Page 68 of Dangerous Mission
“Then you should have hired Blue Guard for the job.”
I spit my regulator out as fire races up my spine. “They didn’t hire your team, Keith. They hired Griff. You need to get lost.”
Keith makes a point of looking around dramatically. “Don’t see your big bad brother. Given that you’ve got some two-bit backup diver, figured a real rescue team needed to step in.”
A low growl from Scout has my skin prickling.
“You’ve had your warning. I’ll have the feds remove you for tampering with my investigation.”
With a creepy smile, Keith looks around the cave. “Just diving in a public cave. Good luck on getting me removed for that.”
Chapter Thirty-Three
I should have taken this jackass more seriously when I saw him by the road before we dove. The idiot and his band of meatheads set off my red flag radar the minute I talked to them.
With the way Aria’s acting, it’s clear that trouble runs deeper than meets the eye. And that pisses me off beyond reason.
She makes me possessive. To the point of irrational protectiveness.
As if she’s mine.
Fuck.
“The cops removing you would be the easy way. The alternative is going to be much more painful.” I let a dark grin tip up one side of my mouth. “For you, that is. Not me.”
Without taking my eyes off him, I call out, “You set, Aria?”
She swims past me, placing her secondary regulator on the octopus in her mouth as she nears the center of the cave.
I make a hand signal, asking her one more time if she’s ready. She nods. Water splashes off her fins as she flips around in the water and begins her descent.
“If you fuck with anything in this cave, your ass is mine.”
He’s laughing when I drop below the water’s surface. Fucker.
Aria’s kicks are choppy and fast as we enter the tunnel.
I catch up to her, wrapping my hand around her calf. She swivels around to look at me through the gloomy water.
I use ASL to check on her.
Mad,she replies.
Fuck him,I sign out the letters one by one. Then I ask if there’s anything else.
She hesitates then quickly signs,scared.Then she points toward the tunnel.
Jesus. Of course she is.
Now everything makes sense. The way she looked back in the cavern wasn’t all because of the asshole showing up, it was because she was still rattled. Kicking myself for not taking better care of her, I quickly sign: got you, baby. Don’t worry.
She blinks at me in surprise through her mask.
Baby.
First sweetheart, now baby. I’m going all Hallmark. What’s next? Matching sweaters…
That’s the last thing I need to be. I’m hard. I need to be hard.