Dagger’s Edge

by Leigh, Lora

  But hadn’t she known what to expect? Hadn’t she been aware of exactly where this was going? Hadn’t she demanded that she be a sacrifice to his vengeance, that she be the tool he used to destroy her father and grandfather?

  “But what will they reveal when they tip it?” she asked. “What are you hoping they’ll reveal?”

  He gave an easy shrug as an icy smile tugged at his lips. “I’m hoping they’ll destroy themselves in their attempt to get to me. What are you hoping for, Syn?”

  There was nothing warm, nothing caressing, in his tone as there was usually when he used the name he’d given her.

  “I just hope it’s a peaceful death when the three of you destroy me.” Grief seared her chest though and burned her eyes. “I never dared wish for more. And as pretty as this illusion is, I’m not fool enough to believe it will end any other way.”

  * * *

  Damn her.

  Maintaining even a measure of calm was nearly impossible when he stared into the broken dreams that filled her eyes. No woman should ever look at a man like that. Without hope, with the illusions of the fairy tale he was trying so desperately to make her believe in. And his Syn damned sure shouldn’t have that look on her pretty, delicate face.

  He’d watched his father, then the nameless, faceless partners his father had, attempt to destroy any vestige of kindness inside him. From his first memories he’d known only his father’s brutality, then his pure evil. He’d arranged for Amara’s mother to seduce him when he was no more than a boy and to conceive a child. A girl child. One he could use to control Ivan. Then Amara would have been a tool to break him.

  Had his daughter been a son, then that child would have died at birth. Ivan’s legacy demanded it. For the same reasons that his father couldn’t kill him, allowing knowledge of a male heir’s birth would have been far too dangerous. Ivan would have controlled those families had a boy been born. And he would have controlled the very elite killers that still upheld the traditions of the past.

  With no heir, he’d been on his own until he forced those families to honor their traditions. With an iron grip, with blood on his hands and staining his soul, he’d done just that. The Dragons were his now. They followed him. He would lose that control with his death. He was the last male Resnova. He’d ensured it.

  “Excuse me,” she said when he didn’t respond, her voice husky as she stepped farther away from him. “I’m tired. I think I’ll go inside now.”

  “Like hell you will.” He reached her before she could turn away, jerked her body against his own, and felt that cauldron of emotions that made no sense to him threatening to explode. “Do you think I’d allow Stephen and Craig Taite to kill you? That I won’t do everything in my power to protect you? That I wouldn’t place every resource at my disposal to protect you?”

  She doubted him, doubted his word to her. She wasn’t fighting if she had no hope of survival.

  “Can you read their minds?” she asked bitterly, holding herself stiff and unyielding against him. “Can you predict where and when they’ll attack and who they’ll use, Ivan? Do you have a magic wand that reveals their secrets to you?”

  He stared down at her and wanted to assure her that he had all this covered, that she’d be safe, no matter what. He wanted to swear to her that he’d never allow her to be hurt, let alone killed. But that wasn’t the world they lived within, now was it? He’d learned a hell of a long time ago that such vows only tempted fate. And fate could be a cruel, malicious bitch when tempted.

  “I can promise you that I will do everything in my power to ensure your safety, even if it means my own life.” He watched her eyes widen, saw her fear deepen. “I can swear to you, Syn, that the illusion of love you need so desperately I’ll give to you. And I vow to you, I won’t trade your life for my vengeance. If there’s more that you want, then perhaps you should tell me now.”

  He wanted to maintain his rage. He wanted to see the past when he stared into her face, see the horror of his mother’s death, the years spent trying to protect his daughter, his young aunt. He wanted to be the man he had been before he took this woman’s innocence. Before he stared into her eyes and realized that for whatever reason, she’d saved herself for that moment in time. For him. And know why that thought had the power to ease his fury whenever she was around.

  He needed to know why that man had changed in the space of a single night for a woman who carried his enemies’ blood.

