Ezekiel nodded. Gino studied the two men. All differences had been put aside for the mission. They were good. He walked out of the room, Draden pacing along beside him. Draden was considered the epitome of what a man should look like. He'd made his way through college and grad school on modeling. He'd been in high demand for some of the most high-end companies imaginable. The ladies loved him, calling out to him as he passed them on the street. Draden ran most nights, sometimes with Gino, but mostly alone. Whatever demons drove him, they were deep. Mostly, he kept to himself, even among the GhostWalkers, just as Gino did.
"This is a bad one," Draden observed.
"They usually are." Gino was noncommittal.
"She's a beautiful woman. Has brains too," Draden continued.
Gino paused and looked at him. "Spit it out."
"Just saying you want me to take over if the job needs doin', I will. Won't like it, but I'll live with it. You don't sleep so good."
Gino didn't know how to feel about the offer, but Draden wasn't going to have to do his job for him. He decided to be grateful. Brothers did that, noticed when something didn't sit well and tried to help out, but Zara Hightower was his responsibility and he wasn't shirking. Draden didn't sleep much better than he did, if at all.
"Thanks, man, I appreciate the offer, but it's mine to do if necessary."
Draden nodded and peeled off, heading toward the road. He ran before he slept. Always. Sometimes miles. Sometimes all night. The man rarely slept and seemed like a machine. Gino shook his head and headed toward the house. He wanted to find his laptop and research Zara. There was something about her that caught at him.
He wasn't like the others--well--maybe Wyatt, a little bit. He didn't want a warrior woman. Bellisia and Cayenne were lethal. Pepper was as well, in her own right, but killing had a vicious backlash for her and was dangerous. She did it if she had to, but all of them were aware the consequences for her could include death so it was a last resort.
Gino knew if he had a woman, he wouldn't want her anywhere near killing. He'd killed enough for both of them. He didn't want his woman trying to stand in front of him like his parents and grandparents had done. He'd watched them be mowed down, one by one. It was never happening again. With the help of Ciro, he'd shaped himself into a killing machine. He was quiet and deadly. He never picked a fight. He faded into the background whenever possible, but he could take apart a man if needed and not look back. He didn't need or want his woman to be anything like him. Listening to Joe and the others talk about Zara, it had occurred to him, just crept right into his mind, that she wasn't anything at all like him.
Wyatt's three little girls came running out of the house straight at him. All three. He didn't know the first thing about kids. Hadn't thought to find out about them either. Not in this lifetime, but these three little girls blew right past that notion and wormed their way into everyone's affections--his included.
He crouched low as they got to him so they could fling their arms around him. Triplets. Hard to tell them apart unless you knew what you were looking for. Beautiful little girls with their dark, thick curls, skin like their mother and eyes like their father. They had been deemed mistakes and had been scheduled for termination. Pepper had gotten one out of their prison, and Wyatt and their team had rescued the other two--and Cayenne.
"Where are you going?" he asked.
"We're going to hide in the swamp and see if Daddy can find us," Ginger, the spokesperson for the three, said.
"Did Pepper or Nonny give you permission?" he asked. "It's late. Past your bedtime." They were dressed in night clothes, which meant Pepper had put them to bed. They were little escape artists.
The triplets looked at one another. Gino shook his head, lifted all three of them up and stood. "You three. Ginger, you're such a little ringleader."
She grinned at him, completely unrepentant. "I know. Nonny says I keep everyone on their toes."
"You're not walking on your toes, Uncle Gino," Cannelle pointed out.
Although extremely intelligent, the children were very literal. He kept a straight face. "No, you're right. It's a saying, remember, Pepper explained that concept to you?" He kept striding toward the house, picking up speed, not wanting them to realize he was taking them back inside before it was too late.
"How are we supposed to know when it's a saying?" Thym protested, patting his face with her little hand.
That did something to him. He liked that her hand was so tiny, brushing over his rough shadow. She seemed intrigued with the dark sandpaper along his jaw, rubbing at it over and over. His heart melted just a little when he'd been so certain it was made of stone. It was the three little girls who had given him back some humanity.
Pepper burst out of the house, glaring at her little ones. "You do not get to take advantage of me throwing up in the bathroom, you little hooligans."
They didn't have to ask what a hooligan was. Pepper called the triplets that often, and the word had been explained. Gino set them on the porch just as Wyatt's grandmother stepped outside. She smiled gently at the girls and seated herself in the rocking chair, and gestured, using her pipe, toward the three little rockers Wyatt had made for his girls.
"Girls, your mother wasn't feelin' well this evenin', was she?" The tone was mild.
Gino's stomach turned to knots. How did Nonny do that? She didn't raise her voice, but just by the tone and words, you knew she was disappointed. No one ever wanted to disappoint Nonny--especially the triplets. Their little faces dropped as they all obediently sat in their appointed rockers.
"I wanted Daddy to come and find us," Ginger said, her lower lip starting to quiver. "He works all the time now."
Gino leaned one hip against the post. Pepper, Wyatt's wife, was gorgeous. Not just gorgeous, that didn't begin to describe her. She was exotic. Sexy. Every movement she made was sensual. She was enhanced that way, and sometimes just looking at her hurt. Right now, she looked beautiful but very tired. Her pregnancy appeared to be a rough one.
