to tie up a loose end. What had Hailey called it? Daring to survive?
“At the risk of sounding callous, I don’t see how one woman who played a minor role in his escape would factor into his next steps.” Jaime reached across the table and gave her hands a squeeze. “With the former warden’s confession, you’re no longer the only voice left to give him away. There’s a nationwide manhunt drawing power from every law enforcement agency in the country. He will be found.”
Lilah spied Seth shifting in his seat from the corner of her eye. Jaime might have been confident, but the man assigned to protect her didn’t agree.
“Everything will be ready tomorrow?” she asked. She glanced at Jaime, then met Seth’s hooded expression. She wanted to go home. She wanted to be safe and forget the whole nightmare of death and threats and the scent of smoke and blood. She just wanted to be happy and normal.
Her heart sank when Jaime nodded. “Everything.”
Chapter 12
She was leaving.
Seth moved through the crowd filling the warehouse. People packed the bleachers surrounding the fenced ring in the center of the room and overflowed in front of the makeshift bar. Irritation clawed at his insides. He wanted to throw them all out of his path with one sweep of his arm.
Music from the loudspeakers blared at an almost painful volume, but it was the sounds of the fight that made his heart thrum. Grunts reached his ears between the roars of the watchers. The cage rattled as fighters plowed one another into the flimsy barrier. Flesh hitting flesh, that was what he needed.
He couldn’t remember how he’d gotten there. Hell, a gun to his head couldn’t have tugged the day’s activities from his mind. It was a black hole with only a few bright spots sparking to life.
Taking Lilah back to the ranch. She’d hardly been able to stay still in her seat.
Seeing her around the lunch hour. A quiet word, a bright smile, those stuck with him more than the faceless figures in the background.
The look of confusion and sadness when she hesitated at his door before he slid behind the wheel.
She was leaving.
That was the damn goal. He’d been happy enough to see the end of his detail on any number of occasions. She wasn’t some pet he’d picked up on the side of the road. Seeing her safe and home was what the job required.
The job. Seth snorted. Fuck the job. He hadn’t done shit to keep her safe. Not really. He’d run off some attackers as they appeared, but the big bad? The real villain? The asshole in charge of Shiftermax squealed on himself and Jasper still waited somewhere in the shadows.
His stomach churned. He wished he had fangs to bite and claws to rend. Even without, he ached for a release. Blood and scraped knuckles and the tolling of a bell that didn’t sound like an advertisement of death. His or Lilah’s, he wasn’t sure which.
She wasn’t safe, no matter what Jaime said. Something stank about the whole damn situation and he wasn’t ready to give up the bit. Not until Lilah was well and truly secure.
That meant more fights. More pounding out his frustrations in the middle of the ring. More beating scraps of information from the fuckers who had to know something. Rumors, whispers. Anything. Jasper didn’t just vanish into thin air. He was a physical being needing food and drink. Power, too. A man ready to sacrifice countless lives to spark a war between shifters and humans didn’t orchestrate his own escape just to retire to the countryside.
Seth waded through the drinkers at the bar and past the smaller horde debating which fighter to place their bets on or working up the courage to throw their own names down for a match. They could know something, too. Once he was done soothing that drive to fight, he’d nurse his wounds over a few rounds and listen to the chatter.
Lilah was leaving, but he didn’t need to leave her unprotected.
He stepped right up to the woman in charge of setting the fights. “I want in,” he growled. “Don’t care who or when.”
She slid a look to the bookies, then over her shoulder. “I’m not supposed to.”
“What the fuck does that mean?” Seth swung his attention to the bouncers shifting uneasily on either side of the organizer. Fuckers took a step back under the force of his glare. “Put my name down and call me up. No