Page 12 of Allegiance

Not Sarah.

The week she’d spent working for them, and protecting Jinx, he fell for her hard.

Maybe it was the fact that twice, as they were moving on a warehouse, he’d nearly died, and twice, she saved him. Once, she’d gotten shot, and once, she laid her body over his to take any bullets.

Eve wasn’t weak, and she wasn’t afraid of anything. He didn’t have to protect her.

She protected him.

He didn’t understand that.

Why?

What did she see in him to make her want to protect him like that?

What did she want from someone who was so badly damaged by his past, and watching his wife lose her mind to the point she cursed his name and she tried to kill him?

If anything, he’d learned one thing.

Dakota wasn’t worthy.

He didn’t feel as if he was.

Being bad was his nature since he’d lured a woman to her death when he came here, and Sarah followed.

Then, if that wasn’t bad enough, he’d systematically used her to be a destructive force, and when Preston was shot and killed, it ended up breaking her.

Into.

Many.

Pieces.

And now, his biggest fear was that he was going to do the same thing to Eve.

That’s why he told her to have a good life.

That’s why he sent her and Violet away.

A little part of him wanted that retirement she was craving because deep down, he desired it too. He wanted a place to be himself.

To be loved.

To find calm.

Only, he wasn’t worthy of that in life.

Clearly.

He’d been a Fed since he was twenty-five years old, and now, he was fifty. He’d been recruited out of college to be a US Marshal. He’d tested off the charts with his hunting skills, and the uncanny ability to find just about anyone.

They’d called it a gift, but he knew it was a curse. He knew to the bottom of his soul that it wasn’t meant to make him a hero, but a victim.

It led him here, and it was the cause of Sarah’s death.

He.

Made.