Wild Card

by Lora Leigh

  “I should have killed the bastard while I had the chance,” Ian said heavily. “I’m sorry, man. Fuentes should be dead.”

  Diego Fuentes was Ian’s father. The man who had tortured Nathan, who had nearly destroyed him.

  “Yeah, and once for me as soon as those bastards at Homeland Security lift the ban on him.” Noah breathed in roughly before glaring back at Ian. “Get Sabella out of here, Ian. Get her to Jordan in the comm bunker. Keep her safe till this is through.”

  He could smell her, like sweet hot rain.

  “It’s bad this time,” Micah murmured to Ian. “Doc send him some goodies?”

  “Here.” Ian tossed Micah the black leather bag he carried and turned back to Noah and stated, “Belle’s not stupid, Noah. You know that. You’ll have to give her the mission parameters at least. She and Rory both were cleared for that. She’s probably already figured you’re an agent of some sort anyway.”

  “I hate this shit.” Noah rose up in the bed, glaring at both of them, ignoring Ian’s warning as Micah shoved a syringe in his shoulder.

  “Come on, Noah, it made it better last time.” Ian breathed out roughly.

  “The hell it did. Made it better for you guys because you couldn’t hear me screaming,” he snarled. “I heard it in my own fucking head.”

  “Do you want Sabella to hear it?” Micah asked him then.

  Noah shook his head. “That’s the only reason you got that needle anywhere close to me.”

  He lay back on the bed, glared at Micah as he inserted a second syringe. “I’m going to break your fingers. You won’t be able to shove that shit in me then.”

  Micah grinned at him. It was the norm. They cursed, insulted each other, threatened to kill each other on a daily basis. It kept them alive.

  “Keep chirping at me and I’ll pump you so full of this shit I’ll make Fuentes look like a choirboy. You got me?”

  Noah nodded shortly, licked his dry lips, and breathed out. “Bastard.”

  “I can’t take Belle to the bunker,” Ian told him then. “You know we can’t do that, Noah.”

  He closed his eyes. God, he wanted her safe. He wanted her away from his madness and away from the danger he had brought down on her and the questions he knew she was going to ask. Where the hell had his mind been? He should have never taken this mission. He should have gone to Siberia.

  “We’re tracking the car that went after Toby.” Ian sat down in the chair by the bed. “Some of the mechanics thought they’d seen it last night, close to the bar. I’m guessing it’s one of the yokels that attacked you.”

  Noah nodded jerkily. “Yeah, stupid bastards. Thought they could slice and dice me and run me the hell off. Toby was a message, they’ll target friends next.”

  “They definitely sliced and diced you.” Micah snorted. “I have you all stitched and bandaged now, little soldier. You can go back and play with all the bad boys again tomorrow.”

  “Bite me, you half-breed little bastard,” Noah said.

  “He keeps forgetting I prefer the female persuasion.” Micah laughed.

  “Doesn’t that go against your damned religion? Don’t you have to be married first or some shit?” Noah bit out.

  The general insults were a game. A tension stiller. Bitch at each other to take your mind off the pain. It was a head game, because it sure as hell didn’t help the pain.

  “What religion?” Micah rolled his black eyes. “Since joining up with you yoohoos, all my beliefs have been shot to hell.”

  “Yahoos,” Ian corrected him, but his eyes were on Noah.

  Slow easy breaths. Noah could smell Sabella with every breath he took. He could feel his blood pounding in his dick, the need racing through him as fresh, as violent, as it had been the first time Fuentes shoved a needle in his arm.

  Noah dragged himself up on the bed, the fabric of his jeans cutting into his dick. Hell, he needed to fuck. This wasn’t like the past six years when taking a woman meant breaking the vows he’d made to his wife. Now it would mean burying himself inside his wife. Feeling her tight and sweet around him.

  It would mean loving her, touching her. It would be stilling the fire burning in his gut and probably bleeding like a stuck pig all over her again.

  He breathed in roughly, feeling his head beginning to clear marginally. As much as he hated that shit they shot into him, at least he could think now.

