Free The Runaway Viper (Viper #2) by Kirsty-Anne Still Page B

Josh’s wife or Jace’s brother. One of them was a snitch – just like Brianna was. The rational side of my brain did fight back; telling me I was insane and needed to draw a breath before casting accusatory thoughts around.
    But it didn’t matter what I was thinking because of one thing – Clara had found us .
    “We’ll move again in the morning.” Jace’s voice barely penetrates the hazy edge of my head, but I know he is erratically pacing for one reason. He’s trying to form a game plan, trying to save us, save me again . “We’ll have to get out of the country.”
    I look up at him as he speaks. We’re across the world, and we’re still no safer, so how can he think getting out of the country will work? Getting out of the country didn’t work in the first place. I feel a wave of nausea take over, both a mixture of the boat journey to safety and the fact that the devil is hot on our tail.
    Closing my eyes, I dare myself to speak. “How can you be so sure getting out of the country is the best plan?” I open them and can see him think hard the moment I utter the question. “We’ve barely stopped running for almost eight months now, and it didn’t work. I’m not sure I can continue running now, Jace.”
    “Joely,” he utters and drops before me, keeping my attention on him. “I will find out what happened, and I will make it safe for you again.”
    “But you can’t guarantee it’ll stay that way, and that scares me,” I tell him honestly. “I can see it in your eyes just how much you want to give me a home and a future - how close we were - but we can’t secure it, Jace. Neither of us can.” I sigh, sitting up to place my hands firmly over my face to rub away the angst tightening the muscles. “And this is my fault.” I allow my hands to fall, and I can see Jace’s horrified look. It’s the same one he always gives me when I play the blame game. “If I’d had stayed there, we’d be nearly another year down.”
    “And you’d have been miserable,” he admonishes and stands back to full height. “Do you think it was easy to see you dread every day you had work? Do you think it was easy to keep my mouth shut when she treated you like some prop? Because it fucking wasn’t, Joely. Every single day I had you in my arms, I used to calculate the ways I could just steal you away. There were so many times I used to sit and watch you play the piano, and it’d be the only times I saw you so carefree. I used to wonder how I could allow you to stay there with her.” He’s pacing now, leaving heavily padded steps across the length of the room. “Then I had my opportunity, and I took it, and I will not let her take that from me easily.” He stops mid-step, his eyes hitting me hard. “Not now. Not ever.”
    My eyes are watering as I hear the conviction lace upon every note in his tone. How can a man love me so fiercely that he will fight with every fiber of his being to make sure I am never lost from his life? What did I do to deserve a love with such ferocity it burns in every piece of his being? And how do I ever prove that I love him so whole-heartedly back that I would walk to the ends of the earth to make sure he was never hurt or worse?
    “Don’t doubt that if I ever see that woman again, she will know exactly my stance on her business approach,” Jace threatens and the putrid hatred in his tone is hard hitting. I feel myself wince at the sound of it. “Don’t think I’ve forgotten the threat she placed against me. She’ll know what I’m capable of one day. I don’t know when, but if she has it her way, she’ll make it sooner rather than later.”
    “Stop it,” I whisper, not wanting to dream up confrontations between Jace and Clara. “I just want to get settled. I don’t want to think about Clara right now.”
    “Okay,” he settles back, his tone resuming its usually casualness.  “I had a plan if this happened.”
    My head shoots back up to look at him again. I’m