Page 40 of Stolen By the Billionaire
Blaze found a white cotton strip in the side pocket of his trousers and tied it tightly around his arm to apply pressure to the wound. The scratch wasn’t serious. He’d treat it properly when they arrived at his house in Chicago.
He curled himself into the driver’s side and glanced over at Sarah.
Tears streaked her face.
Oh, dammit. “Don’t cry. It’s all going to be fine.” He reached over her to grab the seatbelt and latched it around her.
Sarah asked him, “You’re going to kill me, aren’t you?”
“Absolutely not.”
“But you are a serial killer, right?”
In the strictest sense of the word, sort of. His number was far higher than the canonical three victims on three different occasions that defined a serial killer, but every one of those was an approved kill in a lawful combat theater.
So no, Blaze’s soul was not the sucking black hole of a serial killer.
Or it shouldn’t be. He should sleep well at night, knowing he’d served and done his duty according to the UCMJ and international law. He should be able to form friendships and relationships like a normal human.
Should.
He clicked his seatbelt and drove the Aston Martin up the entry ramp and back into the light traffic on I-80. “I’m not a serial killer. You’ve been watching too much true crime television.”
“Yeah, that’s what all the serial killers say. You’re taking me to your murder room somewhere, aren’t you?”
“I don’t have a murder room, and you’ve been watching too much Dexter.”
“Dude, look at my farm. I don’t have time to watch television.”
“Fair point. Podcasts?”
“Sometimes,” she said. Another tear rolled down her cheek.
“Don’t cry, Sarah. Nothing bad is going to happen to you. You’ll sleep in my guest bedroom, eat some takeout, work out in my home gym if you want, and watch some TV. You’ll look back on this crying as wasted emotional energy in a few weeks.”
“Weeks? Are you kidding me? Weeks?”
Blaze could hear the unvoiced stream of exclamation points and question marks after her query. “I will make sure everything at your farm is fine.”
She struggled with her bonds like a pissed-off caterpillar fighting its chrysalis. “Are you out of your mind? I can’t be gone for weeks!”
Ah, she was no longer frightened or crying, merely incensed. Better. “I told your neighbors that you needed weeks of hospital rehabilitation. The farm will be taken care of.”
“I can’t. Charlie will get sassy if he’s not ridden. HowNow needs to be milked. Remi needs to be fed and exercised. The chickens need to be fed. The corn needs to be monitored and fertilized and weed-treated. Plus, I need the money from the tarot card readings. I can’t leave.”
“Sarah, after watching you for a week and listening to you now, let me tell you something. You’re doing too much all by yourself. You’re overworked.”
“I am not.”
“You shouldn’t be doing all that by yourself, and you should be earning a better living doing it.”
She gasped, sounding more horrified than when she’d thought she was going to end up as a rug in his murder room. “I’m fine.”
“You’re not. I can hear the PTSD in your voice, and I know it when I hear it. It’s like you’ve got farm Stockholm Syndrome. People need R&R. Even farmers deserve to take leave outside of the theater of operations sometimes. Honestly, think of these next few weeks less like imprisonment—”
“Imprisonment? Weeks? You are going to hold me hostage.”
“—and more of a doctor-ordered enforced vacation.”
