Maverick

by Lora Leigh

  He had to do something. He pushed himself from the car as he aimed to the side of the assailant and fired. Risa was to his right—well, two Risas. There were two versions of her assailant on the left. Micah fired to the left.

  The bastard was still trying to shove her into the SUV.

  Micah aimed at the ground and fired again, close to the other man’s foot. Had the bastard jerked?

  Risa fell from his grip as he jumped into the SUV. The assailant’s foot was on the gas before his door was closed and Micah was struggling away from the car.

  Where the hell was his backup?

  He rolled from the car, catching his weight on his shoulder as he struggled to get to her still form where she had been left, crumpled on the ground.

  “Risa!” he choked out her name.

  God, had he hit her with that bullet? Had his vision been worse than he thought it was?

  He could hear sirens, the sound of brakes, and voices rising as he stumbled to her.

  “Risa. Baby.” He touched her hair. There was blood on her face, her arm. Her eyes were closed, her body limp.

  “Risa. Please. Baby, please.” He hunched over her, rabid fury coursing through him as he fought to run his hands over her body, to check for injuries.

  She couldn’t be hurt, he prayed. He couldn’t have shot her. Not Risa. How could he live with himself if he had hurt her, even in his effort to protect her?

  Shaking his head, he lifted it, his weapon coming up as a shadow fell over them. Shadows.

  “Micah, it’s Jordan. Dammit, stand down.”

  Jordan came to a hard crouch as the other shadows, Nik and Noah, were suddenly there as well.

  Micah wiped his arm over his face again, feeling the blood that seeped from his forehead and altered his vision as it dripped into his eyes.

  “Is she shot?” he screamed. “I fired. I fired, Jordan. Did I hit her?” His hands ran down her arms, her waist. He couldn’t find a wound, but he was terrified to turn her over, too scared he would hurt her worse before help could arrive.

  “Ambulance is on its way!” Noah yelled over the sound of sirens approaching. “Son of a bitch, Noah. We could see him jerking at her and couldn’t get past those damned cars deadlocked back there. I haven’t run that far that fast in my life.”

  Micah shook his head. Dammit, he couldn’t see her clear enough. He couldn’t keep the blood out of his eyes.

  “Risa,” he choked out her name as Jordan began moving her. “Did I hit her? I fired. The bastard almost had her, Jordan. He almost took her.”

  Control. He was losing control, losing focus. He’d just held her in his lap no more than a few hours ago and given her her first taste of pleasure. There had been a smile on her lips before the world had gone to hell. She had been thinking about him. He’d eased her, gentled her. He couldn’t have hurt her.

  “I said stand down, Micah!” Jordan’s tone was a lash of command. “She’s been injected. He broke the skin. Looks like a sedative. She’s out cold. No wounds other than surface cuts. Ambulance is here.”

  Dizzying weakness tore through Micah.

  “Noah, ride with her. Make sure.” He felt something on his forehead. “Don’t leave her alone.”

  “Dammit, we’re not leaving her alone,” Jordan cursed. “Hold that on your stubborn-assed head until we get the paramedics over here. Son of a bitch, you’re as bad as Noah.”

  As bad as Noah? Hell no. No one was as bad as Noah when he was wounded. The man was like a kamikaze when he saw his own blood. Unless his wife was around. No, if Bella was there, then he was like a big-assed baby crying for attention. Micah was doing neither.

  He lifted Risa against his chest, lowered his head over hers, and whispered a prayer against her forehead. She was okay. He could feel her even breaths. She wasn’t struggling to breathe. He let his fingers find her pulse; it was slow but steady.

  She had been injected. A sedative. She’d been given a sedative. But she had fought the bastard. Micah had heard her screams; he’d seen her lash out at her assailant’s face.

  “Fingernails.” He lifted his head to find Jordan. “Her fingernails. DNA. She raked his face.”

  “Good girl!” Jordan exclaimed. “The paramedics are here. I’ll have them preserve anything they find. Get ready now, dammit; we have to move her.”

