More time ticked by. Rose would be packed by now. She would travel light. Just the bare necessities. Kane tasted bitterness in his mouth, but his eyes continued a sweep up and down the buildings and along the street. His first order of business was to protect Ethan.
All clear. Ethan’s voice was calm. Launch “the Eagle.”
Gideon sprinted across the sand to the edge of the building and then into the alley. He clapped Kane on the shoulder, pausing to take stock of the dark streets. Figures moved in doorways, and two men stopped briefly to talk in low voices as they patrolled. A couple of women sat on a porch, silently watching, and down at the end of the street, five teenage boys laughed and prodded one another as they practiced throwing knives.
Gideon put on blurring speed and crossed the empty street to the side of the building. He didn’t have Ethan’s advantage, climbing easily with only his hands and toes, but Ethan had left behind a stairway made of throwing stars. Gideon moved up fast in the dark, his sniper rifle snug against his back as he raced up the side of the building.
They all could breathe a sigh of relief once Gideon was in place. The man just didn’t miss. They all called him the Eagle for a reason. Gideon would cover the streets and windows, as Ethan and Mack would enter the building and bring out the prisoners. Kane would cover them from inside, and Javier would be on the street. They were all fast and lethal when need be, but in a situation such as this one, it was very difficult to distinguish between residents and those cooperating with the enemy, unless they blatantly carried a weapon.
You’re a go, Ethan said. We’ve got you covered.
Everything in Kane settled. He turned his attention once more to Rose’s apartment, sweeping it carefully, bouncing sound waves through the building to see inside. She stood by the front door, and there was a weapon in her hand.
He took a deep breath to steady himself while his body reacted to the sensors processing the images before retreating from the alley to jog around the buildings to come up on her building from the same side of the street. Mack joined him, easily keeping the fast pace.
We’ll need you on this one, Kane.
Kane shot Mack a quick look of impatience. I’ve never let you down. Give me a few minutes to get her ready to leave with us.
Mack nodded and crouched in the shadow of the building. Gideon? You in position? Kane is going in. She’s armed.
Don’t you shoot her! Mack, you son of a bitch. Nobody better shoot her. There was warning in Kane’s voice. He was a dangerous, explosive man, capable of swift retribution. They had grown up with him. They knew him. His tone said it all. He expected them to back off and allow him to handle Rose—even if she tried to kill him, which he figured was entirely probable.
Kane took a deep breath and moved around to the window opening onto a small side yard. He could see why Rose chose this apartment. She had alternative escape routes. He didn’t make the mistake of stepping up to the window. Rose was a highly trained GhostWalker. She had survival skills. She was expecting him to come through the front door, a representative of the unit she’d called in to rescue important prisoners the drug cartel was using as hostages against el presidente.
It took a few minutes to spot the small shards of glass scattered in the dirt and leaves. He cleared the area meticulously, knowing the sound of breaking glass would alert her instantly. Like most of the GhostWalkers, her hearing was enhanced as well as her vision. Her window wouldn’t be nailed shut because she would need a quick escape, but she would have it rigged for visitors. It opened sideways, rather than up, a turn knob on the inside.
Clever girl, he mused silently. He pulled a mini laser cutter from his tool kit and, after attaching the suction cup, carefully cut the glass. The suction cup was silent, drawing out the circle of glass without a sound. He reached in and slowly greased the knob to ensure continued silence. Only then did he twist the knob enough to crack the window. Tiny pieces of glass clung to the edges of the sill as the window slowly opened.
Kane smiled to himself. Yeah. His woman knew how to take care of herself. He reached through the opening, avoiding the glass, and opened it wide enough to allow him entrance. Again he waited until he had found the small strobe trigger before easing his large body through the opening. It was no easy feat, not with the glass sticking out.
