Page 16 of When He Fights (Protector & Defender #3)

“Fine. Fine!” Gray did some hard and angry exhaling of his own.

“I’ve received more notes from the psychiatrist. She’s coming to town, by the way.

Insists on being front-line for this thing when she has zero field experience.

” His jaw hardened. “But she’s getting shoved down my throat by the FBI Brass who still have more power than me. ”

“Someone has more power than you at the Bureau? That shit doesn’t seem possible,” Kane mocked.

“I know, right?” Gray wasn’t mocking. Just annoyed. “They think she’s some kind of magical protégé when it comes to the killers. Like I don’t know killers? Like I can’t profile in my sleep better than she will ever be able to do in a million freaking years?”

Ana looked at Kane. “What is happening right now?”

“Oh, you can’t tell?” Kane returned, keeping his voice mild.

A real effort considering how much rage and adrenaline still poured through his system.

All he wanted to do was rush out of that house, get down to the jail, and beat the ever-loving shit out of Turner Mitchell. “Clearly, Gray is losing his mind.”

“I am not, ” Gray denied at once.

“Then get back to the real focus,” Kane snapped. “In case you missed it, Ana is the focus. Not some prick psychiatrist?—”

“Emerson Marlowe is not a prick. She’s just a pain in my ass.” Gray rolled back his shoulders. “I’ll deal with her.” Then, softer as if to himself, “I’ll deal with her.”

“Uh, huh. Fabulous for you,” Kane told him.

His heart still pounded too fast. And he could too easily imagine shoving Turner back beneath the water with the swimming sharks.

Yeah, I have issues. Because Kane had issues, he did not have time to deal with Gray’s troubles, too. “Why didn’t Turner attack Ana sooner?”

Gray blinked. “Because maybe her ex wanted an up close view. Maybe Turner was waiting until Logan could witness her murder.”

Ana jumped to her feet. She tossed down the pillow she’d been holding as if it was suddenly red-hot. “ What ?” Her voice had risen several high-pitched notches.

Another grimace from Gray. “I don’t have proof. Just suspicion. Two scenarios are tumbling around in my head, based on what I know about the perp.”

Ana and Kane both stared at him.

“Okay, yeah, a full explanation. You want that, don’t you?”

“No, we just want you to be mysterious and annoying for the rest of the night,” Ana snapped.

Fuck, she was fun. The woman had just stolen the sarcastic words right out of Kane’s mouth.

Gray rose to his feet. He rolled back his shoulders. “Logan is possessive when it comes to you.”

She wrapped her arms around her waist. “Tell me something I don’t know.”

“At the trial, Logan could not take his gaze off you. He tracked every single move that you made. His lawyer asked him to stop, said that he was too intense, that it was disturbing the jury, but Logan didn’t. I think because he couldn’t stop.”

Kane hadn’t been at the trial. He’d wanted to be there with Ana, but Gray and the other Feds had ordered him away.

So I waited outside of the courtroom. I’d watch her go in and out. And ? —

“He was pissed at you for betraying him, but Logan still saw you as his, ” Gray noted.

“I’m not a possession or a toy. I’m not his,” she fired right back.

“Understood.” Gray nodded. “It’s possible that, if he got your location a while back, Logan wanted eyes on you. He told Turner to get close. To monitor your life. To monitor you. Maybe Logan wanted to make sure that there were no new lovers in your life.”

A faint line cut between her eyebrows. “Turner started dating me! Doesn’t that completely destroy this whole theory? Or hypothesis? Whatever it is? If Logan wants me all for himself, then why send someone else to date me? That’s just bizarre.”

“Date you,” Kane heard himself say because he was not convinced that Gray was wrong on this idea.

“Not fuck you.” Logan had definitely been obsessed when it came to Ana.

When he learned that Ana was working with the Feds, Logan could have cut his losses.

He could have tried to flee the country.

Instead, he’d stalked Ana like a predator after prey.

Her lips clamped together.

“No man would date you and not want to fuck you. He wouldn’t be around you and not want to take you.” Kane’s words held a savage edge. “But maybe Turner was ordered not to cross that line. Maybe his job was to keep others away from you.”

“Uh, that’s…wrong.” She rocked forward onto the balls of her feet but kept right on hugging herself. “Not every man who comes into my life wants to fuck me, I can assure you of that. Not like someone gets next to me and just has this overwhelming urge to have sex with me.”

I do. That’s exactly the way I feel.

“I mean, what guy would actually feel that way?” Ana asked.

“Kane.” Gray just dropped his name like a bombshell.

Her eyes got very big and very round.

Kane locked down his emotions. He made sure his expression didn’t alter though he did wonder why in the hell his friend had just outed him that way. Thanks one hell of a lot, buddy. Was no confidence sacred these days?

“What I meant…” Gray rushed to say into the stark and uncomfortable silence, “Is that Kane came back in your life. He moved into your house. It probably looked to Turner—and to Logan, if he’s close and watching—like the two of you were fucking.

That might have enraged Logan enough that he gave the order to kill you. ”

She settled back down on her heels. “Sure. Right. I totally misunderstood what you meant for a moment there. Got it. Not like Kane is dying to fuck me.”

Oh, sweetheart, I am. He ached for her. He wanted to kick out Gray and take her right the hell then.

“That’s one option,” Gray said.

Kane blinked. Was the man a freaking mind reader? What?—

“The option that Logan didn’t want any other guys near you because he thinks of you as his.

His possession. His to punish for your betrayals.

That’s an option for motivation. When you took up with Kane, he decided he’d get his puppet Turner to attack.

” Gray sucked in his right cheek. “And option two is that he just told Turner to keep an eye on you. To make sure you didn’t flee and vanish before Logan could work his master escape plan. ”

“A done deed. He’s escaped,” Kane pointed out flatly.

