Forsaken (The Protectors 4)

I felt Hawke’s eyes on me as I studied Matty, but I forced myself not to look at him. Taking this job had been the epitome of stupid. Because what had started out as the simple need to protect a little boy from an unseen threat had morphed into something so much more. I had stopped looking at Matty as just a little boy fighting for his life. And the men in his life…the men who’d banded together to become the family he needed…

I shook myself free of the path my brain was going down. Thoughts like that were exactly why I’d told Ronan I needed a break. A week to just get on my Harley and disappear.

I held out my fist and said to Matty, “Professor X, I’ll see you next week.” Matty smiled and bumped his small fist against mine.

I flashed Hawke a glance as I headed for the door and didn’t miss the way he was watching me with a mix of curiosity and pity. Fucker was just too damn perceptive.

“Take care of yourself, Mav,” Hawke said.

I ignored the uncomfortable sensation in my chest as I gave him a quick nod and left the room. I hated the anxiety that overcame me as I stopped next to Dante Thorne, the man who would be guarding Matty in my absence. I needed to get the fuck away from this place so I could regroup. But I couldn’t make sense of the feeling that I was already exactly where I was supposed to be and that walking away wouldn’t solve anything.

“Keep them safe,” I murmured to Dante.

I’d never worked with the young man who was leaning casually against the wall next to the door, one leg raised so that his foot was resting flat against the wall. He was a relatively new addition to Ronan’s team and while he’d already garnered a reputation for his cocksure attitude, he’d impressed more than a couple members of the team with his ability to sense when things were off. And while he looked like he didn’t have a care in the world, I knew he was aware of every single thing that was going on around us.

“Yep,” was all he said.

I started to walk past him, but thought better of it and turned to face him. “The volunteer who visits the kids every day…”

“You mean the guy with the tight ass?” Dante drawled.

I ground my teeth together in irritation, but didn’t take the bait. Besides being an arrogant son of a bitch, Dante Thorne was also a horny one and he’d fuck anyone and everyone, regardless of whether they had a dick or pussy between their legs. “You seen him today?”

“No. Shame too, ‘cause he’s the highlight of my day.” Dante flashed me a wide smile, but his eyes quickly shifted back to scanning the hallway. I ignored the urge to punch him and made my way towards the hallway that would ultimately get me to the parking garage.

In the week since Eli had been attacked, I’d seen him every day, but he hadn’t spoken a word to me, nor I to him. We’d gone back to the roles we’d had before I’d found him that day in the stairwell. It was the fact that he hadn’t tried to interact with me even once in the days following the attack that had kept me from calling our tech guy, or girl rather, to get some more information on Eli in the hopes that I could figure out who had assaulted him. Just like with Matty, I’d realized that I’d started to get too caught up in the young man’s life. Because instead of going home every night after my shift at the hospital ended, I found myself driving past the young man’s apartment. What the hell I expected to see, I had no idea.

That was how I’d known I was getting in way too deep.

Eli Galvez wasn’t my problem. Matty Travers wasn’t my problem. One was a former distraction, the other was my job.

Simple.

Some badass assassin I was…I couldn’t even get my shit together long enough to be honest with myself. A week exploring the Pacific Coast Highway on my Harley would fix that. Hell, if I was really lucky, Ronan would call me up and tell me he had another job for me and I wouldn’t have to set foot back in Seattle again.

I was letting the prospect of not having to see Eli again roll through me as I reached the stairwell door that led to the parking garage floors, but the moment I pushed the heavy door open, the shimmer of disappointment that had started to take root somewhere deep inside of me fled.

Because sitting on the very top step was Eli.

He turned the second I entered the stairwell and then he was climbing to his feet. And although his face was still an ugly purple color, I was pleased to see that his lip was healed and from the normal way he was holding his arm, I suspected his wrist was better as well.