  Instead, he only saw the woman. Innocent green eyes, fear, tears, hopes, and dreams, and an emotion no woman had ever felt when staring back at him. She looked at him as though he was the answer to her hopes, her dreams, and her future, all wrapped up in one man. And it had the power to humble him if he wasn’t very careful.

  “Your life is important,” she said then. “I know that. I suspect I know a few of the men you work with. The night Stephen and Craig revealed who and what they were, I was there, don’t forget that. Just as I was there when that team of soldiers, or whatever they were, rushed in. Jordan was with them. And you weren’t far behind.”

  He’d warned Jordan that night that Journey had seen more than she should have and she was more intuitive than anyone had given her credit for.

  “And you don’t believe your life is just as important, if not more so?” Even he heard the anger in his voice at that point.

  The woman would end up making him crazy.

  “Oh, I believe it’s important.” Mocking laughter tinged the bitterness of her tone. “Trust me, Ivan, I don’t want to die. But I like to believe I’m a realist. I’ll never know a semblance of security…” Brushing her hair back with one hand, she looked off for a moment, and he saw the pain-filled hunger and fears that filled her. “No husband, no child, will ever be safe. I’ll always be running…”

  The hell she would be. He wouldn’t allow it. She was his, and he’d protect her with everything he possessed.

  His Syn still believed in love, and she believed she loved him. He’d do whatever it took to keep those dreams in her eyes.

  As her lips parted, a flash of something at the corner of his eye had his head jerking, had instinct reacting before his brain even processed the fact that a threat was already speeding toward them.

  He was a second, a breath, too late. Ivan heard the retort of the rifle, felt the bullet slam into his shoulder even as he threw Journey to the side and fought to shelter her with his own body.

  How? Goddammit, how had someone managed to breach his defenses so quickly? In the space of time it took to realize the flash was the sun reflecting off the lens of a rifle’s sight and react, it was too late. He couldn’t move fast enough to avoid it and he knew it. But Journey, Journey couldn’t be harmed. His sanity wouldn’t survive it, he realized.

  The projectile ripped through the flesh of his shoulder and tore through the other side, exiting his body but causing enough damage that he knew it would weaken him. He could feel the rush of blood as he hit the cement, covering Journey’s more delicate, fragile body.

  He’d sworn to protect her only moments before, but the vow he made wasn’t even a thought as he kept her pinned beneath him and managed to push them both to the only source of protection in the area. The low brick wall that surrounded the patio was his only hope of saving Journey or himself until his men could extricate them.

  He could hear Journey screaming his name as he held her close and sheltered behind the low brick wall they’d been standing next to. She wasn’t fighting him though; she was holding on to him with a strength he hadn’t expected of her. Slender, delicate arms were latched around him like vines, as though he could be torn from her at any moment.

  Reaching up with his good arm, he quickly activated the link at his ear.

  “Ilya…” he shouted into the communications link.

  “Stay in place,” Ilya ordered, the cool, calm tone ominous. “We have a team coming for you and one heading in the shooter’s direction.”

  He could hear the shouted order
s, the retort of return fire from automatic weapons. He knew Jordan’s replacement commander at Elite Command had placed men around the property; he wasn’t a fool. He was a highly valuable asset and Journey was loved by Jordan’s wife. Without him, information as well as valuable hands to move cargo or men beneath the noses of several government authorities would disappear. He controlled the Resnova criminal organization. They needed him.

  What he wanted to know was how the hell a shooter had gotten past men as highly trained as those found in the Elite Ops.

  Holding Journey to him, her hands gripping his shirt as though he’d be torn from her, he waited for the black-garbed Elite Operations agents who rushed to the patio to join his own men. They created a close, protective circle as Ivan pulled Journey to her feet and allowed the agents to rush them into the house.

  She stumbled against him as they reached the safety of an inner room off the living and kitchen area. A cry left her lips as he gripped her arm to steady her and felt the sticky warmth of blood …

  Journey’s blood.