  Micah’s hold tightened on her. He couldn’t let her go. He wouldn’t be certain she was safe. He had almost failed her once, he couldn’t fail her again.

  “Dammit, Micah—”

  “Jordan, get them in together and fucking let it the hell go,” Noah suddenly cursed. “He’s not going to let her go.”

  He wasn’t letting her go. He gripped his gun in one hand, his arms wrapped around her as he held her to his chest.

  “Get them in the ambulance together. Micah’s injuries are worse; she’s sedated. You have the power to do it, now do it, and let’s get them the hell out of here.”

  Micah let the argument drift away. He struggled as they lifted Risa onto a stretcher. The paramedic tried to push him back until he found the business end of Micah’s weapon in his throat. Micah was pushed into the ambulance with her moments later as he fought to blink the damned blood out of his eyes. Weak but conscious, he let the paramedic check the head wound, Micah’s gun held carefully at the side of his leg as he heard Jordan in the front of the ambulance barking out orders to the driver.

  Hell, this was going to screw with the op, Micah knew. Hopefully Orion had run far and fast when he realized that Micah was shooting at him and others were running for the wreck.

  He might not know that the people running for them were members of an operational team. Jordan could cover this, and he would, to the best of his ability. He was already directing the ambulance to a private clinic rather than the public hospital.

  That would work. The paramedics would be briefed before they could leave with whatever story Jordan was cooking up in his head. Jordan was damned good at lies. It was what made him a helluva team leader. He got things done. He fixed things.

  “How is she?” Micah turned to the paramedic as he finished radioing their stats to the clinic.

  “She’s out like a light.”

  Micah had his first look at the medical tech. He was older, possibly in his forties. His gray eyes were concerned, his expression confident. He was a man who had pretty much seen it all. He didn’t seem fazed.

  “How’s your vision?” He held up two fingers.

  “You have two fingers up, three down. One head and two eyes,” Micah growled. “When we arrive at the clinic, stay the hell out of my way. Where she goes, I go.”

  “I got that part when you pushed that gun into my face,” the paramedic grunted. “Don’t worry, man; we’re not standing in your way.”

  “Two minutes,” Jordan called back to him. “Doctors are waiting at the entrance. Stay the hell out of their way, Micah, while they get her prepped and examined. Don’t make me knock you the hell out.”

  Micah grunted. “Where she goes, I go. Period.”

  Jordan was cursing.

  “She must be damned important to you,” the paramedic murmured. “That’s one dude I wouldn’t want to mess with.”

  “She’s important.” She was more important than Micah had let himself believe until he’d seen her struggling with the man he knew had to be Orion.

  He could have lost her. Not just his opportunity to take Orion down, but he could have lost Risa. Her smile. Hell, he hadn’t heard her laugh yet. He could have lost her wonder at each touch they shared. He could have lost the fragile sense of warmth he was beginning to feel with her when he had never felt it with another woman.

  WHERE HAD HE messed up? Orion was almost screaming in pain from the bullet that had torn into his foot as he’d tried to shove that little bitch into the SUV.

  Who knew that the man riding with her was carrying a gun? Orion knew he should have found a way to get into their apartment and check out the unknown lover before making this at
tempt. He had argued with his employer that it was too soon to make the attempt. He needed to be certain; he needed to check out the new lover before he made his move.

  His employer had refused to listen. It had to be done quickly, before she remembered anything more.

  Orion groaned in pain as he turned the SUV off the interstate and looked for a quick place to stash it, and for another to steal for long enough to get him to a safe area where he could treat the gunshot wound and get a cab back to the apartment he had taken.

  He’d tried several times to slip into Risa Clay’s apartment since the bugs had been swept up by the housecleaning crew.

  It happened sometimes. To get what he needed, he had to use electronics that were sometimes easy to sweep away. He’d thought he was safe with the lightbulb camera, but the cleaning crew had changed the bulbs as well.

