needed to save face at least a little bit, and what better way to do that than pretending like he meant so little to her back then that over a decade later, she no longer knew who he was?

“You okay?”

Caught off-guard by the sudden voice and figure rushing toward her while she was still shaken up by everything that had happened that night, Teresa took a panicked step back.

“Hey, it’s okay, it’s only me.”

Blinking, she saw Ava’s worried face come into view. Behind her friend was Ava’s boyfriend Nathaniel, also looking at her with concern.

“Uh, sorry, guess I'm a little preoccupied,” she murmured, hoping there was no way they could know it wasn't just the break-in that had her on edge.

Of course, they couldn’t know.

How could they?

While her friends did know what had happened to her when she was a teenager, she’d never added in the part about how her boyfriend at the time had bailed without a word.

Refused to see her, blocked her on all platforms, and moved away, never to return.

They assumed her reluctance to date was because of the fact she’d been raped, and while that was definitely part of it, it was more the broken heart that had her locking up her heart to protect it.

There was no way they could know the man downstairs had once meant something to her. Once meant everything to her.

“I’m so sorry you had to see that on your own,” Ava said.

“I’m not. I'm glad you weren't there, you’ve already been through so much,” she told her friend, snapping out of her Micah-induced stupor to hug Ava.

Personally, Teresa was more of a no-touch kind of person, but Ava and Chelsea were like her sisters, and both of them loved hugs, so she was always happy to hand them out when the occasion called for it.

Like right now.

“Still, you shouldn’t have been there on your own. What if they’d still been there?” Ava continued, hugging her back, hard.

“Then I would have turned and run, or defended myself,” she replied.

After her assault, even before she’d come to work with Prey and taken part in mandatory self-defense classes, she’d learned how to use what she had to her advantage.

She couldn’t grow her five-foot-one frame any taller, and she couldn’t out-muscle most men, but she could make the most of what she had.

“Well, I for one am glad you didn't have to defend yourself,” Ava said as she pulled back. “Nathaniel had a guy from his team over to hang out, but he left when we got the call from you about what happened. We assumed you’d want to jump right into going through footage from the building and surrounding streets to see if we can find these guys.”

So that’s what Micah was doing there.

When they were younger, he’d always wanted to follow in his dad’s footsteps and become a cop. Somewhere along the way, he must have changed his mind and decided to go into the military instead and become a SEAL.

That was not good news for her.

Not the SEAL part, but the fact that Micah was on the same team as Nathaniel. Ava was falling in love with the man, and that meant he was sticking around. If Nathaniel was sticking around, that meant sometimes his teammates might be around, too, and Micah already knew she was there.

Pretending she didn't know him didn't mean he hadn't immediately realized who she was.

Just because he was a horrible person who had walked away rather than stand by her side as she recovered from her ordeal, didn't mean he was going to walk away now and never come back.

Since she was certainly never going to walk away from one of her best friends, they might have to find a way to co-exist.

Although she had no idea how she was supposed to do that.

Already, she was a mess, and she’d just bumped into him and spent sixty seconds or so in his presence. Hanging out in the same place as him for hours on end would be next to impossible.

No, it would be impossible.

“Teresa?”

A gentle touch to her arm had her jumping again, and she realized she’d zoned out, preoccupied with thoughts of a man from her past who had hurt her when she had much bigger things to focus on.

There was a dangerous organ trafficking ring out there that had already killed hundreds of people. They were ruthless and determined, and they weren't afraid to take risks. They knew that Prey was after them and were making attempts at threatening them into backing off.

Only that wasn't going to happen.

What she absolutely needed right now was something else to focus on so she could shove Micah Hart right out of her mind.

She’d done it before, and she could do it again.

The trafficking ring was the perfect distraction, and it was important work, something that needed to be done, and she had the time and resources to do it.

“Sorry, guess tonight was more of a shock than I realized,” she said, which was true enough even if it meant more than Ava realized.

“Of course it was,” Nathaniel told her.

“At least you're safe,” Ava said, taking her hand and squeezing.

That was true. She hadn't arrived home when whoever had trashed their place had been there, and while seeing Micah was a shock, she’d worked hard to get over him and shred every last feeling she had for him so they no longer existed.

He couldn’t hurt her anymore because she no longer cared about him.

Maybe he’d be back to see Nathaniel, but there was also a chance that now he knew she was there he wouldn't bother, since he obviously found being around her so repulsive.

“Safe and ready to get to work.” Teresa brushed past Ava and Nathaniel, heading for their office.

What she needed most right now was to do something practical, the busier she kept her brain the better. That method had been working well for her most of her life, and she prayed it wouldn’t fail her now.

Because for the first time in a long time, she felt vulnerable, and she despised that feeling.

April 29 th

7:52 A.M.

Sleep was for the weak, Micah decided as he glanced up from his laptop, surprised to see light streaming around the edges of the curtain in his hotel room.

Seemed like he’d been up all night.

Forgoing sleep hadn't been his intention when he got to his hotel late the night before, he’d just been too keyed up by running into a woman from his past.

Not a woman.

The woman.

Because there were no other significant woman from his past other than Teresa Dash. Which was kind of pathetic, he supposed, given he was thirty-one and the only girl he’d ever had anything serious with was one from when he was a teenager.

But having your heart broken in the way his had been when he was so young had made enough of an impact that he just wasn't interested in trying again.

Better to protect his heart than allow it to get smashed to smithereens all over again.

While their relationship had been serious back then, they’d been young, so there was no way to know how things would have turned out between them.

Teresa had still been in high school when he ended things, he’d only been in his second year of college.

Maybe as they got older, they would have found they weren't compatible in an adult relationship.

Only …

It hadn't felt like that would happen.

Young or not, his feelings had been strong back then, and he believed they only would have grown with time.

Of course, they never got the chance to find out.