by Lora Leigh
And it was raining to boot.
CHAPTER 26
Six Weeks Later
Atlanta, Georgia
THE SUN ROSE every morning; it set every evening. Risa stared into the darkness each night; most mornings she greeted the dawn. She stared out the window of her bedroom in her grandmother’s home. Some nights Risa sat on the balcony and watched the shadows, imagining that she saw Micah in them. That he was watching her, that he lingered just out of sight and touched her with his eyes, caressed her with his thoughts.
How silly was she?
She touched her stomach beneath the cotton of her T-shirt and felt that surge of elation that she felt each time she thought of the child she carried there.
She was pregnant. She hadn’t believed it at first. The doctor had warned her that the birth control she was on might not be effective during sexual relations because of the weaknesses of it. She wasn’t using it at the time for birth control so much as regulation of her cycles. Evidently this was one of those pieces of information that she hadn’t exactly listened to.
She thanked God she hadn’t heard it, because she was carrying Micah’s child now.
She rubbed her fingertips against her stomach and gazed into the darkness. No one knew yet. She hadn’t told her friends yet, but she would soon. She would have to swear them to secrecy for a while. If their husbands knew, she knew Micah would soon find out. She didn’t want him to regret leaving her. She didn’t want his heart burdened more.
He loved her.
With her other hand, she touched the pendant she wore. She had finally found the nerve to do a search on the Hebrew phrases he had used.
How many times had he told her he loved her and she had never known? How many times had he whispered his regret that he couldn’t stay?
For whatever reason, he was unable to be there with her. She accepted that. If he could be there, he would have been. He wouldn’t have left her crying; he wouldn’t have left her bleeding inside.
And she still cried. She still bled. She still stared into the shadows of the night and imagined he was there.
“Micah,” she whispered his name, and felt the loss of breath, the weakness that assailed her as the pain washed over her. “I miss you, Micah. I miss you so much.”
She missed him until she was certain she couldn’t draw another breath without him. And then she thought of the child she carried and she found the strength.
Would it grow easier? she wondered. That lonely sense of bleak acceptance. The knowledge that a part of her was forever torn away from her. That the man who held her heart was out there, alone, fighting, in danger. Always in danger.
A tear slipped down her cheek.
“I love you, Micah,” she whispered into the night. “I hope you know, I will always love you.”
Two Weeks Later
Off the Coast of Africa
The island was several miles off the coast of Africa. A rising volcanic mountain thick with trees and undergrowth that surrounded and protected the mansion that sat in the middle of it.
The moonless night was perfect for a landing by water, but it was damned tricky getting through the heavy forest that ringed the mansion.
The team was alone on this mission. Five men made their way through the junglelike growth while Jordan manned the beaten, rusted freighter they had hijacked for the trip to the island.
It was a four hour hike. The jungle was thick with crawling, biting, sometimes lethal vermin. Snakes were in abundance here.
Micah ignored the conditions, the snakes and the mosquitos that Noah swore were bigger than his grandfather’s cats.
Six weeks. They had tracked Orion for six long, unending weeks. He had slipped off the roster and gone cold a year before the rumored hit against Risa. The list of his aliases was two pages long; his ability to change his appearance was almost legendary. But after they’d found his handler, things had gone a little more smoothly.
The mousey little Cuban, Josef, had been their informant. He’d turned on Orion out of fear that with his retirement Orion would want to get rid of the last link to his former life. Josef had been right. Orion had blown the little Cuban’s villa to hell and back, thinking Josef was still in it.
No messy bloodletting here. Just a lot of explosives. Josef had been with the Elite Ops teams. His butler hadn’t been. Orion thought he’d killed Josef, while Josef was spilling his guts and every little secret he knew about Orion to the team. Those secrets had led them here, to an unnamed island, a whole lot of nasty privateers, and Orion.
Micah slipped up on yet another of the jungle soldiers Orion employed. His arm went around the thick neck, his hand braced against the other side, and with one sure movement, he broke another privateer’s neck.
Nothing messy. No blood, no guts. Just silence.
Another little pop to Micah’s side assured him that Noah had another of the bastards out of commission.
Hell, how many were there, anyway?
With the aid of the night-vision devices Micah wore, he picked out two more. He was on them like their shadows. Silent as death. He twisted the first neck, popped it, and before the other man could turn around, he was dropping to the ground as well.
They were close. The lights set around the mansion could be seen through the thick growth of greenery now. There were a few dogs barking; a soldier snapped a command to shush them.
Cheap dogs equaled nervous dogs, Micah thought with a grin. The guards were so used to the animals’ barking at shadows that they weren’t even aware of the danger approaching them.
Moving into position, Micah shimmied up the nearest tree and braced himself in the thick branches as he pulled the tranquilizer gun from the pack on his back.
It was quieter than a gun and at times more effective.
He tapped the mic to his communication device twice to signal he was in place.
Three more taps came through the receiver at his ear. Noah, Travis, and John were in place as well.
The fifth tap signaled Nik’s readiness to break the security on the gate once the guards were out of the way.
Micah took aim and began firing.