  * * *

  Shock.

  She knew what it was; she’d felt it before. The night her father, grandfather, and Beauregard Grant had kidnapped her, along with her cousin Tehya.

  She’d retreated, watched outside herself, disbelieving what was going on around her.

  She could see the blood staining Ivan’s shoulder and arm, a thick scarlet spreading through the material of his shirt, thread by thread, overtaking it.

  Ivan.

  It was his blood.

  Blood spilling from his body because of her. Because she couldn’t accept being sold to the highest bidder when she was no more than a child. Couldn’t accept the man determined to possess the legacy her grandfather and her father had built on the depraved greed that filled them.

  “They shot you…” she whispered, reaching out, watching as her fingers neared the soaked material, seeing the hole in it, the blood pulsing into it.

  She could hear him yelling at her, at those around her. Something about her arm, but it was his blood spilling from him.

  “I’m so sorry,” she whispered, staring up at him, pain and regret lancing her heart and spreading through her body.

  They had taken so much from him and forced him to watch it when he was no more than a child. Then, they’d tried to steal his child from him as well, more than once. Now, they wanted to steal his vengeance, steal the only thing she had to hold him to her for a while.

  She couldn’t let them. He was her illusion. Her one chance to know what being loved by him would mean. He couldn’t die. She couldn’t let them take him away from her.

  As she tried to touch him, tried to force her trembling fingers to hold back the blood, she felt herself wilting. Her legs buckling as pain of a far more physical sort shot through her arm, into her shoulder.

  This was getting real now, as she’d once heard Tehya remark disdainfully. Far too real.

  “Dammit, sit down before you fall.” The rage that filled Ivan’s face wasn’t comfortable to see.

  Hell, were his eyes black now? The blue was so deep, so dark, they appeared black.

  “Get that damned doctor in here,” he snarled, glancing over her shoulder as she realized that Ivan wasn’t the only one who had been shot.

  She was bleeding as well.

  chapter thirteen

  He needed to get drunk.

  Hours later Ivan stood, his back to the room and its occupants, hands braced on the bar, and tried to tell himself he really shouldn’t upend the bottle of vodka sitting in front of him.

  God help him, he really needed to though.

  Journey’s wound wasn’t serious considering the severity of the attack. A flesh wound, the doctor had surmised before Ilya had dragged Ivan from her room. The bullet had torn through his shoulder, clipped her upper arm, then gone only God knew where.

  She’d been so pale, so weak, though. Dammit to hell, what had he set in motion here? Where was his mind to involve her in his life in such a way? He should have never done this thing. Only a monster could dare to taunt such evil as her father and grandfather, in such a way.

  He could feel the perspiration dampening his back as his guts roiled sickeningly, the remembered sight of her blood torturing him, reminding him of the danger he’d placed her in.

  “Get your drink, Ivan, and stop brooding.” Jordan moved to the bar, grabbed the bottle Ivan was intent on, and poured several glasses before sliding one his way. “You’ll be happy to know the shooter was caught on the beach and is currently in custody and being interrogated.”

  Drink forgotten, Ivan swung his head to the side, staring at the other man as murderous fury rose inside him.

  “Where is he?” He had to force the words past his lips rather than a snarl of such rage he didn’t know if he’d be able to pull back from it.

  All he needed was five minutes, no, he’d take five fucking seconds.

  “Not a chance in hell.” Jordan tipped back his drink, retaining the stare. “We need answers, not another death.”

  But death would come, Ivan assured himself. A slow, painful death. He’d find the assassin Jordan was hiding, and he’d slit his throat slowly, allow the bastard to feel every second of the knife stealing his life.

  Breaking Jordan’s gaze, he turned to his drink, drank it in one swallow, and slapped the glass back to the bar.

  “How did he get past our men?” How had an assassin made it past three highly trained teams of elite agents?

