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“And you will, man.” Colton nodded. “But you don’t want her to see you like that.” He inclined his head toward the raw, bloody mess of his wrists.
“It’s self-inflicted. I’m fine.”
Hunter leaned against the wall feet away. He acted casual, but at any moment, he could block the door leading out of here and keep Carver inside.
He can try.
He let out a low groan of annoyance. “If it were any of you assholes, you’d be fighting your way to your women.”
“Livia thought you were dead. She’s fragile. We’re just trying to protect her.”
At Hunter’s words, Carver dropped his head. The agony of what he’d put her through slashed through his chest. Once he had her safe in his arms, he would spend every minute for the rest of his life making it up to her.”
Ledger pulled a sterile glove out of a box on the wall and put it to his lips. When he blew it up, the action distracted all three of them from what really was going on.
“Goddamn, it’s good to be back in your company.” Carver met Ledger’s gaze. The two of them had been through some shit. Seen even worse. At the end, they had been alone in a room with a dozen bodies it was their job to identify.
As if he was thinking the same thing, Ledger looked away. Carver noticed he’d been doing that a lot, even before they took leave of each other months ago. It was a new habit Ledger had picked up, probably an avoidance tactic.
Carver compartmentalized. Ledger avoided.
He was about to leap out that window and make a run for the Gracey Ranch, but just then the young doctor entered. She took one look at the SEALs in that small room and stopped.
They got that a lot, especially when there were two or more of them together in one place. They were big and their muscles drew a lot of attention. Back in the old days, they’d use this to their advantage to sleep with all the pretty girls they could on leave. Now the thought of touching anyone but Livia turned his stomach.
Ledger gave her an appraising once-over.
Half an hour later, Carver was as patched up as he could be and seated in the front seat of the truck with Colton behind the wheel.
“Tell me. How bad was it for her?” His voice turned to gravel.
His friend shot him a look. “Bad enough.”
“He beat her?”
“Just some bruising from when he dragged her into the office.”
“Fuck!” He sliced his fingers through his hair. There was already blood on his hands, but before this was all said and done, there would be rivers of it. Starting with Smythe’s.
“She was smart and made him believe she needed to look up the combination to the safe in her phone. That’s when she pushed the panic button in the security app.”
Guilt battered him worse than any fists ever could. “I should have been there for her. I should have saved her.”
“You couldn’t have stopped them from getting into the bar,” Hunter said from the back seat of the truck. “They forced the back door open.”
He whipped around. “We didn’t hear anything.”
“It looked like they broke in when the place was at its busiest. And the plumber was an added distraction.”
He twisted and gave Hunter a flat look. “The fucking plumber worked for Smythe.” The man might have even managed to unlock the door for his buddies.
Colton nodded.
He drove his balled fist into the dashboard. The loud cracking noise did nothing to alleviate the rage flooding into his veins. “I knew that fucker was acting sketchy! Goddammit, he was a decoy and I missed it!”
“We all missed a lot of things. Look at what happened to Marks. Do you think every one of us on the ranch isn’t still kicking ourselves every day for missing that someone had cut partway through that ATV axle?” Hunter’s words didn’t settle Carver’s fury, but he didn’t have any more to say.
They were all in the thick of this—the guys had been in his position too, terrified that they were going to lose the thing they loved most. Their women.
