A few seconds later, Blake had listened to the news Kyle had to share and his gut was one big knot. He ended the call and didn’t look at Kara. He couldn’t look at her now.

“Who is that you’re talking to?” she asked. “What’s happening?”

“That was a trusted friend. He’ll make sure the women are safe.” He put the truck in reverse and didn’t say another word, his mind and emotions racing, that dark place he so often visited threatening to take control.

Kara must have sensed it because she didn’t speak and barely made a sound, but as soon as they pulled up to her apartment, she was out of the truck, as if she couldn’t escape fast enough. At her door, he pushed it open and she stared up at him, hesitating to go inside.

His eyes met hers, and he saw her trepidation. She might not know what he’d found out on that phone call, but she sensed something was up. And oh yeah—something was up, all right. “I’ll pick you up and carry you in if I have to,” he promised.

She inhaled, as if steeling herself for what came next, and headed inside. He pursued her and shut the door, shackling her arm and pressing her into the wall, his legs shackling hers. “I know who you are, Kara.”

Chapter Sixteen

CHAPTER

SIXTEEN

I know who you are, Kara.

Kara’s heart raced at Blake’s declaration, his strong, powerful body trapping hers against the entry wall inside her apartment and preventing her escape, his hands pressed to the surface by either side of her head. He was caging her, trying to intimidate her. Trying to get her to admit what he couldn’t know. Reassuring herself she’d covered her tracks well, she searched the hard lines of his handsome face, probing his rich brown eyes, and finding none of the passion and heat they’d held only hours before—just hard steel and anger.

Memories of what had passed between them before she’d left him sleeping in her bed, of hours of erotic lovemaking, of the connection they’d shared that defied him working for one of the most lethal cartels in the world, confused her and twisted her in knots. She hadn’t wanted to want him. She hadn’t wanted to leave him. “If this is about me sneaking out—”

“I know who you are, Kara,” he repeated, and that same hard steel from his eyes was in his voice.

He couldn’t know, she assured herself. It was impossible. “No matter how many times you insist otherwise, I’m still just me. I’m still Kara Tatum—”