“Yeah, he has.” Gray shoved his hand through his hair.

“And that’s why I said…maybe Logan wanted an up close view.

The aquarium is over 80,000 square feet.

That means there were plenty of places where Logan could have been hiding.

In all the confusion after the attack and the swim in the tank, if Logan was there, waiting, watching, it would have been easy enough for him to sneak out without anyone noticing. ”

Ana’s gaze collided with Kane’s. “I didn’t see him.”

Kane hadn’t been looking for the bastard. He’d been too focused on her.

“But I was just trying to get you out of the water. I…I barely looked around,” she admitted.

He’d been trying to keep her safe.

A shuddering breath escaped Ana. “So Logan could be right under our noses.”

“Yes.” Gray didn’t even blink.

“Good to know.” She took a step back.

“If Turner gets bail, and it’s still if because the judge could surprise me, then I’ll keep a team on the jerk,” Gray promised.

“Turner very well may lead us straight to Logan. For now, we need to continue with the cover as we have it. You two are reunited lovers. Because of the attack, Kane, you’ll be extra protective when it comes to Ana. With her every moment.”

“Damn straight,” he agreed.

“And we will catch Logan. We will stop him.”

Ana didn’t speak.

Gray closed in on her. “I know this isn’t ideal.”

She raised one eyebrow.

“You have choices,” Gray told her. “I am not going to make you stay here. You want to run? Fine. You can run. Kane will go with you, or I’ll get a different guard to accompany you if you decide to flee Gulfport.

You can be out of this city in an hour. Or you can stay here.

We can continue with the current cover story and our operational plans.

You decide. You choose what you want to do. ”

“I want—” Ana stopped. Exhaled. “I want to sleep on it.”

Gray nodded.

“I am scared, and I’m shaking, and I just—” She finally stopped hugging herself. Her hands fell to her sides. “I’m sleeping on it. I’ll tell you my decision when I wake up tomorrow, all right?”

“I’m a phone call away.” His head turned. His sharp stare landed on Kane. “Buddy, a word before I leave?”

Great. Now he was probably going to get a lecture. One of those, we-don’t-drown-a-perp talks that could be so irritating.

But Kane just nodded. and he followed Gray out of the house. Not the front door. The back. And Kane lingered on the small porch. He wasn’t about to go wandering too far away from Ana. He did pull the door shut behind him so she wouldn’t overhear this chat.

“You good, man?” Gray wanted to know.

Kane took a moment to consider the question. “Don’t know that I’ve ever been good. ”

“Okay, let’s rephrase.” Gray’s hands rested on his hips. “Do you have a single shred of control left? Pretty sure you almost killed a man tonight—that’s a fun bit of business that I had to finesse my way around with the local law enforcement officers, by the way.”

“He was attacking Ana. I stopped him.” End of story.

“There’s a difference between stopping an attacker and then, after he’s been stopped, shoving the guy back under the water one more time.”

Kane shrugged. “You’re getting caught up on unnecessary details.”

Gray’s teeth snapped together. “You look at Ana as if you could eat her alive,” Gray gritted out. “I’m in there, talking about Logan’s obsession with her, but I think the guy has nothing on you.”

Kane surged forward. Stood toe to toe with his friend. About to be former friend? “I would never hurt her. Not in a million years.”

“I know.” Immediate. “Physically, you would never hurt her. But you are just as obsessed. I see it. She must see it, too. Or maybe she’s just too scared right now, and she doesn’t realize just how much that mask of yours has cracked.

Maybe you don’t realize it, either. That’s why we’re having this word out here .

You look at her like you’re starving, and you’re about to make her your seven-course meal. ”

Kane didn’t speak.

“Do you have any control left?” Lower. “Because I can stay here for the rest of the night. You can crash at a hotel and be back at first light. I will protect Ana.”

“You’re not sleeping with her.”

“Whoa! Definitely not. Not planning on doing that, so you don’t need to think about wrapping those massive hands of yours around my throat.

Ana is a friend to me. She’s a good person.

I want her safe. She’s…look, if you do something with her when you’re having a break in your control, you won’t be able to take back your actions.

There is no erase button in real life. I was there before, remember?

Had a front row view. I saw her cry. I heard her when she said she loved you.

And I—” He backed up. “Fuck. Pretty sure I was supposed to take that to the grave. Do me a major favor? Don’t mention to Ana that I brought it up. ”

She didn’t love me. She didn’t.

But… “She told me that she was falling for me back then.” That last fateful night. The reason he’d gone running. Because…

“Oh, well, then I’m not wrecking a confidence.” Gray sounded relieved. “That was two years ago. I’m sure her feelings have changed in all that time. Yours have, too.” Way less worried. More brisk.

My feelings have changed.

They’d deepened.

“So, you think you have control? That’s great.

You stay in your room. She’ll stay in hers.

I mean, it’s already after one a.m. Not like there’s a whole lot of night left, anyway.

We’ll regroup tomorrow and see what choice Ana has made.

Done. No need to worry.” Then, lower, “No need to worry.” Like Gray was trying to convince himself of that fact.

Kane pulled in a deep gulp of the night air. It didn’t cool him down. The air felt heavy and hot, and the anger and adrenaline stirring in him were just as hot.

No, hotter.

Gray began to walk away.

Kane didn’t move, not yet.

Gray was almost near his ride when he spun back to face Kane. “You do have your control, don’t you? I can’t seem to remember if you gave me an actual reply.”

“No need to worry.” Deliberately, he gave those words back to the Fed.

Gray laughed. But it wasn’t a real laugh. Then he climbed into his SUV. Drove into the night.

“No need to worry,” Kane repeated, just as Gray had done earlier. But then he added, “My control was ripped to shreds the moment I heard her scream.” He turned and strode back into the house.