  It should have been simple, should have been easy to sneak back in and replace the bugs. Except they never fucking left the apartment. In three days, not once had they ventured out, and his employer had called daily.

  Orion knew better than to let that son of a bitch rush him. This was the same reason Jansen Clay had fucked up and ended up dead, because he had allowed this man to rush him, to force him into readjusting his schedule. Jansen had paid the ultimate price for allowing himself to be bullied.

  Orion had almost paid it.

  Hell, he was too old for this shit. He should have retired six years ago instead of waiting. No, what he should have done was killed the son-of-a-bitch partner Jansen Clay had for being so stupid. He wouldn’t have had to make that hit six years ago, and he wouldn’t have had to take this job, either.

  Because the only man who knew his identity would have been dead.

  CHAPTER 12

  FOUR HOURS LATER, Risa was still unconscious. Micah sat beside her bed, watching her closely, gauging the time as the monitors tracked her vitals.

  Jordan was at the foot of the bed. Outside her private room the rest of the team was placed in strategic positions to watch the door as well as anyone who entered the clinic.

  Noah, Jordan, and Nik had been several cars behind them. With the confusion that had ensued when Micah and Risa’s vehicle had been run off the road, they had been back too far for immediate help.

  They had been close enough to see Orion, though. Dark glasses that covered most of the upper face, dark hair, broad build, older. It wasn’t a lot to go on.

  Beneath Risa’s nails had been torn flesh, though, enough that Micah was confident they could collect the DNA from it.

  He ran his hand wearily over his lower jaw before rubbing at the back of his neck and continued to watch Risa closely.

  This was the first time a victim had escaped from Orion. How long she stayed under and how she awoke would answer some important questions for them.

  Micah had lied to her when he told her that he wanted Orion because a friend’s mother had died. It hadn’t been a friend’s mother; it had been his own. It wasn’t a friend’s father who had thrown himself at a suicide bomber. It had been Micah’s. And it hadn’t been a friend who had managed to track Orion to that freighter. It had been Micah. And there he had learned Orion had friends. Somehow information had leaked from the Mossad to Orion, and the bastard had been waiting for Micah.

  Orion’s bullet had grazed his head as he threw himself from the freighter into the waters off Israel’s shores. He would have drowned if a SEAL team hadn’t been practicing in those waters and heard the gunshot.

  If the team commander hadn’t notified Jordan of the nearly dead Mossad agent they had rescued, Micah wondered which way would his life have gone. Would he have done the same as his father? Realized that whoever Orion was working for had enough ties to his government that eventually he would have been killed either way?

  Micah had realized as the waters closed over his head that night that the investigation his mother had been involved in hadn’t been sanctioned. She had been told to let it go, that the rumors were just that, rumors. Ariela Abijah had ignored that directive, and she had died for her efforts.

  Orion had destroyed Micah’s life as he had known it, and Micah was determined to destroy Orion. When this mission had first begun, nothing had mattered to Micah but catching Orion. He’d never imagined that in a few short days, saving the girl would become more important.

  “I need skin tags,” he told Jordan, speaking of the small skin-colored discs that housed a one-time-use electronic tracker. “Match them to her skin tone. I also want a bracelet, something simple that she can wear daily, with a GPS chip set in it that activates remotely. I don’t want anything that could trip an electronic detector if he has one.”

  “Orion strips jewelry from the body,” Jordan pointed out. “He also washes them down before they awaken. A skin tag won’t work if it’s wet.”

  “Jewelry and clothes are always found close to where he’s taken them, normally in the same room where they’re killed. Only once did he take a personal effect. That being the Star of David that Ariela Abijah wore,” Micah argued. “Cell phones and electronics are disposed of on the way.” He turned and stared back at Jordan fiercely. “He almost took her, Jordan. She would have been defenseless if he had gotten her into that SUV. I can’t risk it happening again.”