As he stepped down silently onto the floor, he projected the sound of slow, deliberate footsteps coming up the sidewalk to the front of her apartment. He muffled his own tread, moving through the sparse room to the open doorway. A small pack was on a chair just to the left of her where she could grab it and run should the wrong person come through the door. Rose had her back to him. She was shorter than he remembered. Her body from the back didn’t look pregnant. His heart thudded once at the thought that she might have lost the baby.
She wore jeans and a long tunic top. Her hair was cut short and sassy, a thick cap of shiny, midnight black hair. The memory of the feel of it, soft like silk, bunched in his fist, washed over him, stealing his breath. For a moment, the sight of her shook him.
He inhaled deeply in an effort to drag the fragrance of her deep into his lungs. He could actually feel her soft skin sliding against his, taste her in his mouth. Rose. He would never forget the way she looked up at him with her enormous eyes, so dark brown there was no gold whatsoever in them. Long lashes, black as night, framed those deep chocolate eyes, and she had stared straight into his eyes without flinching away, absolving him of all blame, but damn it all, she’d had no choice. None.
Kane drew another breath as he shoved the memory away ruthlessly. He was a big man, dwarfing her in size, all flowing muscle, his height proportionate with his weight and not an ounce of fat. He loomed over her, nothing more than a shadow, his arms coming around her from behind to take her weapon, and in one smooth motion, he tossed it on the broken-down couch. She tried to whirl around, going for his instep, but his arms became a steel cage, trapping her. His hands settled over her midsection and shockingly, she was round, like a basketball. His heart, after one heavy thump, settled into a satisfied rhythm.
“Shh, Rose,” he said gently, trying to breathe calm into her. Her breathing had gone ragged. “There’s a gun trained on you. Don’t pull another weapon. Just stay still.”
Under the palm of his hand, he felt the small rounded belly and a peculiar push as if the baby kicked him, trying to protect his mother. The sheer relief and satisfaction that she carried his child shocked him a little. “No one is going to hurt you.” And they wouldn’t, not ever again. She carried his baby, and no matter what else, the child would always connect them.
Rose went still. She didn’t turn her head but remained tense, her hands gripping his wrists as if to pry them from the slight swell of her belly. “Kane?”
He felt the tension coiling in her, not rigid and tense, but the coil of a snake about to attack. “I’m here, honey. No one wants to hurt you. Just stay still, and we’ll sort this out without anyone getting hurt.”
“I won’t go back. He can’t have my baby.” The statement was delivered in a quiet voice, but he believed her. Rose might look like a little Asian pixie, but she had a spine of steel. She had thwarted Whitney each time he’d sent a man to impregnate her. She’d fought until they feared they might kill her, and she was a vicious fighter. More than one man had been in the infirmary after a round with her.
“Our baby,” he corrected, and the rightness of it took some of the knots out of his belly. “You want to tell me why you didn’t look pregnant? How did you manage that?”
“I’m not without my own skills. I can camouflage when I need to. I felt all of you the moment you got close. Whitney isn’t getting my baby. He doesn’t know for certain yet that I’m pregnant, and I’m keeping it that way.”
“Whitney didn’t send me after you. I don’t take orders from him. We reported his experiments, and he’s gone into hiding. I’ve searched for you ever since you disappeared.”
She had begun to relax, but at his wor
ds she tensed again.
“To help you, Rose,” he explained hastily. “I was the one who helped you escape, remember? I’m not about to hand you over to the enemy.”
Kane didn’t make the mistake of letting go of her. He knew Gideon had a high-powered rifle on her and was all too aware that Gideon would protect him first. He wanted her away from the window, but that might trigger Mack to send in Javier. It was a very fragile line they were all walking, and one wrong move could result in disaster.
“Then let’s just get this over with,” Rose said. She kept her gaze trained upward, right out the window, as if daring the marksmen to kill her. “I assume you are part of the team sent in to handle the hostages. For them to warrant a GhostWalker extraction, they must be pretty important.”
“If I sit you down in the chair, will you stay put? Not do anything stupid?”
