Lahat ng Kabanata ng Dark Secrets and Dangerous Love: Kabanata 41 - Kabanata 50

Matthew pressed his lips together as he stared down at the phone. He didn’t like that he had missed calls from Juliet, and he felt horrible knowing she was probably stressed and worried out of her mind, either about him or about them as a couple. He wanted to put her at ease and tell her again that he would be coming home to her but now wasn’t the time. It was too big of a risk to be in contact with her when he was on assignment. He shouldn’t have even brought his phone with him, but with how they left things, he couldn’t find it in him to leave behind his only form of communication with her. His boss had already been breathing down his throat and had ripped into him about how stupid he had been to risk their cover for a woman. In fact, he had his ass handed to him during training as his team took their frustration out on him.Juliet was worth every ass-beating, punishment, and joke coming his way. N

Juliet woke with a sick feeling in her chest. There was a deep dread that made her chose to drive to work instead of walking, and to get there way earlier than she needed to be. That dread only intensified when she looked through the glass window of the storefront and noticed a familiar man sitting behind his driver’s seat.Sophia was in the back baking, and Juliet was doing a detailed cleaning of the dining room to kill time while waiting for the shop to open, but her bad mood got even worse when she met his stare. She opened her mouth to speak, to call out to Sophia, just as Sophia stepped forward into the dining room. “It looks great in here!” She exclaimed, and Juliet forced a smile with her lips still pressed together with unease.

Juliet scanned the street once more before she began to cross. There was a generous amount of discomfort in her as he placed his hand on the small of her back and closed their distance again. Matthew’s words swam around her head from the first time he left her for work and she pulled away.“Do me a favor, though, Red. Don’t let anyone else touch you while I’m gone.”She didn’t want the strange man to have his hands on her, even if it was just her back. Even though she hadn’t heard from Matthew since he was sent away, she knew in her heart that he was still her Matthew, and he wouldn’t want another man‘s hands on her either.She watched out of the corner of her eye as the man pulled out his cell phone before sending off a quick text. The air was tense as she tried to put space between them. He wasn’t even the slightest bit affected by her actions to move away, and it bothered her that he would just close the gap again each time she did so.He

The world around her spun as Juliet tried unsuccessfully to pry her eyes open. Her arms were forced behind her back, and she could feel the zip tie as it bit into the soft flesh of her wrists. Between the swelling and the dried blood crusted to her right eye, it was impossible to separate the lids, but she blinked the left slowly as she regained her equilibrium.Additional ties held her ankles to the legs of the chair tightly, and she was aware of the painful pinpricks in her feet due to the lack of circulation. Her chin was tucked to her chest as her head hung forward, and she kept her movements minimal as she tried to look around subtly to avoid alerting anyone else in the room of her consciousness. It was an impossible task as the panic set in, and her lungs desperately tried to pull in air.

Matthew sat in the desk chair, his hands together and his fingers to his lips as he went through every second of the mission in his head repeatedly. It had been too easy. Everything about it reminded him of the simulations he had to undergo in training. He was anxious and on edge at the idea of it being a setup, but he couldn’t understand why they would give the girls up so easily, especially such a high-value target. The sound of someone approaching his room made him stand, and Matthew pulled his gun out, aiming it at the individual through the cheap, hollow door. From the footsteps, gait, and the laptop that came through the door before the man as it was pushed open, Matthew knew who it was and kept his finger off the trigger. Matthew was furious as Hawk stormed into his motel room. The kid knew better and the gun Matthew had instinctively pulled on him should have knocked some sense into Hawk, but it didn’t faze h