He wanted to put his arm around her and offer her a little sympathy like any brother might do for his sister, but one didn't touch Pepper. There was something on her skin that could cause a man to need her. They were all very careful around her. Fortunately, her husband watched over her, and he came up behind Gino and went straight to his wife.
"Hey baby. Did they wear you out today?" He brushed gentle kisses over her mouth and then sank into a chair and pulled her down onto his lap. "You girls were good for Mommy while I was workin'?" he asked.
Ginger, Cannelle and Thym looked at one another and then shook their heads. Ginger looked down at her hands. "We snuck out of bed while Mommy was throwin' up and were goin' to hide in the swamp and make you find us," she said. "We don' like you gone so much."
There was a small silence while Wyatt regarded his children. Gino went on into the house, giving Wyatt and his family privacy. The men were all building homes close, with Trap's home the fortress to defend should they come under attack, but most of them were still using the Fontenot home as a barracks until the buildings were complete.
Gino went down the hall to his room. He didn't have to share with anyone and he pulled off his boots immediately, grabbed his laptop and sank down onto the bed. There were hundreds, no thousands of entries about Zara Hightower. She'd been a child prodigy just as Trap had been. Gino wondered if she had the same problems as Trap. Trap had Asperger's and missed a lot of social cues. Draden interpreted for Trap often, and Gino had found himself doing so as well. He studied Zara's face. She was looking straight at the camera, something Trap wouldn't do in a million years.
She was beautiful. He found an image of her in color. That hair of hers was the perfect mixture of red and gold. She wore it long, but usually in a tidy braid down her back. There were only two images of her with her hair outside that braid, and both times the wind was blowing and the sun was shining. The thick mass looked like spun silk gleaming in the sun's rays, more red than gold, but a soft, b
arely there red.
Her eyes were very large, a slate blue framed with long lashes. Her mouth was generous, her teeth very straight. She had legs that went on forever and he knew he shouldn't be looking that close--not at someone he might have to kill. He cursed and slammed the lid down on his laptop. What was he thinking? He didn't look at women that way. He hadn't for a long, long while. If he needed relief, he found it for a night and walked away.
The problem was those three little girls. Wyatt's daughters. His wife. Cayenne and Trap. He never thought Trap would get married, but the man was crazy about Cayenne, couldn't keep his eyes or his hands off of her. They shared those soft, intimate looks. She made Trap smile when Gino had never known him to. Then there was Ezekiel with Bellisia. The two were inseparable. And Nonny, Wyatt's grandmother. She was the glue that held them all together. She'd made a home for all of them, and Gino hadn't had a home in a very long time.
Gino knew he wasn't the kind of man to find the happily ever after, because what woman could put up with him? He wasn't like the rest of them. He'd watched the others succumb, even Trap, to their women. When Cayenne wanted to join the men in a firefight, she did it. So did Bellisia. Pepper might be the guardian of the safe room, but she wasn't in it. His woman would be. He had a coldness in him the others didn't. Trap was antisocial, he could be dark and very dangerous, but he didn't have that well inside him that turned to ice and allowed him to do ugly, vile things when needed. Wyatt was way dominant, but again, he didn't turn to a cold, unnatural place when riled. Zeke was always interesting. He was the sweetest man on the planet, but he had a wealth of darkness shadowing him. He had been given that strand of big cat DNA just like the rest of them, so he was a hunter, but to his woman, he was beyond nice.
Gino leapt off the bed and paced across the room to stare out the window into the gathering night. Zara Hightower was physically beautiful the way Draden was beautiful. The kind of looks that were noticeable and turned heads everywhere they went. She would always garner attention, if not with her looks, then with her brains. Gino was a man to fade into the background and his wife wouldn't be somewhere where a fuckin' goon could grab her and throw her in an interrogation room. With her good looks, she should belong to man like Draden, one who matched her, but could look after her.
He touched the pane, looking up at the stars just beginning to show themselves. Zara was the type of woman a man might come to crave. To obsess over. If he were the wrong kind of man he might come to think she could be taken against her will. She shouldn't be all over the Internet. He was tempted to go back and look to see how many stalkers she'd had over the years because he was certain it would be more than one.
He swore again and tore his shirt off, pulling it over his head with one hand. The bullet holes from when he was a child were prominent on his chest, but along with them were dozens of other scars. He had them and he'd earned every single one. He wasn't pretty nor, by any means, handsome. He was scary and he knew it. He had cultivated that stillness, that coldness he'd been born with in order to survive. Enhancement had grown all traits, good or bad, and that coldness had spread, obliterating most of the good he had left. The things he wanted from a woman weren't for the likes of a woman like Zara.
He was restless, edgy, moody. He needed to be sharp for this mission. Joe had called it. It was a suicide mission. Precision jumping onto the roof of a high rise with heavy gear? Avoiding water towers when the target was already so small? He knew he would go no matter what, even if the others changed their minds. He pulled the laptop to him, even though he knew he shouldn't. He was one of those men becoming obsessed with Zara Hightower and he didn't even know why.