She turned her head for the first time to look up at him over her shoulder. His heart jumped when her dark gaze met his. Steady as ever. Cool under fire. That was Rose. But he was shocked at the exhaustion marking her face. He was equally shocked at how not just his body but everything in him responded to her. His every protective instinct, his animalistic side, the alpha male in him—everything male.
He forced his voice under control. “You’ve been sick.”
She nodded. “I haven’t been able to keep much food down,” she admitted, all the while searching his expression, trying to decide whether to trust him. “That’s made me fairly weak, and staying below Whitney’s radar means moving all the time.” She sent him a humorless smile, just a flash of her white teeth, but it was enough to act as a warning. “I will get the baby to safety, and anyone in my way isn’t going to live very long.”
Kane knew her quiet statement was more than an idle threat. Rose would fight if necessary, and as small as she was, she had psychic abilities and survival skills that made up for her size. He had come to know her in the brief time they’d been forced together. Dr. Whitney, head of the psychic experimental program, had gone rogue, determined to breed supersoldiers. Rose had been forced into his breeding program, but that brief time in his breeding program hadn’t stopped any of the women there from training daily. The men tended to forget the women had undergone training almost since birth, while they had joined the military later. The women actually had an edge, although they were smaller in stature.
“I said I’d get you out of here safely, Rose, and I meant it.” He tried not to sound aggressive or commanding, when he felt a little of both. He tamped down his take-charge nature. Rose wasn’t getting away again, not with danger surrounding her and their child every moment of every day. She needed protection, no matter how independent she was. Kane understood her aversion to him, but her safety took precedence over everything else.
She didn’t acknowledge his statement, and with Rose, he had no idea what she was thinking. She appeared fragile, but she had a core of steel and a will of iron. Even Whitney hadn’t been able to get what he’d wanted from her. She’d chosen her partner, refusing to accept any of the others Whitney had sent to her, despite the fact that his punishments were horrible.
Kane clamped down hard on those memories. It was difficult to stay cool and disciplined when fury raged through him. Very gently he urged her toward the chair away from the window.
She’s out of my line of sight, Gideon warned. She’ll know that, Kane.
Damn it, don’t you fuck with me on this, Kane, Mack snapped. I’ll send Javier in after the both of you.
Go to hell, Mack, Kane snapped back. She’s pregnant with my baby, and you’re damn well not going to shoot her.
“They’re really angry with you, aren’t they?” Rose sent him a wry smile. “They’re right, you know; you’re in danger.”
“If you’re going to make your try, Rose, do it now, before they send someone else in.”
She studied his face, and he couldn’t help using the opportunity to do the same with her. Those long, sweeping eyelashes of hers drew his attention. From there his gaze dropped to her high cheekbones, her small, straight nose, and her lush mouth. The women had been taken from orphanages, and Rose had most likely come from China, but how Whitney had managed to get hold of her, Kane couldn’t guess.
She touched her tongue to her full lower lip, and his body tightened. “I’m not going to do anything stupid. You’re ready for me to try something.”
That didn’t tell him if she still planned on running, and he was going to have to help Mack and the others get the hostages out. He sighed and changed the subject. “Tell me about the hostages.”
“About a week ago, there was a sudden influx of cartel members. It isn’t all that difficult to make them; they carry some serious hardware and scare the crap out of the decent people around here. Two murders occurred, heads severed as a warning for everyone and the bodies dumped in the fountain two streets over. The buzz on the street was something big was going down. At first I thought it was a big drug deal, and then I spotted the prisoners. They were brought in at night, dark SUVs with tinted windows. I thought maybe members of a rival gang, but as soon as I saw them—a woman of about thirty-five and a little girl of maybe ten—I knew this had nothing to do with a drug war.”
