Free A Kiss of Revenge (Entangled Ignite) by Natalie Damschroder Page A

know,” she answered. “It depends on his condition.”
    “I meant in town, not the hospital.”
    She smiled. “So did I.” She patted him on the arm and eased past. “Thanks for the concern, Chief.”
    “Sure. Take care.”
    She went toward the doors but stopped halfway and watched Andrew leave the building. Her senses were heightened again, awareness of the vast amounts of power running this place making her tense, and in return increasing her body’s affinity. There was way too much electricity here, and she was way too stressed to go back into the main area of the ER. She could fry equipment that was keeping people alive.
    Griff would understand. She wrapped her arms around herself and followed signs to a different exit in case Andrew was still in the parking lot.
    What the hell did she do now? All her self-assurances that Griff was only a friend had just been blown to hell. Sure, he could wait , but for what? She wasn’t going to cheat on her husband. A lot of people wouldn’t blame her, given what he’d done and what his condition was now. Brian would never know that she was the “better” one, but she would. So she couldn’t give Griff even a hint of encouragement…and that might kill their friendship.
    Kill . She cringed at the word. What if the surgery didn’t work? What if Brian eventually succumbed, and she was free? There was still the matter of his partner. She’d come so far, she couldn’t give up now. But every step she took made her less worthy of Griffin. He would never want her after she exacted her revenge.
    He would if you did things the right way . Like how? she argued with herself. Turn Alpine Man over to the police? She’d never expected to gather enough information to be able to do that, but what if she could?
    Hope blossomed in the center of her despair, and it wouldn’t be crushed, even when she listed all the problems with that plan. She and Griff had already spent a year proving how little information there was to be gathered. If they did find enough, turning Brian’s partner over to the authorities would put a genuine target on her back. She didn’t know if there was one on her right now, but there had been no accidents since the crash, no communication or surveillance. She assumed he didn’t consider her a threat. Becoming a witness in a case against him, though, would definitely make her one. Griff had chosen a less-than-safe profession, but that was different from danger-by-association. Could she live with making him a target, too, by becoming involved with him?
    She glanced up and found herself at the edge of the hospital property. Traffic zoomed by on the main road a few feet away. To her left, patients were being wheeled or walking around a paved pathway through the trees, accompanied by orderlies or family members. She headed that way to absorb the peace, to calm herself so she could go back inside.
    There was one other problem she hadn’t worked over yet. Andrew. She knew from many morning discussions that his was the kind of brain that hated a mystery, however minor. He had to be wondering about her injured friend and the conversation he’d overheard. Maybe he’d take it at face value and assume she just wasn’t interested in Andrew and had used Brian to let him down easy. But why wouldn’t she tell him she was involved with someone else? That was just as easy. He’d think she’d lied to him somewhere along the line, and lies meant secrets, and if she was right and he was already interested in her secrets, he could start watching her even more closely.
    She squared her shoulders and took a deep breath as she approached the hospital entrance. There was no way to alleviate his interest without piquing it even more, except to shut down her quest and move on. She wasn’t going to do that, so the only thing left to say was bring it on .
    Griff was still in the curtained cubicle when she got inside, but now he lay on the gurney, covered with a yellow blanket and