Live Wire

by Lora Leigh

  “Get these fuckers to the reserve suite.” Rage was pulsing through him, eating at him as he turned, his gaze going over Tehya once again as she stared at the unconscious attacker at her feet.

  Jordan had only disabled him, Tehya must have moved behind him and knocked the man out.

  What the hell had made him think that she would actually move for safety? He wanted her safe. Wrapped in protective cotton, as she had said earlier. And God help him, he knew as long as this danger existed, there would be no chance of her ever knowing peace, or security.

  Black-masked, moving with dangerous precision, Jordan’s team moved in, gathered up the unconscious assailants and rushed them from the suite to the room next door.

  Micah, Noah, and Nik had been staying there while John, Bailey, Travis, and Lilly had taken rooms across the hall.

  The two couples were in the front room, faces unmasked, weapons held ready as they covered the opened, connecting door.

  Watching from the bedroom door as the two men were dragged into the secured suite, Jordan could feel his teeth clenching in nearly uncontrolled fury.

  The need to kill beat in his veins, threatening to override his control. He could tear their heads from their bodies. The thought of it had his muscles bunching, his fingers fisted as he fought to hold back the urge.

  He turned back to the bedroom slowly, his fingers flexing on the side of the door. The hard, wall-vibrating slam of the door a second later sent an unconscious flinch jerking through Tehya’s body as her eyes widened.

  It was the first time she had seen his eyes since the attack.

  Tehya stared back at him, shocked.

  She had seen him in a variety of dangerous situations. She had seen him when his nephew had been wounded, when his father had been hospitalized with a heart attack, and when his youngest nephew had nearly been killed in a car wreck several years before. She had never seen him like this. With the rage burning in his eyes like blue flames, his face was so tight with fury, so sharp with violence that the savagely hewn lines of his face were displayed in sharp detail.

  “Get dressed,” he growled, his voice a rumble of violence.

  Tehya was moving before he finished speaking.

  Jerking open dresser drawers, she had everything she needed within seconds. Less than two minutes later she was sitting on the side of the bed and tying the laces of her sneakers.

  Beside her, Jordan was changing, taking more time to dress, taking the time to control the rage she had seen blazing in his eyes.

  He wore jeans and a black shirt. His boots were still unlaced as he checked the clip from the Glock.

  Snapping the ammunition into place, he sat down and tied the short combat boots he’d pushed his feet into. Rising, he turned to the pack beside the bed table, removed extra clips, and shoved them into his back pocket.

  “If you go hunting tonight, then I go with you,” she warned him as she stood, went to the dresser, and pulled a thick ribbon from the makeup bag that had somehow been knocked over and pushed behind the TV sitting there. Knocking it back along the dresser in frustration she stared at her expression, seeing the white, shocked color of her face and the brilliance of her emerald-green eyes.

  She looked like death.

  Dragging her gaze from her own eyes, she watched Jordan in the mirror as she tied her hair back, her eyes narrowing as she lifted her chin in determination against the dominant look he flashed her.

  “I’m not going hunting tonight,” he assured her.

  Tehya forced herself not to flinch at the sound of his voice, a harsh, vicious rasp that assured her the rage was still in danger of escaping.

  “You’re not yourself yet.” She swallowed tightly, terrified that once he faced the two attackers, he would lose the rational, logical control he was famous for. “You look like you’re ready to kill, Jordan. I’ve rarely seen that look in your eyes.”

  He stared back at her ruthlessly.

  “Look.” She shoved her hands in the pockets of her jeans. “I don’t want you doing something you’ll regret because of me.”

  She could feel her heart racing out of control, the panic shifting from a fear of Jordan being wounded, or worse, killed, to the fear of him losing his control and perhaps blaming her for it.

  “I’m fine.” His hands swiped through his hair as a tight grimace crossed his face.

  “Jordan…”

  “I’m fine, Tehya.” His voice sharpened. “I won’t kill the bastards, no matter how badly I want to. Now if you want to be there for the questioning, you’d better come on. I want my chance to find out who the fuck they are before Noah cuts their throats.”

  He turned and stalked from the room, like a predator on the prowl, the air of danger surrounding him keeping her nerves on edge.

  Jordan could feel her fear, her worry. His instincts were too finely honed, his knowledge of her too deep to escape it. Just as his knowledge that he was the one now causing her wariness couldn’t be escaped.

  He would have to deal with it later. He would have to face the fact that he was riding a very fine edge of control because of the threat she was facing.

  Stepping into the connecting suite he moved, or rather stalked to where the two men were bound in chairs, still unconscious.

  “Who are they?” He directed the question to his nephew, still masked, his eyes a much darker blue and blazing with his own fury.

  “We have John Frackle.” He smacked the first man on the head, causing it to jerk to the side in unconscious response.

  John Frackle was approximately six feet, his brown hair cut close to his scalp. Gray tape was still slapped over his mouth, effectively gagging him in case he awakened.

  It would come off soon enough, as soon as he was conscious, and when it did, Jordan promised himself the bastard would talk or he’d lose his tongue. Or perhaps never have the chance to attempt to talk again.