“Actually it does,” Kane corrected. “El presidente is waging war with the cartels to get his country back. The cartels have been hitting high-profile members of the government in retaliation. El presidente called in a favor from our president and asked for help. His wife’s sister and his niece were taken on their way to church. All the bodyguards were killed, as well as the driver. He was told to back off or he would find his sister-in-law’s head rolling down the middle of the street. Next would come his niece’s head. He believed them.”
“And he was afraid to trust his own military or the police,” Rose guessed. “He should be. These people are armed to the teeth with the latest weapons, Kane. Something isn’t right here. They’ve all but declared war.”
“Corruption here is rampant,” Kane agreed. “Someone would tip off the cartel. El presidente is a very intelligent man. He knows his administration and his military as well as police departments have been infiltrated by paid informants for the cartel. He asked a personal favor from our president, and we pulled the assignment. None of us had any idea the informant would be you.”
“I thought long and hard before I called it in,” Rose admitted. She ducked her head, refusing to meet his eyes. “It was selfish of me, that I waited, but I knew there was the possibility that if the hostages were who I thought they were, that a GhostWalker team would be called in. It was a calculated risk, but I couldn’t just ignore the fact that those monsters would kill them. I was afraid to try a rescue myself with so many of the enemy guarding them.”
His heart slammed hard against the wall of his chest. She’d contemplated the idea, that much was obvious. His Rose, pregnant with their child, would have risked herself for strangers.
“We’ll get them out, Rose, but you stay put. I don’t want you running again. You need care. I can offer that to you, as well as safety. The last thing I want is for Whitney to get his hands on you or the baby. I don’t know why you trusted me to be the father of your baby, but you did. I’m asking for that same faith now. I swear to you, on my life, I will protect both of you.”
She lifted her head and looked him straight in the eye, searching his expression. For a moment he had the uncomfortable feeling she was looking into his mind, which was entirely possible with a GhostWalker. There were things buried there best kept hidden. Especially from Rose. He refused to look away, keeping his expression blank. A faint smile curved the bow of her mouth. His breath nearly exploded from his lungs. He dreamt of her, night after night. He thought of her every minute of every day.
Intellectually, he knew Whitney had found a way to “pair” a couple by using pheromones, and he’d certainly made Kane crave Rose physically. He couldn’t get near her without his body reacting with a permanent hard-on from hell. But the doctor hadn�
�t paired Rose with him. She’d been forced to choose from three different candidates, and she’d chosen him, but she didn’t have the same physical drive to be with him that he had for her, which posed a major problem for him. He had too much respect for her and too much honor to force himself on her. But the thought of never seeing her again, of spending his life without her, drove him insane. He also knew he would never ever be able to tolerate another man in her life. And quite frankly—that sucked.
“All right.”
That softly spoken assent surprised him. He studied her face in an effort to read whether or not she was telling the truth.
“Then you’ll wait here for me to come for you.”
She shrugged. “I won’t run.”
He was missing something; he just couldn’t quite figure it out. His mind was already shifting, his radar going off, and instinctively he put himself in front of Rose as he swung around to face the bedroom door, knife in his hand. Rose tried to jerk her gun out of the hidden holster, but the man facing them shook his head, a grin on his face.
“Naughty, naughty, Miss Rose. I can’t let you shoot him, even though Mack thinks he’s a major pain in the ass. He is my brother, after all.”
“Actually,” she corrected, “I planned on shooting you.”
Javier’s grin widened, but his eyes were ice-cold, his stare sending piercing icicles stabbing right through Rose’s mind. “Well then, everything’s fine. You carrying my nephew there?” He indicated the small basketball shape beneath her loose tunic.
Her eyebrow shot up. She didn’t wince, and she didn’t take her gaze from his. She kept her voice low and taunting, as if she didn’t realize she faced the biggest threat of her life. Kane knew better. He felt the little tremor that ran through her body.
“Maybe a niece.”
Javier snorted. “Don’t get your hopes up. He’s too damn mean to throw a girl. Mack’s getting all papa bear on us. You good, Kane?”
Ruthless Game g-9 Page 2