  “Hell.” He took a hard breath then looked at Ian. “Get Micah, Travis, and Nik out of here. Put Travis on Mike Conrad’s ass. I want to know why I was hit last night and why they struck at Toby today. Tell Rory to keep his ass and Toby’s in the office, Nik can keep an eye on them without anyone knowing. I want Micah on long-distance watch of the garage and the house, make sure no eyes caught you coming in and none catch you leaving. People would expect Ian and Kira Richards to show up, they’d expect Nik to help his boss’s lover up to the apartment. That’s it. Get the rest of them out of here.”

  “And Belle?” Ian asked.

  “Sabella stays here.” It was too late for her to leave and he knew it. He would only follow her. No matter where they hid her. And the bunker was off limits to her unless she was directly targeted.

  “Noah, you’re in no shape for this decision,” Ian said quietly. “You know where it’s going to go. Those drugs haven’t done anything for the lust, man. It’s burning in your eyes. And that surgery might have darkened them, but right now, they’re blazing almost pure sapphire. You need her out of here.”

  “I still have the control.” He was sure of it. He knew he did. “I won’t hurt her.” He’d never hurt her. He’d slice his own throat first. “And the eyes are just fucking eyes. They’ll dim once this eases.”

  “You’ll have explanations to make. Tell her what the hell is going on,” Ian told him harshly. “At least as far as this mission is concerned. But you’re fooling yourself if you think she’s not going to figure out more than that. You didn’t see the look on her face when Kira and I arrived.”

  Noah breathed in deeply. It would kill him, but he’d take care of that too. She wouldn’t suspect who he was when he was finished. After all, her husband never yelled at her, he didn’t fuck her like an animal, and he sure as hell didn’t put her in the middle of a dangerous assignment. No, Sabella would never suspect who he really was.

  “You break open my stitches and you’ll bleed like you were gutted again,” Micah snarled.

  He shook his head. “Get the hell out of here. Now. Leave Nik in the garage. Tell him to stay in place for cover. We can’t afford to have the team here like this. When those bastards move we need to be right behind them. Until then, we won’t have a break in this and we’ll never catch them.”

  “And if you break with Belle?” Ian asked him. “If you tell her who you are, what you are. What then?”

  Noah stared back at him. That wouldn’t happen. Ever. He couldn’t bear for his Sabella to know what had happened to the man she had loved so desperately that she came to him in hell.

  “Dead men don’t talk,” he said, his voice bleak. “She won’t know. Ever. Her husband is dead.”

  Ian stared back at him, his lips tightening before he turned to Micah and nodded to the door.

  “He’s fooling you,” the Israeli snapped. “He doesn’t have enough control not to hurt her.”

  Oh, he had control, Ian knew. More control than any of them realized.

  “Get out of here,” Ian ordered. “Give the others their orders. This is his play, not yours.”

  Micah rose to his feet, glared at both of them then lifted his lip in a sneer and headed to the door. Like the Russian, the Australian, the Englishman, their Israeli didn’t always understand some of the rules they broke, and others that they made. Incorporating these men into a viable working team hadn’t been easy. They were hard men. Dead men with nothing else to lose but their honor. But they were good men.

  Ian turned back to Noah. He was wild with the lust, there was no doubt of it. But Ian had seen
him in a hell of a lot worse shape. He’d disappeared on them more than once in worse shape, and Belle had never suffered.

  The man had lived for nineteen months pumped up on a drug that the doctors still couldn’t figure out entirely. Pumped so high on it that he’d been like an animal, nearly deranged with the need for sex. And he had never taken what Fuentes had offered him. He’d never broken his vows. He’d never let go of his wife.

  Ian had to trust in his belief that Noah wouldn’t hurt her now.

  Nodding, he moved to the door, glancing back at his friend and hating himself, hating Fuentes with a strength that still had the power to fill him with bitter rage.

  His father had done this. The man who sired him. And Ian still let him live. Because he was his father or because Homeland Security needed him? And where, he wondered, was the line drawn?