3
T
he Louisiana swamp had a magic all its own. Gino knew not everyone would find it that way, but for men like the GhostWalkers, it was the perfect refuge. There was a beauty to the land, a rhythm that got under a man's skin and soothed him when he was a predator and needed space and a hunting ground. There was that same wild that called to him, a place to fish and hunt and an opportunity to live off the land if necessary.
Gino liked the humidity and heat and the fierce weather changes. He spent time learning the canals and waterways as well as his way around the various islands and large tracts of swamp. He liked to be alone, and the swamp provided him with ample opportunity. He liked the people even though he didn't interact much with them. Most were good people, eking out a living, working hard to provide for their families. They worked hard and played just as hard.
He found himself cursing the heat and humidity that he liked so well as they built the exact replica of the jump site, thanks to Bellisia's intel, up on top of Trap's home. Trap had a huge cement warehouse he'd turned into a home. The roof was flat, a good place to put up the series of water towers and mark where all five would have to land when they jumped. The build went up fast in spite of the light rain that did nothing to relieve the heat.
The rain brought the fresh smell of the swamp, the perfumed flowers mixed with rotting vegetation. Shirts off, they worked fast to get the site ready so they had as much time as possible to practice the jumps. Just looking at the marks they would have to hit--all five of them--made Gino's heart sink. He'd done many dicey missions, but this one was going to be bad. He wasn't the only one feeling that way.
"Zeke," Rubin said, after walking the length of the rooftop they'd mapped out with the water towers now sitting right in the way of their landing. Just that one name. A protest. An exhale. Saying that name said it all. Rubin stood on the edge of the roof they'd cut more than in half and then made it even smaller by adding the banks of large water towers. He stood for a long time, mathematically calculating their odds.
Gino knew the odds weren't good. He'd already made those calculations and he hadn't added the additional complication of it being a night jump.
"Boss, how the hell are we supposed to make this jump with all that gear? Power paragliders aren't small and just with us it's already a tight fit."
Zeke shrugged. "It will be just like doing a tandem with a person strapped to you, only smaller."
They all exchanged long, silent looks. Mordichai shook his head, swore under his breath, walked to the edge and spit. It was his older brother leading the suicide mission. "You're going to need a couple of us there to collect the fuckin' bodies, Zeke." He meant it as a joke, but it was too close to the truth so no one laughed.
Zeke shot him a look that told him to shut the hell up.
"Is there a possibility of doing this with less men?" Gino asked. "Even dropping one, we might fit better up on the roof. Leave Draden or Diego behind. Draden is the biggest, takes up the most room." He didn't want to examine his reasoning for pushing to leave Draden behind. It shouldn't matter who stayed, but somehow it did.
Zeke took his time thinking it over and then shook his head. "We'll practice the jumps on the ground until we all hit our marks and then we'll start jumping on the roof without the equipment first. We have today to get this right, and we will because it's necessary."
Gino nodded. Zeke was the boss and his word was law under the circumstances. If he said they needed everyone, then they did. Cheng wasn't a normal businessman upset because he'd caught an industrial spy he would hand over to the authorities. He was a notorious criminal willing to torture and kill perceived enemies, let alone someone he caught working against him.
Gino had taken the time to read everything Joe had on the man. He seemed to be unraveling, or he was just that paranoid. He was known to shoot lab techs for messing up. He lined up workers, picked a few he claimed were working against him and they disappeared, presumably to be tortured and then killed. He locked down his office building periodically for weeks at a time, refusing to allow the workers to go home.
He had cameras in private apartments, spying on his workers at all times. His private security forces were drawn from ex-military, men who knew what they were doing and didn't mind bullying or roughing up innocent civilians. He paid well. He
seemed to the outside world to run a model business with day care and living quarters for his people. It was known to those around the world who knew his true character, that those children lived under a threat and their parents were his most loyal employees.
"This is sketchy at best, boss," Draden pointed out.
"Joe said it was going to be a suicide mission. If you've got a better plan, I'd fuckin' love to hear it."
They looked at one another again. No one was going to back out. They had to get the woman out one way or another. She'd shut down the sale of their program, preventing terrorists from getting their hands on Whitney's work or from having any intelligence on the GhostWalkers. Even Cheng would have begun experiments to have better soldiers guarding him. Or maybe he'd sell his soldiers. He was capable of selling human beings. If the information they had on him was correct, he did it often with the sons and daughters of the hapless employees he thought had double-crossed him.
Zeke sighed. "We'll figure it out on the ground," he repeated. "We'll practice it all day and then do a couple of night jumps to get it right. We have to start traveling tomorrow to make that deadline of meeting up with the workers going to Shanghai."
The rain ceased, which made wielding hammers easier. The rest of the unit not going continued to set up a site inside the building that was a mock-up of the floor Bellisia had seen. She knew nothing about the inside of the rooms, but the floor was basically the same as the lower floors. The positioning of elevators determined the layout of the floors, so that was easy. It was impossible to tell where all the guards would be, but she'd seen enough of the floors to know where the standard placement was.
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