  He had been so certain he could keep her safe. That with him, as well as the team for backup, there was no way Orion could get to her. And he’d been wrong.

  “Has Nik figured out how he got to the car?”

  Jordan shook his head. “He’s back at the apartment going over the camera feed now. He hasn’t found anything yet.”

  “We have to assume he’s guessed that there’s the possibility that this is now an operation.” He breathed out roughly. That was going to make protecting her harder. “We need to contact the informant, see if he has any information.”

  “Travis is working on that.” Jordan nodded. “We should have something within the next twelve hours.”

  “They’re always awake when he slices their wrists,” Micah said quietly. “Tox reports on the victims suggest he kills them within an hour of consciousness. His drug of choice has always been GHB. He wouldn’t want to waste too much time. Get them where he’s going to kill them, time to strip and wash the body, another hour, then perhaps thirty minutes to an hour before they awaken. He’d give himself enough time that they wouldn’t awaken before he has them chained.”

  “He has medical knowledge then,” Jordan stated.

  Micah nodded at that. “At least enough medical knowledge to know how to adjust the drug; otherwise he’d kill them. That shit is too dangerous to mess with blind.”

  His fingers curled over the metal bar at the side of the mattress as rage threatened to burn through him. He’d promised that he would protect her. He’d given her his word, built her trust. And she had nearly been taken.

  He reached out and touched her hair, just her hair, tucking it gently behind her ear. The weight of her hair behind her ear seemed to comfort her when she was nervous. It was a habit he found completely charming.

  This woman had fascinated him over the past four years. Even though he had only known who she was, had only glimpsed her coming or going from Emily’s, Raven’s, or Morganna’s homes, still she had drawn him. The knowledge of her courage, her strength, had always astounded him. He’d seen it in her face, in her eyes, each time he glimpsed her. In the stubborn set of her chin, the straight line of her shoulders. She’d been through hell, but she was a survivor, and she was determined to show the world exactly what she was made of.

  There was such beauty in her courage. As though it were a light that shone from inside her, that beauty radiated over every inch of her.

  She was a woman of strength. Such strength held a beauty that was all its own. It was a beauty he found irresistible in Risa.

  “We’ll carry on as though this were a botched attempt and you’re a concerned lover. We’ll use a private security firm to take you to and from the outings you have planned,
and give Orion the impression you’ve hired a bodyguard because of the attempted kidnapping. We’ll maintain your cover as a SEAL and work from there. If we play this as we started, then he may suspect an op, but he won’t find proof of one.”

  Micah touched her hair again. “He doesn’t flinch at the thought of going against an agent or agencies,” he said softly. “Ariela was Mossad. Her husband was CIA and her son was Mossad. He doesn’t worry about possible ops or complications.”

  “According to our source, his employer is pushing him hard as well,” Jordan murmured. “We and our contact suspect the employer knows his identity. That’s going to make him sloppy, Micah. Keep your mind on the operation we have here, not the woman. She’s secondary.”

  His head jerked up. The rage burning inside him became a conflagration that threatened to burn into his soul.

  “She is not secondary. Ever,” he snarled. “Mark my words, Jordan, you risk her further than she’s already being risked and you’ll have a rogue on your hands. I won’t tolerate it.”

  Jordan grimaced furiously. “Son of a bitch,” he hissed. “I knew you were losing your head over her. You can’t do that, Micah. When the mark becomes more important than the operation, shit happens. We saw that with Noah when that militia kidnapped his wife. Keep your head on straight or we’ll lose Orion and Risa. None of us want that.”

  “I will not lose Risa to that bastard,” he ground out between clenched teeth. “Get the items I asked for. I want her apartment checked again, now. If he managed to get more bugs installed during the commotion, then I’ll move her. But mark my words, Jordan, he won’t take her.” From me. Micah bit off the words. He couldn’t risk even the thought of such possessiveness toward her.

  She was a woman of strength and courage. Such women should be protected at all times when they couldn’t protect themselves.