  He should have killed the bastard while he had the chance.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Sabella was standing at the narrow counter that separated the kitchen from the living room watching the hall when Ian stepped out of the bedroom. She and Kira hadn’t spoken, the words were there between them, but neither of them had yet broken the silence.

  The obviously Middle Eastern agent, and she knew they were agents, had stomped from the apartment with Nik and the others moments before, leaving an eerie silence between her and Kira.

  The other woman watched her closely, her gray eyes thoughtful. Now, as Ian moved into the room, Sabella straightened and glanced back to the closed bedroom door.

  “Is he okay?” She shoved her hands in the pockets of her jeans and stared back at the man who had been her husband’s greatest friend. Strange, wasn’t it, that he seemed to be Noah’s friend as well.

  “He will be.” He stood straight and tall, though his arm went around his wife as she came to him.

  Sabella held his gaze, she didn’t hold her tongue.

  “Who is he? What is he?”

  Was that surprise that flickered in his eyes? Ian didn’t speak.

  She stomped to the kitchen drawer, jerking it open and practically slammed the Glock on the counter. She bent, opened the doors beneath the sink, and pulled free the weapon Velcro’d onto the cabinet frame.

  She stalked over to the couch, bent, and pulled the smaller handgun from the little pocket beneath the couch and added it to her pile.

  “Who the hell is he and what is he doing in my garage and in my life?” Her hand slapped the counter. “And why are you here with him? You were my husband’s best friend, Ian. He said you were the same as his brother, and now you bring an agent into his wife’s life.”

  “His widow’s,” Ian said softly, gently.

  Sabella flinched. “And that makes it okay?” she bit out. “Damn you, Ian. You’d betray him that way?”

  “I haven’t betrayed Nathan, Belle.” His stare was fierce and hard. “I don’t order Noah Blake anywhere. Whatever the hell he’s doing, he’s doing on his own. I know him. We’re friends. I’m your friend.”

  Yes, they were friends. For two years she had watched her husband and his friend together. They had been as close as brothers, maybe closer. And Ian had a particular little habit. One her father used to have. When he lied, he didn’t so much as bat an eyelash. His expression didn’t change, his body didn’t tense, and he reacted so normally that it had always appeared abnormal to Sabella.

  “Don’t you lie to me.” She pointed a trembling finger back at him, stabbed it in his direction. “Don’t you dare lie to me. Something’s wrong with him and it’s more than a few knife cuts. And there’s more going on here than that crap you just let slip from your mouth.”

  “And if he could tell you anything more, he would,” Kira stated.

  Sabella’s gaze sliced to the other woman. What was the warning in her eyes? It was there. She could see it, feel it, and so did Ian.

  “Kira, could you wait outside?” he asked her.

  “No, Ian, I really can’t.” She smiled back at him, the obvious love she felt for her husband in her eyes, her smile. But her determination defining her stance.

  He almost rolled his eyes.

  “You’re my friend,” Sabella said harshly. “Yet you’re standing here and allowing him to lie to me. You’re lying to me?”

  Ian breathed out roughly. “Sabella, listen to me.”

  “Who is he?” she asked both of them, again. “He’s an agent, isn’t he?” She was shaking, torn apart by that realization. “Which agency? FBI?”

  Ian shook his head. “Noah isn’t an agent, Belle. Not of any government agency.”

  “That leaves private?” she guessed. He didn’t answer her. “Are you a part of it?”

  “Let’s say you’re cleared to know only the fact that there is an operation being conducted in Alpine,” he finally told her. “You and Rory were cleared for that knowledge, no one else.”

  And he wasn’t lying. She licked her lips nervously.

  “What’s wrong with him?” She was still breathing roughly, the question she wanted to ask held back, from the fear of disappointment.

  Ian’s jaw bunched. “Nothing you need to be frightened of.” He hoped. She heard what he wasn’t speaking.

  “Why is he here?”

  “That’s his story to tell, Belle,” he said, sighing. “I’m here as your friend, and as his. That’s all anyone else can know. I heard about the attack on Toby and received a call that Noah had been hurt as well. I wanted to check out the situation for myself.”

