It had the effect of a fierce blizzard. His face became shuttered, locked down as fury so cold blistered through his eyes and then blasted her, sending wave after wave of goose bumps racing across her flesh.
He abruptly rose, turning his back as if he didn’t want her to see any part of him or his reaction.
“You still have some healing to do before we can move you,” he said flatly.
And then he strode to the door, yanking it open and then slamming it behind him with enough force to knock one of the paintings on the wall askew.
CHAPTER 18
HANCOCK knew he was walking a razor’s edge in a true battle for his sanity. Worse, he was battling against what he knew must be done. The mission. The cost of completing his mission. All tied to one innocent woman with more courage and fire than he’d ever witnessed in one small female warrior.
He’d bullied her for days, ensuring that he and only he had access to the room where she was kept . . . prisoner. No way to leave the room, though as prisons went, he’d made sure it had all the comforts she could possibly need or want.
He avoided her questions. Natural questions. Questions she had the right to know the answers to. But the minute he answered them, all was lost. Because he wouldn’t lie to her. And he’d have to face her, those large trusting eyes, and watch the light shrivel to nothing but haunting resignation. And worse, betrayal. She would know that he was the very thing she’d run from and fought against, the thing she now believed she was safe from. She didn’t know—yet—that he was delivering her to the worst sort of evil, who would then hand her right back to the devil she knew.
And he couldn’t bear it. Even knowing his time was running out and that every day that passed that he didn’t tell her the truth about his intentions was simply a delaying tactic. Because he wanted those few days for her. Hell, he wanted them for himself. Just a few more hours, days, whatever he could buy when she still looked at him with trust in those warm brown eyes. With no fear or hesitancy to follow his lead.
With trust.
She trusted him when she should trust no one. He’d told her as much. But Honor being Honor, the very thing she was named for. God, the irony of just how well that name fit her. How could her parents have known that she would live up to the legacy and prophesy of that name?
No one had ever trusted him. His men respected him. They obeyed him without question. They’d die for him without hesitation, just as he would do for them. They had loyalty that ran deep in their blood. But they didn’t trust him any more than they trusted their other teammates or even themselves. They were all too aware of what they were. Ruthless killers, willing to sacrifice an innocent woman to achieve their means.
“When?” Conrad asked bluntly as he and his men gathered outside the huge mansion belonging to Bristow.
The irony of them already being stateside wasn’t lost on Hancock. Honor thought she was still somewhere in the bowels of the Middle East, and that their every movement could be watched, that they were in danger of discovery. If she discovered just how close she was to her family, he’d have to tie her to the bed to prevent her from bolting out on her own.
He glanced at his men, at their tight expressions as they stood expectantly, waiting for go time.