She remained silent, just watching him; the suspicion was still there and that kept the flames burning low in his belly. She should have just a little faith in him after all he’d told her about himself and his brothers. He’d put a lot of trust in her.
“The other night when I asked you out, you lied to me. I couldn’t tell what you were lying about, but something was wrong, and I was afraid for you. I hung around and followed you, thinking you might be making a run for it, or that you were trying to deal with whoever it was that was looking for you on your own.”
Scarlet started to speak, swallowed what she was going to say and then shook her head. Her eyes lost some of their misgiving. She shook her head a second time. “I haven’t had that, Absinthe. I don’t know what to do with you. I should be upset that I didn’t know you were following me. My survival depends on spotting a tail. But the fact that you cared enough to actually follow after me is rather wonderful.”
That wasn’t what he expected her to say and it sent the flames in his belly rolling into something else altogether. He glanced around the clubhouse. While they were talking, a few others had drifted in, knowing a threat was hanging over Scarlet’s head. The members of the Venomous club had made that clear. They wouldn’t attempt to take her from the clubhouse, not with only half a dozen members, and certainly not when they knew they were intruding on Diamondback territory. They wouldn’t want to start an allout war. It was going to be interesting to see what move they would make next.
“I hope you keep thinking I’m wonderful when I tell you that I followed you back to your house and Lana and I sat up on the hillside overlooking the property just to make certain no one disturbed you. She’s damn good with a sniper rifle.”
Scarlet looked up, her lashes fluttering, making his body react as she looked around the room until she was flashing a small smile at Lana.
“It took me a while before I realized you weren’t in your house,” he continued. “Damn, woman, you are good at what you do. Really good. I can’t remember the last person, if any, that’s gotten past me. And Lana was with me. We were both watching, and you still got away.”
He poured praise and pride into his voice. He felt it and he wanted her to know that he did. He’d rather she focused on that than everything that came next, because if she thought too much about it, she wasn’t going to like his behavior.
“I don’t know what tipped me off, but I realized you weren’t in the house. I had no idea how you slipped by us, but you did. That doesn’t happen with Torpedo Ink. You’re the first that’s ever gotten by us. I went down to the house to be certain and went in. Immediately I knew something was wrong. I saw that you were ready to leave at a moment’s notice and knew someone was after you. I gave you every opportunity to tell me the next day. Lana, naturally, told our president she was worried about you and the possibility that someone could hurt you and, through you, me as well. I turned over your information to Code, our resident computer genius.”
Absinthe continued brushing the pads of his fingers back and forth over the pulse pounding so wildly in her wrist, assessing her reaction—soothing her while he spoke. “It was so important to me to make certain you were safe. It was more important even than losing you, and I knew you’d be royally pissed with me for prying into your business.”
Her face softened and his heart clenched hard in his chest. He wanted to lean over and kiss the hell out of her, but they had to finish this. He had to make certain she understood that once this was out in the open, there was no taking it back.
“Look at me, Scarlet.” He had to see her eyes, read her expression, not just her pulse.
Her gaze jumped to his.
“Your trial and subsequent history were easy enough for Code to discover, but then after you left the country, the trail became a little murky. The longer you were overseas, the more difficult it was for him to follow you. You clearly had an itinerary, and when you came back and the men who had raped your sister died one by one, that agenda became very clear.” He didn’t take his gaze from hers.
She didn’t so much as wince. “Your point?”
“You killed those men just as I killed the men who raped and tortured me and mine.”