  “You’re lying,” she cried out. “Damn you. Damn you both to hell, you’re lying to me, just as you lied to me about how my husband died.” She whirled away from him, her hands covering her face before she turned back. “He wasn’t just shot. Was he?” She was shaking now, so desperate for some part of the truth somewhere, that she was nearly mad for him. “Tell me, Ian, tell me what happened to my husband and then tell me what the hell that man is doing in my life.” She pointed toward the hallway, watching as Noah stepped into the hallway.

  “Belle.” Ian shook his head.

  “They wouldn’t let me say goodbye to my husband,” she snarled. “I couldn’t see his body—”

  “You didn’t want to see his body, Belle,” Ian snapped back. “Trust me. Remember him the way he was and let him go. Because he’s dead. And I promise you, you didn’t want to see what we recovered.”

  A sob tore from her throat. For a second, just for a second, she had almost thought . . . She shook her head. No, she had known better.

  She covered her mouth with her hand but had to turn away from them all. All of them.

  “Belle.” Kira spoke behind her.

  Sabella lifted her hand. Silence. She just needed silence. She just needed a minute to let that last flame of hope die within her.

  “I want to go home,” she whispered, turning back to them, her gaze going to Noah. He stared at her, his eyes flaming, his expression agonized. She wanted to go to him. She wanted to wrap her arms around him and she wanted the world to make sense just one more time.

  “Do you really want to walk away from him, Sabella?” Kira asked, stepping to her, laying her hand on her shoulder as another sob shuddered through her body. She leaned close. “He may not be your husband. But do you really want to walk away from who he could be to you?”

  “You’re the same one who told me to fuck him and get the sexual crisis out of the way,” she bit out, sniffing back the tears. “That didn’t help, Kira. Not at all.”

  “Didn’t it, Belle?” She smiled, a sad, gentle smile. “Your husband is gone. But you didn’t die with him.”

  “Kira, tell me the truth,” she whispered, so filled with pain and suspicion it was ravaging her.

  “Enough.”

  Sabella lifted her head to see Noah walking into the living room, almost staggering. He wore the jeans he had worn earlier, snapped and zipped and obviously straining beneath an erection.

  Kira sighed as Ian came to his wife and wrapped his arm around her waist. “Com
e on, troublemaker.”

  Noah eased to the counter and stared at the weapons she had managed to locate.

  “How did you find them?” he asked her, his voice more grating than normal.

  Sabella clenched her teeth then smiled mockingly. “You hid them exactly where my husband would have hid them.”

  There, she’d said it, it was out in the open and she could have sworn he barely held back a flinch.

  He was silent for long moments before he finally nodded.

  “I’m a contract agent for a private company,” he finally said, reaching out to pick up the Glock before edging around the counter.

  He replaced the first two weapons.

  “An adrenaline junkie.” She sneered. “Just what I needed in my life. Tell me, Noah, did you know my husband?”

  She cocked her hip and crossed her arms over her breasts as she stared back at him, looking, searching, desperate to either confirm or disprove the suspicions rising inside her.

  He paused, staring down at the counter, his hands braced on it before his eyes, just his eyes, lifted to her.

  “I knew your husband. We weren’t exactly friends.”

  “Enemies?”

  His lips quirked mockingly. “No, we weren’t enemies. We just knew each other.”

  “So is Noah your real name?”

  He nodded slowly, still watching her. “It’s my real name.”

  “And what made you decide to come to Texas to fuck Nathan Malone’s wife?”

  He flinched. Sabella could feel the hurt radiating through her. Betrayal. It felt like betrayal. Like deception.

  “That’s not what happened.” He shook his head, and she knew he was lying. She could feel it. Like instinct. Like a scent that teased at her senses. Just as she had always known when her husband was lying to her.

  “You knew who I was, you knew who Rory was, and you targeted us, didn’t you?”

  He licked his lower lip. The action wasn’t nervous, it wasn’t hesitant. It was sexual. The look in his eyes was sexual. Everything about him screamed hard-core sex.

  “I did.” At least he didn’t lie to her.