Pop. Pop. Pop. A series of muted shots seemed overloud in the silence surrounding him as he watched the first three guards drop. Three more shots and the dogs were down. If everything had gone according to plan, then the others were down as well.
“Heat Seeker clear.”
“Wild Card clear.”
“Black Jack clear.”
“Hell Raiser clear.”
Each obstacle was taken care of.
Micah climbed quickly down the tree, shoved the gun back into the pack, and sprinted for the front gate that barred the entrance to the estate.
They slipped quickly for the gate and ran for the guards’ barracks. There would be a few more sleeping in there. They were taken care of quickly. Wild Card and Hell Raiser stepped inside, back-to-back, and used the remaining tranquilizer darts on the six men sleeping there. They’d be sleeping for a while longer.
The guns were shoved into a single pack along with the night-vision devices. P-90s were pulled from another pack and distributed along with extra clips. Micah strapped on a Kevlar vest and utility belt loaded with other goodies. Once he was weaponed up he lifted his fist to his shoulder in a signal he was ready to roll. Within seconds the others gave the same signal.
There was no radio contact, nothing spoken. Black masks covered their faces, and thin gloves protected their hands.
As one of the five of them sprinted across the grounds to the back door, Hell Raiser split off to the garage to secure a vehicle.
Black Jack pushed in the security code they had acquired, and within seconds the door was clicking open. Micah slid the knife from its sheath at his thigh. No gunfire unless there was no recourse.
The light of the back hallway glinted off five blades as they moved silently into the house.
The cook was sitting at the kitchen table, his heavy body perched on a chair
that looked too small for his girth as he flipped through a magazine.
He was sleeping permanently after Micah twisted his neck, then laid his head carefully on the table. Micah worked his way to the far entrance to the kitchen, checked the next hallway, and lifted his fist in an all clear as Black Jack did the same on the other end.
They split off then. Maverick and Wild Card took the back hall and rooms while Black Jack and Heat Seeker took the other side of the house.
Minutes later they met at the central staircase.
Wild Card was now sporting a slash on his arm from the soldier who had very nearly surprised them in one of the bathrooms. Micah was minus a blade after burying it into the bastard’s throat and leaving it there.
He jerked another from inside the Kevlar vest and started up the stairs, the others moving in behind him.
He had lived for this moment for six years. For the last six weeks he hadn’t even lived; he had merely breathed. Orion’s death was imperative. The message he had left with Ariela’s pendant around Risa’s arm had been unmistakable. He knew how to hurt Micah, and he would, if the team didn’t back off.
There was no backing off.
Stepping along the hall, each man split off and begin entering bedrooms. They were empty. Orion didn’t like guests, it appeared. At least not this early in his retirement.
Moving up the next flight of stairs, Micah turned and headed for the master bedroom.
He knew where Orion slept. He knew who he slept with. He knew that tonight one of them would die, and Micah had no intentions of being the one defeated.
He stepped to the door, then pulled free an electronic key from his belt. He inserted the key into the lock, pressed the activity button, and waited until the little red light turned green. A second later the tumbler snicked quietly, signaling the door was open.
He opened the door slowly, his eyes narrowed against the dim shadows of the room as he restrained his smile.
Orion.
He slept in the middle of the large bed. On each side a young girl slept. They couldn’t be more than fifteen. One looked as though she had cried herself to sleep. Both had been kidnapped several weeks before from their parents’ homes and brought here to Orion.
Micah stepped into the room.
It was definitely Orion. His features were the same as the ones that had been caught on the camera outside the elevator the night Risa was attacked.
He had an appointment to leave the island in the morning to travel to a Swedish plastic surgeon. It was a meeting he wouldn’t make.
Micah stepped to the bottom of the bed.
Only a thin sheet covered the assassin and his little beauties.
“Orion, wakey wakey.” Micah lifted the P-90 and waited.
Orion’s eyes jerked open, his gaze caught immediately by the gun aimed on him as the two girls cried out and rolled from the bed in terror.
“They are well trained,” Micah said quietly as he smiled back at Orion. “They know to run now when they see death coming.”
Orion glanced at the gun, then into Micah’s eyes. He sighed wearily. “David Abijah,” he said mirthlessly. “I did you a favor, and this is how you repay me.”
“David Abijah is dead, Orion,” he stated softly. “Don’t you remember? You put a bullet in his head and tossed him into the ocean.”
Orion frowned. “He lived.”
“He died.”
Micah fired.
He watched the hole that bloomed with blood in the center of Orion’s forehead, heard the whack of the bullet exiting and burying itself in the wall.
As Micah stared at the death mask that came over Orion’s face, Black Jack and Wild Card grabbed the girls, wrapped them in robes, and hustled them out of the room.
Micah stood there, and he stared. Orion was dead. What was there left now? His heart was no longer his. His soul searched constantly for something he could no longer touch.
I love you, Micah. Her words stroked over his senses, caressed his empty heart.
He heard that much too often, as though her voice drifted on the breeze around him.
“Maverick.” Heat Seeker tugged at his arm. “We need to roll.”
