Free Save Your Soul (Body & Soul #2) by Rochelle Paige Page B

lied to me?” I gasped.
    He stared straight at me, anguish evident in his eyes. “I did, but it was necessary. I was working on a project.” He cleared his throat and shifted his gaze to Brecken for a moment before looking at me again. “I can’t go into a lot of details because they’re classified, but Brecken can confirm that everything I’m telling you is the honest to God truth.”
    “I can, precious,” my husband whispered in my ear.
    I nodded and my dad continued with his explanation. “My situation put me in a unique position to help the Army in their search for an enemy who’d managed to get their hands on a weapon they needed to get back. Badly.”
    “Badly is an understatement,” Brecken added. “Your dad didn’t have much of a choice. Too many lives were at stake.”
    My dad waved it away, like him helping to save lives didn’t matter. “It was a decision I quickly came to regret because the only way to insert myself with them was to take possession of something else they wanted and to play coy in an effort to draw them out. Only it backfired, and threats were made against my family. Against you specifically, presumably because you were the easiest to access since your mom spends most of her time behind the gates of our home.”
    “Your solution was to push me away? Wouldn’t that have put me at risk even more?”
    “The profiler involved with the case assured me that their leader would lose interest in you if it appeared that I couldn’t care less.” His head hung low, and his voice dropped. “So we spread a story about you not being my biological daughter and I told them we weren’t even speaking to each other and that I’d finally been successful at removing you completely from your mother’s life.”
    My mom took his hand in hers. “He would have pushed me away too if they’d been able to figure out a story that made sense.”
    “The men the Army was hunting are beyond dangerous. They’re vicious and bloodthirsty, and I was willing to do whatever it took to keep you safe. Even if it meant you hated me forever. But they somehow figured out our ruse and took you. I just about went crazy trying to get the Army to help me search for you. To help me rescue you,” he pleaded. “Eventually, the General put me in touch with a man who he said was your best bet.”
    “Brecken,” I sighed.
    “The General was right. He managed to get you out.”
    “The guys who took me, are they still out there?”
    A look passed between the two men, I wasn’t certain what it meant but it seemed to hold a promise. “Not for long,” my dad answered.
    My situation had been desperate when Brecken had rescued me in the jungle. Before that, I’d spent so many months thinking my dad was a horrible person, responsible for the deaths of others. Brecken had managed to restore my faith in him. I had a feeling I was going to spend the rest of my life with him accomplishing impossible feats to make sure I was happy.
    “I never thought in a million years that I’d be thankful for being taken the way I was, but I am because it brought me to Brecken.”
    My husband’s arms tightened around me as my parent’s gazes dropped to the hand I extended, showing off the rings Brecken had placed there. I meant every word, too. I’d endure it all over again if he was waiting for me at the end. Our relationship had been forged in the fires of hell. It would withstand the test of time.

Epilogue
Brecken
    “I t’s done,” the voice in my ear delivered the news I’d waited almost a month to hear. The man who’d ordered Hadley’s kidnapping was dead, along with all of his men who’d been involved in taking her and holding her captive.
    “Did you get out clean?”
    “Do you even have to ask?” he growled.
    “Sorry,” I sighed, knowing damn well he wouldn’t leave a trace behind. He was the best of the best, trained by the Army, and he owed me a favor. One that was now paid in full and then some. “I’m in your