Page 115 of Ford
He started in, but Scarlett put her leg up over the door.
He frowned.
RJ reached up and pulled the door shut, leaving him in the hallway.
Oh, joy, he was back to the silent treatment.
Six hours to Kazakhstan.
He turned and looked out into the darkness.
RJ locked the door behind her and briefly considered turning around to let Ford in. But she needed a minute to shake free of the smell of the attacker’s breath soiling her face, his words curdling inside her.
RJ had heard the beginning of Ford’s fight with Scarlett and couldn’t agree more.
They were in over their heads.
But it was hardly Ford’s fault.
She scrubbed her hands down her face, exhaustion humming through her, and leaned back on the sofa-slash-bed.
Please let Coco and York be alive. Her stomach churned, and she pressed her hand against it. What she wouldn’t give for a computer or even a cell phone.
Ford hadn’t meant to be cruel, she knew it.
Still.
She sighed. “We should let him in.”
“We will. In a minute.” Across from her, Scarlett stared out into the darkness, something hollow on her face.
“You’re in love with my brother.” RJ didn’t have to be an analyst to figure that out—but saying it aloud put a fine point on exactly why Ford had freaked out when Scarlett vanished from the metro. Why he’d morphed into a spec ops soldier right before her eyes.
Her heart had stopped in her chest when the assailant took her brother to his knees with a punch. Granted, a hit to his solar plexus that had propelled the air out of his body, shut down his diaphragm, but then the man hit Ford and threw him off the platform and—
She shivered, the memory a cold slice through her.
“No. Yes.” Scarlett looked at RJ, answering her question. “I don’t know.”
Petite yet tough, with short brown hair and huge brown eyes, the woman had a fierceness in her stature that RJ recognized. Ford liked women who could keep up with him. Whom he didn’t have to protect. Of course, that didn’t stop him, his natural Marshall instincts kicking in, usually driving the women around him crazy.
Scarlett’s eye had begun to bruise up, red streaks darkening her eye where she’d been hit. But her attack had startled the man and loosened his grip on RJ’s throat.
“Why didn’t you go after Ford instead of me?”
“Because that was the mission. And I knew he’d want…” She didn’t finish. Instead she drew up her knees, curled her arms around them. Set her chin on top. “I’m in over my head too. And not just because we’re in the middle of Russia.”
She turned back to the window. “I wish I could skip ahead, know that I wasn’t going to end up with my heart and my life in shreds.”
“Ford is a good man. Drives me crazy, but he’s got a good core. All my brothers do.”
Scarlett looked at RJ. “I know. Probably better than you realize. I served with him, was his eyes and ears when he went out on ops. He has steely nerves and never lets down his team.” She ran her hand across her cheek. “So yes, I might be in love with him.”
“He’s definitely in love with you.”
Scarlett gave her a hard look. “No. I don’t know what he feels, but it’s not…he says he needs me, but I have no idea why…and then I saw him with you…” She made a face. “I was actually jealous.”
The train had picked up speed now, the finest edge of dawn turning the night to gunmetal gray.