Read Online Protected by Him by Hannah Ford - Free Book Online Page A

can’t help you. I don’t know anything and I don’t work there anymore.”
    Caleb’s eyes darkened and for the first time, I saw something besides just sympathy and calmness there – it was something else, something lurking just below the surface, something dark and a little bit sinister. It wasn’t that he wanted to hurt me -- I didn’t feel like I was in any danger, at least not physically, by being there with him.
    It was more that he really wanted me to help him. I could tell from the look on his face and the tone in his voice that he really wanted this, that he really wanted to bring Loose Cannons down, and that, in and of itself, made me anxious. Caleb had been friendly, but now I wasn’t playing by his rules and I could tell it was getting him upset.
    “You don’t want to do this, Olivia,” he said quietly.
    “Don’t want to do what?”
    “You don’t want to go down with people who don’t care about you.”
    “Go down with them?” I shook my head. “I told you I don’t work there anymore.”
    Caleb shrugged, right back into business mode, right back into acting like he could care less if I helped him. But I knew better. I knew how bad he wanted this. It was another thing my time in foster care had taught me – people who tried to overcompensate by acting too nonchalant were the ones who wanted things the most. “It doesn’t matter. Whoever’s worked there, whoever’s been a part of this is going to end up paying a price.”
    Another patron of the restaurant came walking through the door then, a girl about my age with a long blond ponytail and French-manicured nails. She was giggling into her cell phone and carrying a plastic takeout container of to-go food. I watched through the plate glass window as she walked jauntily down the sidewalk, her ponytail bobbing, so at ease, so unencumbered that it made my stomach twist into a tight, painful knot.
    She disappeared around the corner, out of my view, and I turned my attention back to Caleb. “Are you saying that if I don’t help you, you’re going to arrest me?”
    “I’m saying that if you don’t want to risk your entire future, if you don’t want to end up with a record because of some bad people who have somehow convinced you they’re good, then you should talk to me.”
    “They haven’t convinced me of anything,” I said. Panic was rising inside of me now at the thought of being arrested. It was fucked up, but I knew exactly how the criminal justice system in this country worked. They could accuse you of whatever they wanted, and if you had no money for a good lawyer or bail, they’d scare you right into taking a plea deal.
    A criminal record would follow me everywhere, would make it impossible to get a job, to start a life. I wouldn’t be able to do anything.
    “It’s your choice,” Caleb said. “Please, Olivia. Don’t throw everything away for something I know you don’t believe in, something I know you don’t want to be a part of.”
    You could hurt him.
    The thought flashed through my mind, ugly and raw. Colt. I could hurt him. In fact, I could probably destroy him. I could go back to Loose Cannons and beg for my job back, and then I could do whatever Caleb and the FBI wanted me to do, could give them whatever information it was that they were looking for.
    I could get Colt’s club shut down.
    But for what?
    Spite?
    That had never been my style. I’d seen what spite could do to people. It changed them into alcoholics or crazies or – even worse -- damaged them so heavily that the guilt ate them alive until they were nothing more than a shell.
    “Please, Olivia,” Caleb said. “I know you don’t want to sacrifice your freedom over people you don’t respect, for a place you don’t even like.”
    His words hit me in the face, underscoring for the millionth time in my life how much power people with money or status had over someone like me, who had nothing and no one.
    That’s not true.
    You have Declan.
    You’ve