and when I had to I intimidated, so don’t fucking tell me I didn’t claim her.”
“You never said you loved her,” Killian pointed out.
Jordan’s lips parted, the stunned at the accusation that came from Killian’s lips.
God, he did love her, he realized. There was no fucking illusion, there were no attempts to deny it any longer. He’d stopped denying it the second his brain had processed the information that Tehya had been taken.
“I shouldn’t have had to say shit,” Jordan snapped. “By God, you should have known.”
“And perhaps you should have said something.”
Jordan froze.
His gaze jerked to Killian’s and found smug satisfaction quirking at his lips. An amusement tinged with a haunted pain, a memory of what he himself had lost.
He turned slowly.
The shoulder of her dress was ripped. It was dirty, streaked with dirt and smoke, tattered at the edges. She was barefoot, her stockings shredded, and her hair was in disarray around her shoulders.
And still, she was the most gorgeous creature he’d ever laid his eyes on.
“Perhaps someone should have enlightened me when I started making a fool of myself denying it,” he told her softly.
Her face was tear-stained, pale, and her gaze was still bright with unshed tears and pain.
Moving to her, he reached up, his thumb smoothing across the tears only to find others taking their place.
“Jordan,” she whispered, her lips trembling as he slowly pulled her into his arms, a wave of agony sweeping over him at the thought he could have lost her.
“I have you, baby.” His arms tightened around her. “Right here, I have you.”
“It hurts.” Her breathing hitched as her hands suddenly clutched at his back. “Don’t let me go. Please. Please don’t let me go.”
Let her go? He’d tear his own heart out of his chest before he even considered such a villainous act.
“Come on, baby.” He picked her up and carried her to the waiting car that Nik had driven in. “Let’s go home.”
Where he could hold her. Where he could hopefully help ease just a small part of the horror she was feeling.
As he passed the medi-van, in the shadows close to the opened doors at the front of the vehicle, he caught a figure moving.
The form wore the familiar dark mask, and rather than a tuxedo, he was pulling on the utility belt that went with the mission clothes he had obviously changed into.
He hadn’t known who or what Beauregard Grant was until Killian had met him at the warehouse. He’d had no idea Beau had been doing the same thing Jordan had done more than fifteen years before.
He was creating a background, an identity, and a history that would put him in place where the Elite Ops needed him most.
He was a dead man walking. But if the way he was staring at the young woman sitting on the van’s gurney with her back to him, her eyes closed, tears still whispering down her cheeks, then he was a haunted man.
Jordan could hear Stephen still screaming at Journey from the car he’d been placed in. Furious, filthy curses and accusations as the young woman appeared deaf to the words.
But he knew she wouldn’t be.
Placing Tehya in the car, he turned to Noah as he loped over and nodded to Stephen’s granddaughter. “Get her out of here. Send her to Ireland until this blows over. Let her stay in the castle. She’s going to need time.”
“Where are you heading?” Noah tilted his head to stare at Tehya sitting silently in the back.
“Home,” Jordan breathed out, suddenly feeling the tension easing inside him. “I’m going home, Noah.”
* * *
As they drove away with Nik at the wheel, Jordan sat in the back, his woman cradled in his arms, thanking God for her safety.
Noah couldn’t help but grin, even as thankfulness swept through him with enough force to weaken him.
He had a feeling that for the first time in far too many years, Jordan had found home.
* * *
What was she supposed to believe?
Tehya watched Jordan, desperate, terrified to believe he truly loved her as he carried her into the bedroom of the suite Nik had escorted them to.
He kicked the door closed before lowering her slowly to the floor and locking the door behind him.
Her lips parted, the question she needed to ask almost falling from her lips before he laid a finger over them.
“Not yet.” His expression was fierce, demanding. “Not yet, Tehya. Let me know you’re still living, that you’re still here with me first. God, let