Lover Claimed Read Online Free Page A

appeared to be in there, but she doubted her key would
make that big of a bulge.
    “My back pocket,” he ground out.
    She averted her eyes. Heat crept slowly up
her face. “Um, okay. Let’s rewind. You said Trudy was
attacked?”
    “Yeah, not too long ago.”
    Meisha shook her head. “I spent the day with
her.” She backed up and reached behind her, feeling for the couch.
“I-Is she alright?”
    “She’s fine. We got to her house just in
time.”
    This was some serious shit. When Mark,
Trudy’s employee had been killed, Meisha assumed that he’d gotten
himself mixed-up with the wrong people. But if someone was after
Trudy, this meant something entirely different. No one had any
reason to try to hurt Trudy. She was the nicest and sweetest person
that Meisha had ever met. The only reason someone would possible
want to hurt Trudy would be to…
    Get back at me. The Yaruzi are here.
    Meisha’s head swam at the thought. Her and
her family had been hiding from the Yaruzi since leaving Japan, and
the day she’d always dreaded looked to be here.
    “Did you get a good look at the men who were
after Trudy?” she asked.
    Please, please don’t let it be them.
    The intruder snorted. “What are you? Some
kind of sketch artist or something?”
    “Just answer the question.” Her knees began
to wobble. She sat down on her couch. There were plans in place
just in case the Yaruzi found them, but neither her nor her dad
ever thought they’d go after Trudy.
    “Yes, I got a good look at them.”
    When the intruder didn’t elaborate any
further she waved her hand in the air. “And?”
    “They were two men, tall, large builds.”
    She let out a deep breath. “They weren’t
Japanese?”
    “Definitely not.”
    Relief washed through her. “Thank God,” she
whispered.
    She almost jumped for joy. It wasn’t the
Yaruzi, they hadn’t found her and her family. But then a dreadful
thought crept into her head. What if the Yaruzi had sent someone
else to do the dirty work for them?
    He turned to look at her. “Now that we have
all this settled can you untie me?”
    She’d have to warn her parents and get Trudy.
She shouldn’t have ever involved her in her family mess in the
first place. If something happened to Trudy it would be all her
fault.
    But first the intruder was right. She’d have
to untie him so that she could handle her business and get her
family and Trudy to somewhere safe.
    She got up and took a step forward, but
paused. The threat he’d given her earlier rang in her mind. “What
happened to your grand plan of knocking me out and taking me to the
courtyard?”
    “I’ll scrap it if you scrap yours.”
    Fair enough. She went over to him and dropped
to her knees. When she took the knife from the sheath wrapped
around one of her ankles he shook his head. “Unbelievable.”
    “Don’t judge me,” she said. She began cutting
at one of the ties. “I’m a single girl. I have to protect
myself.”
    “And you don’t think you’re going overboard
with it?”
    “Hey, I came home and found you in my
kitchen. What did you want me to do? Ask you what you were doing
here?”
    He raised a brow. “Yes.”
    He was right. She probably should’ve.
    She untied one of the knots, freeing his
hand. “Kick ass first and talk later. That’s what my dad always
says.” Well, not those exact words. He said to assess the situation
and if she was in danger then kick ass.
    He flexed his wrist and worked on the ties on
his other hand while she moved to free his ankles. “And your dad,
has he ever been in trouble with the law by chance?”
    She bit her lip. Her dad was an ex-Yaruzi, a
member of the largest gang in Japan. He used to have plenty
problems with the law. But that was before. In exchange for his
information about some high ranking members of the gang, the US had
gotten her parents, her brother Miko and her out of Japan and into
the US in the witness protection program.
    Freed, he sat up and then stood. She got up
too