Above the Law

Chapter Eleven

Yates removed the gun from her head and tucked it in the back of his jeans. He heard her exhale in relief. He pressed his hand to the small of her back and nudged her forward into the dark room. He flicked on the light, following at her heels. She stopped dead, her eyes wide and her mouth slack. "No," she whispered fiercely. He nudged her forward again, but she turned around and slammed her hands into his chest, over and over. He took each shove without a fight. "No!" She shook her head back and forth in shock; her chest rising and falling rapidly. She gave him another hard punch that made him stumbled back. "No."

"Eden—"

"No!" she yelled, taking a backwards step away from him. He stayed where he was. Her brows knitted together and her body shook with fury and fear. "Why would you do that? Why? You already had me!" Her voice cracked in her raw throat, but she kept yelling. "I was already doing what you wanted! Why would you kidnap me? Why would you torture me? What did that accomplish?" She was panting with rage, tears sliding down her checks.

He looked down at her bare feet.

"Nothing? Are you fucking kidding me! You're not going to tell me why you held me at gun point? Or why you branded me? You branded me, you sick fuck, you branded me!" She waited for him to say something—anything—but he didn't. He stood with a mixed look of self-loathing and accomplishment. She turned her bleeding back on him and ran her hands through her long hair, exhaling a shaky breath. Eden pressed her quivering lips together in a hard line as she glared at the wall that had a long, shiny machete mounted to it. His leather suit was folded neatly on the table below the weapon and his mask sat on top.

"There weren't any bullets in the gun," he said in a quiet voice.

She spun around fast, eyes blazing. "There weren't any bullets in the gun? Oh silly me," she spat. "That doesn't fucking matter, Yates. It doesn't change the fact that I thought you—a person I trusted— was going to rape me. It doesn't change the fact that you kidnapped me. It doesn't change the fact that you used a knife to cut open my skin. And God knows it doesn't fucking matter that you branded me!"

Each word she spoke seemed to be a physical blow to him. But he stood and took each word, never interrupting and never explaining. It made her livid.

"Will you say something?" she yelled. "Why did you disappear? Why did you stop coming to get me for training lessons after you attacked my dad? Why did you keep popping up as Yates?" She pinched her eyes closed and dug the heels of her hands into them. "Why did you make me like you if you were just going to make me hate you?" she whispered helplessly.

He took a tentative step towards her and tilted her chin up. She jerked away from him, fixing him with a vicious scowl. His warm brown eyes met hers, and then he spoke clearly and slow, "My task force was watching you closely. They thought there was a connection between us. I saved you, and months later I also tortured for you. This didn't go unnoticed by my captain. He thought—correctly—that you were working with the masked man. He had people stationed outside your house, sometimes I was the one, and sometimes I wasn't. Regardless, it was too dangerous to have training session when I was off duty. But you want and deserve honesty, and that's not the main reason I did what I did. I did it for a reaction. I wanted to know what you'd do in the off time. I wanted to know if you were dedicated, and you were."

He searched her face for a reaction now; he wanted to know if she was still dedicated to both him and his crusade. Her face was stony and resentful, but she was listening.

"But I didn't know if you felt loyal to the man in the mask, or if you felt loyal to Yates. I thought you'd confide in Yates... like you did when we first met, but I was wrong. When I kissed you in my car you pulled away, telling me that that wasn't what you wanted. You thought ahead. You thought of the man in the mask before your chance with Yates. That should have been enough for me but it wasn't," he said quietly. "I wasn't a hundred percent sure then, but I am now."