Tough Enough

I’ve known Senator Sims for years. I’ve hated him for almost as long. He’s responsible for the police declaring the fire that disfigured me an “accident.” Seeing him turns my blood cold, yet it’s nothing compared to how the man to his left makes me feel.

Calvin Sims.

My ex.

The guy I thought I loved. The guy who had a dark side that I didn’t see until it was too late. The guy who broke hearts and bones and spirits like some people break bread. The guy who, in a fit of rage, set me on fire. The person who has inhabited more of my nightmares than the boogeyman.

And they’re both standing beside the man I let myself trust, the man I confided in. The man I fell in love with.

My head spins. My heart shrivels.

How? Why? How could this be?

Suddenly, I feel claustrophobic. It’s as though the train of my life has flown off the tracks and all its cars of past, present and future are colliding. Everything is piling up into one big mess, a heap of twisted truths and inconceivable realities threatening to crush me under their weight.

My lungs are failing. My head is spi

Across the tops of their heads, jewel-green eyes lock on mine. He stares at me for a few intense seconds, something unfathomable darkening emerald to jade. My stomach flips over and my chest constricts. I thought I knew this man, but I knew nothing. I only saw the façade. And the unfortunate truth is that there’s nothing beneath it, no more to him than this. Lies. Cameras. Action.

When I’m far enough away that I can no longer feel the body heat of the horde, I inhale sharply, ready to bolt back down the hall. Why did Kurt come to find me at the front doors when I’d left for air? And why the hell did he bring me here? Did he want me to see the real Rogan? Or did he just want to hurt me? Maybe that’s who he is, too. Just a cruel, cruel person. Like his brother.

An internal alarm blares when I hear a short pause, a hush almost, followed by a barrage of questions.

“Who’s that, Rogan?”

“Is that the girl from the stands?”

“Is she the one you saw before the fight? Who is she, Rogan?”

Panic. That’s exactly what I feel when I see every eye turn toward me. After that, it’s just chaos. Voices raised, people clamoring, everything closing in on me.

Before I can get away and before Rogan can get to me, Victoria somehow slips through the crowd and appears at my side. She loops one arm around my shoulders and hugs me to her.

I don’t move away from her. Having someone, anyone familiar close to me is somehow comforting, like a buffer.

I shrink against her side, wishing I could disappear entirely. I feel like a deer in headlights, frozen. Terrified.

Then, as though every facet of my worst nightmares are coming to life in a single evening, Victoria reaches up with the hand on my shoulder and gently sweeps my hair away from my neck, exposing my scars for the flash of cameras, for the fodder of the media.

I’m so shocked, so completely taken aback by the gesture, I simply stand there, mortified and stu

“Guess who told me all about your little secret,” Victoria hisses next to my ear, her smile never faltering as she looks into my eyes and then presses her cheek to mine to pose for the multitude of pictures being taken.

Guess who told me all about your little secret.

Agony rips through my insides. Rogan. He told her. He told her about my scars. The ultimate betrayal. How could he do that to me? Why? Why would he do that to me?

It’s like I don’t even know him. Like I never did. It was all just an act to get the girl who no one else could get. And I let him. I let him in, let him close. But I was misled, deceived. On every possible level. By the first person I’ve trusted in years. By the first person I’ve loved in forever.

Flash, flash, flash. Cameras being shoved in my face, microphones being held out to me, curious onlookers dissecting my every word and move.

“Are you affiliated with the charity?”

“Are you a representative at the benefit?”

“How do you know Rogan?”

“Are you a victim of abuse? Do you have a story to tell?”

With my mind spi

I look up for Rogan. He’s gone. I look at Calvin. His face is contorted in a sneer that I remember all too well. I look to my side at Victoria. She’s as smug as I’ve ever seen her.

“Told you he’d be mine,” she whispers, winking at me for the reporters, even though they can’t hear what she’s saying.

I urge my numb legs into motion, taking one step back. It feels so good I take another. Then another. The closer I get to freedom, the farther away the faces get, the more my muscles cooperate. Three, four steps later, I’m ru

I see a red Exit sign up ahead and I lunge for it, pushing through and out into the cool, dark night like a woman possessed. I run in a straight line, aiming for the lights of the street in front of me. When I reach it, I hail a cab, a skill I’m glad I never lost, and I give the driver the airport as my destination. I don’t care that I have only the clothes on my back. I don’t care that my belongings are still in the room I shared with Rogan. I don’t care that I’m acting irrationally. I have to get out of here. I can’t be in this city anymore. For the second time in my life, it’s taken from me everything I hold dear.

Everything.

THIRTY-TWO

Rogan

I’ve felt protective before. Over Kurt. Over my comrades in Delta Five unit. I’d fight to the death for them. But even my feelings for Kurt, my damn brother, don’t hold a candle to the almost violently protective surge that’s pumping through my veins right now.

Katie.

Seeing her expression just now, seeing the sheer panic on her face when this bunch of nosey asshole reporters saw me notice her . . . God, I just wanted to tear through them like teeth through meat, ripping and tearing and killing.

But I know better. I know better than to start something that could go sideways with her caught (physically and emotionally) in the middle. She could get hurt, and I couldn’t live with myself if that happened. So, without a word, I turn and run through the locker room, heading for the door that leads into an anteroom and then out into the hallway. It should empty out somewhere behind Katie, some place that I can get her and get her the hell out of here.

But when I burst through the door, there’s no Katie. The hall is full of the same reporters, all as voraciously curious as a tank of barracudas who’ve caught the scent of blood. Besides them, there is only Victoria. No Katie. Even Kurt is gone.

Unconcerned with niceties or worrying about the damn cameras, I reach through the crush of bodies and grab Victoria’s arm. She turns a blinding smile on me that only serves to piss me off even more. I’m not playing her games right now. “Where’s Katie? Where’d she go?”

“How am I supposed to know? She was here one minute and then she was ru