  “According to what the interrogator has learned so far, he was already here when you arrived. He managed to avoid the agents by creating a very carefully crafted nest in a dune until he could get into place.” A grimace pulled at Jordan’s lips. “Luck. Then he waited.”

  Luck. He’d nearly lost Journey because of luck.

  Fuck that shit.

  “And if another assassin gets so lucky?” he snarled, the rage eating at him like acid. “What then, Jordan?”

  “It’s not as though you couldn’t have expected this.” Beau chose that moment to speak.

  The bastard. What the hell was in Jordan’s mind to have allowed him to actually attend this meeting?

  “No one gave you permission to speak, Grant!” he snapped, the savagery brewing inside him now finding an outlet. “And I sure as hell didn’t give you permission to express an opinion.”

  The other man’s eyes narrowed.

  Oh yeah, Grant didn’t care much for his tone or his choice of words. Just as he didn’t care for the fact that in their little versions of reality, Ivan was his superior. And there wasn’t a fucking thing he could do about it.

  “You have an overrated opinion of your position within this group,” Beau snorted with mocking disregard of the fury Ivan was doing nothing to hide. “You don’t have the power to shut me up, Ivan. Remember that.”

  That was where he was wrong, Ivan assured himself. In a fight where only experience, sheer strength, and rage mattered, he’d take the younger man down easily.

  “Remember your shoulder,” Ilya muttered from the other side of the bar. “And Journey won’t be pleased if you get your face busted.”

  But it would be worth it. Journey would get over her anger, and the shoulder would survive.

  “Ivan, this isn’t why we’re here.” Jordan, the voice of reason, or so he liked to believe, spoke up as he moved to block Ivan’s view of the other man. “We did anticipate a strike against Ivan, which is exactly what this was. The assassin wasn’t here for Journey. He was here for her fiancé.”

  And the bastard had nearly succeeded.

  “Sent by the Taites?” Ivan questioned him.

  Jordan frowned at the question. “We haven’t ascertained that quite yet. Our shooter seems determined to keep that information to himself.”

  The confident smile that tugged at the other man’s lips assured Ivan that Jordan was certain they’d learn that information. But until they did, there was nothing he could do, no recourse he coul
d take. At least not within the parameters of the covert organization he was part of.

  Elite Ops.

  The privately funded, government-sanctioned organization now had tentacles in some of the darkest corners of the most secure criminal and terrorist operations. They were slowly building a network unlike anything first envisioned. A network both Ivan and Beauregard Grant were part of.

  That didn’t make them friends. It didn’t ensure either of them would work for the greater good rather than his own agenda. It simply ensured they always remembered and worked for what they’d become a part of.

  It didn’t mean Ivan wouldn’t kill him if he crossed the line where Journey was concerned.

  “There’s nothing we can do until the Taites step over the line,” Beau stated the reminder, the mocking edge to it pushing Ivan closer to violence.

  “They stepped over the line when they sold Journey to begin with. And as far as I’m concerned, the buyer is no less culpable,” Ivan growled.

  Beau being the buyer. Son of a bitch. His father had paid out an outrageous amount to secure Journey as a future wife to his son.

  “She could have been sold to some bastard that gave little regard to taking a child rather than a woman.” The negligence in the tone was an affront to those chaotic feelings that rose inside Ivan where Journey was concerned. “You should thank me, Resnova. You took a virgin to your bed because of me. Hell, I should bill you for the price my family paid.”

  “Enough, Beau!” Jordan snapped, though he didn’t turn from Ivan. “The two of you can bait each other when this is finished. Until then, the goal is identifying the final players in the Taites’ little circle of friends. Until we learn who is still ensuring their orders are carried out, then Journey will never be safe.”

  Not Journey, nor many other young women who were born into the elite, privileged world Journey had been a part of.

  “Stephen and Craig’s lawyers have made several trips to the federal prison where they’re being held.” Tehya stepped to her husband’s side, watching Ivan warningly. “So far, there’s nothing to go on to suspect them of this hit.”