He nodded slowly, took one last look at the corpse of the man who had destroyed the life of David Abijah, then turned and followed the rest of the team out of the house.
A jeep squealed to a stop at the front door as they threw the door open and raced out. The two girls were being carried by Wild Card and Black Jack. Nik was barking the extraction code through the link to Jordan as they piled into the vehicle.
No one tried to stop their exit. The few soldiers left raced into the house instead.
Micah stared into the night as the jeep sped along the rough path back to the jeep where Jordan waited with the inflatable speedboats to return them to the freighter. Once they were back in international waters, a Navy warship was waiting, a helicopter prepped and ready to fly them to American soil, all without anyone knowing who they were or where they came from.
It was over. Micah had signed his life away for vengeance, and now that vengeance had been exacted, he knew exactly how empty his life had been before Risa.
The jeep braked to a hard stop next to the boat. They piled out and rushed for the black inflatable. Within seconds they were tearing through the water toward the freighter.
Within twenty minutes the freighter was slicing through the waves, bearing them to the warship.
Micah watched the sun come up, saw the light blue perfection of the morning sky, and felt Risa’s touch in his memories.
He had intended to stay as far away from her as possible, but he hadn’t kept that vow to himself. He’d returned several times, stood in the shadows of her grandmother’s property, and watched Risa as she sat alone on the balcony of her bedroom.
Some nights, he swore their eyes met. He wouldn’t have been surprised in the least if she had left the house and come to him. The bond they had created during such a short time felt that deep, that enduring.
But she had continued to sit on her balcony during those few, brief visits, and Micah had forced himself to stay hidden. There were things that had to be done, choices that had to be made. He couldn’t return to her as long as those obstacles still hung over their heads.
“It never goes away,” Noah said as he leaned against the railing and stared out to sea as Micah watched the sky. “You’ll always see her. In the sky, in the night, in a breath or a sigh. She’ll always be there.”
And Noah should know. He had gone six years without his wife. He had lived as the walking dead, eating, breathing, sleeping death. Until the day fate threw them together again.
Noah had taken what was his. He hadn’t demanded or asked. He had declared her his. He could have her and fight the battle he’d signed on to, or he could walk into true death from sheer grief.
The Elite Ops had a ton of money in their agents. They couldn’t afford to lose them to broken hearts.
But could Micah afford to take what he needed so desperately? Would Risa even want the man he was now?
He shook his head, unable to answer his own questions.
“Think about it, Micah,” Noah said softly. “Just think about it.”
Hours later he was still thinking about it. That evening as the helicopter flew them back into base in Big Bend National Park, it was still weighing on him.
His flesh felt too tight over his bones. The need for Risa’s taste, for her touch, was a fever burning inside him. Orion was over. He was gone. The nightmares of her past were finished; all that was left was any lingering nightmares she had.
And Micah wanted to be there. If she cried in the night, he wanted to be the one to hold her, to soothe her.
In the showers he washed the grime and blood from his body. He remembered her touch, her scent, and felt his cock thickening in torturous need. He spent too many nights like this, aching for her, needing her.
He laid his head against the cement wall of the shower and gr
imaced. He’d spent too many days and nights trapped inside this fucking mountain. He wanted to feel the sun on his face. He wanted to hold Risa in his arms, love her as the warmth of the coming spring days began to warm the land.
He wanted her. He was fucking dying without her.
He rinsed the soap from his hair and dried it quickly. He jerked his clothes on, his boots. In his locker he dragged out his jacket, wallet, cash, and credit cards.
“Going somewhere, Maverick?”
He turned his head and almost growled like a damned animal as Jordan leaned against the end of the lockers and arched his brow curiously.
“Jacket, wallet, cash, and cards. Looks like a long unauthorized trip to me.”
Micah shoved his wallet in his back pocket with the cards; the cash he shoved into the front pocket. The keys he kept in his hand as he pulled on the jacket.
“I’m due leave,” he informed the other man. “Six weeks’ worth. I’m taking it.”
“We have another mission going out in a matter of days,” Jordan stated. “We need you there.”
“Too bad. I remember the contract,” he snarled. “Six fucking weeks.”
Jordan pursed his lips thoughtfully. “You have to sign out and list your destination as well as your intended activities while you’re gone.”
“Guess,” Micah growled.
“It’s against the rules, Micah,” Jordan reminded him. “No weakness, remember? What is a woman if she’s not a weakness?”
Micah walked slowly along the corridor created by the lockers until he stood only feet from his commander.
“She’s mine.”
Jordan’s brows lifted. “Really? And the papers you signed state that you belong to the Elite Ops. Not a woman.”
“Don’t fuck with me,” Micah leaned closer and hissed the demand. “I signed the agreement. Twelve years or until death. You want your twelve years? Don’t stand in my way.”
“You’ll go rogue then?” Jordan asked dangerously.
Micah almost laughed. “No, Jordan, I won’t go rogue. I’ll catch a bullet and I won’t give a damn if I come back from it. I can’t fight without her. There’s your destination and your intent. See you in six weeks.”
