Love to Hate You (Hope Valley #9) - Jessica Prince Page 0,48
she replied vehemently. “Micah, I’ve got no one. If something were to happen to me, it wouldn’t be any great loss. There’s no one to care if I’m not around anymore.”
“Jesus Christ,” I rasped, my chest feeling like it had been sliced open as I stared across the length of the table in bewilderment. “You really think that, don’t you?”
She straightened her shoulders and lifted her chin. “Just saying it like it is.”
“You think it wouldn’t fuckin’ torment me if something were to happen to you? You think Leo wouldn’t care? Or any of the goddamn men sitting at this table right now?”
“You might feel guilty for a little while ’cause I was your informant, but it wouldn’t—”
“Bullshit!” I thundered. “It wouldn’t have a fuckin’ thing to do with guilt or responsibility or any of that other fucked-up shit floating around in your head right now. It would just be loss, plain and goddamn simple, Charlie. You think just ’cause you started this as a CI we don’t care about you? We got to know you, and what we came to know, we grew to care about simply because you’re you. That means, informant or not, you get hurt, or God forbid, worse, it’s gonna fuckin’ destroy me. And I’m not the only one. You’re family, Charlie. And if something happened to you, you’d be leaving all of us with that pain.”
Her lips parted on a broken exhale as her eyes went wide in shock. I didn’t know if it was because she’d been stunned speechless or what, but she didn’t say a word in response.
“Same goes for me,” Leo grunted, and when I looked over, I could see how pissed he was that she’d be dumb enough to think she didn’t matter to him or any of us sitting in that room. “And you can call it selfish if that’ll make you feel better, I don’t give a damn. But that’s why you’re out.”
I looked across the room to where Dalton was standing, his back pressed against the wall, the sole of one booted foot propped on it, and his arms crossed over his chest. His stance might have appeared casual, but the rage rolled off his body in big, heavy waves. Out of everyone in this room, he might be the one most affected if something happened to her.
“It’s not as easy as just walking away,” she finally said in a small voice after a long, silent pause. “Cormack will know something’s up if I just up and quit taking his calls.”
“Then you’ve got two choices,” Lincoln stated, speaking for the first time since she entered the room. “The first one, we take you somewhere and keep you hidden ’til this shit’s over and done with. You’ll be safe, and no one’ll be able to find you.”
Her gaze shot to his and she gave her head a jerky shake. “That’s the same as running. If I disappear, he’ll freak. He freaks, other people could get hurt. What’s the second option.”
“You aren’t gonna like it,” I informed her.
“As long as it doesn’t involve running, I’ll be fine.”
“You and Dalt are gonna get close,” I explained. “We’ll make it look like it happened naturally, but you two are gonna be seen spendin’ more and more time together. Cormack knows he’s part of Linc’s crew, so if he’s smart he’ll start putting some distance between him and you without getting suspicious.” I was right, I could tell by the pinched look on her face she wasn’t happy with that, so I added more, hoping to keep her head from exploding. “This way, you might be able to keep your finger on the pulse without getting any deeper, and you’ll have a reasonable excuse to have Dalton at your back if anything goes down. But we’re gonna make damn sure nothing goes down. That work for you?”
“It’s that or a safehouse in the mountains with no cable or internet,” Linc grunted.
Charlie’s nostrils flared like an angry bull as her eyes skittered around the men at the table before finally turning to look at the one standing behind her. “Fine,” she grumbled as she faced forward in her chair. “Option two it is.” She threw her arm out and pointed behind her. “But if he pisses me off, I can’t be held responsible for shooting him.”
With that said, everything was as settled as it could possibly get, given the shitstorm swirling around all of us.
We ended the meeting shortly after that, with Dalton