  “Frackle has a nice little history listed with several law enforcement agencies from what we’re learning.” Noah jerked his thumb over his shoulder to where Nik was at the computer pulling up files and printing them out. “It seems he likes to work for maggots who target pretty women. If they’re not virgins when he kidnaps them, then he’s known to rape them before they reach the men that hired him.”

  Jordan turned his gaze slowly back to Frackle and let his lips curl in anticipation.

  “Killing him will be fun,” he drawled.

  Tehya flinched at the promise in his voice.

  “And who is his buddy?”

  “He’s teamed up with Marco Fillipini. Good ole Marco may not know his partner well, though. This one, I know of. Marco’s penny-ante, mainly sticks to France. I have a few feelers out to get his story, but I thought we might go easy on him if he talks a little bit for us.” Noah smacked Marco a bit harder than he had Frackle.

  Both men were well muscled, likely well experienced, and in a world of hurt once they were conscious, if Jordan had his way.

  “They were outside the party you attended tonight,” Nik said from where he sat at the computer. “They’re working with the same team that attacked Tehya’s home. From what I’ve learned so far, they’re mostly mercenaries, though Frackle and Fillipini were low-level soldiers in Sorrel’s organization before he was killed.”

  Jordan lifted a brow as he gazed at Frackle, then Marco. His fingers curled into fists again. The need to see their blood was almost as strong as the lust that tormented him where Tehya was concerned.

  That realization was shocking. He’d never allowed himself to become so involved with anyone, besides his nephew. He’d been angry over attacks against his men or wounds they’d taken, but never had he experienced this level of violence.

  “Someone got them some pretty toys,” Noah spoke behind him. “It took them less than three seconds to slip our security with ones they brought.”

  Jordan gave a brief nod of his head. “They have to be well-funded just as we suspected, with ties, or their employer has ties, to the
military somewhere. That’s the only way they could have acquired the technology needed to get through the security.” His lips thinned as he continued to stare at the other two men.

  “That technology is only available in a few countries other than America,” Micah informed him. “You can’t get that just anywhere, Jordan.”

  “I’m more than aware of this.” Icy cold, emotionless, his voice was like a sibilant whisper of death.

  “I want complete dossiers on them.” He turned to Nik, his gaze meeting the other man’s. “Everything. I want to know who they socialize with and who they work for. I want to know every particle of their lives.”

  “And you’ll have it,” Noah swore, “the moment it’s ready.”

  And Tehya knew Noah. She knew the bond he shared with his uncle. That information would be available very soon, if it existed.

  With a jerk of his head toward the door behind him, Jordan indicated he was finished there and that the others should follow him.

  Turning, he curved his arm around Tehya’s waist and drew her with him back to the front room of the suite. He would give the two men time to awaken, then he would awaken them himself it necessary. Maybe. There were alternatives to interrogating men whom he knew wouldn’t give him the answers he wanted. And he realized he didn’t want to have to question them in front of Tehya.

  He didn’t want her to see the worst of him. In the years she had been at the base, she had never seen him interrogate an enemy, had never seen him kill.

  He realized he didn’t want her to see it now. And it was going to happen. Frackle and his partner had all but signed their death warrants when they came for him with the intent of taking Tehya. And if they didn’t talk, if they didn’t give him answers, then, Jordan promised himself, they would never threaten anyone, ever again.

  CHAPTER 15

  Tehya had thought she would know the two men when she faced them, that they would be men she had known from Sorrel’s organization. She hadn’t expected strangers. Men she hadn’t glimpsed following her before. Men she knew nothing of.

  It was so reminiscent of the years she had spent running from her biological father. Despite his death, he had reached out from the grave, determined to destroy everyone, anyone she cared for or who would attempt to protect her.

  As she stepped into the main room of the suite, she wondered if perhaps Jordan wasn’t right. Maybe love truly was an illusion. If it were real, wouldn’t she have forced him out of the danger she faced? At the least, wouldn’t she have run, or found a way to hide from him? To protect him. Wasn’t that a part of love?

  “Jordan, they’re not going to talk.” John stepped from the room, the others following. “They’re not going to tell you why they targeted Tehya, if the information we’re pulling up is true.”

  Jordan turned slowly to face him. “Tehya was the target once they killed me. And they will talk, one way or the other. I want answers John. They knew our security and exactly how to get past it, knew the lay of the suite and how to get to me. I want to know who told them.”

  “They knew which side of the bed you were sleeping on,” Tehya pointed out, hearing the sound of her own voice, recognizing the dispassionate sound of it. “And it wasn’t luck, because you rarely sleep on the same side of the bed two nights in a row.”

  It had driven her crazy since he had begun sleeping with her. She liked her side.

  She liked Jordan alive.

  She could feel herself freezing inside, feel the fear, the certain knowledge that in all the years she had been running, anyone who tried to save her died.

  Could she bear losing Jordan as her mother had lost everyone she had tried to trust during the years she had fought to keep her daughter safe?

  She couldn’t. She knew she couldn’t survive losing Jordan in such a way.

  Oh God, she couldn’t be the cause of the life being bled from those incredible blue eyes.

  Tehya watched as the six men and two women exchanged looks.

  “No one should have been aware of anything within this suite,” Micah stated as he jerked the mask from his face and cast a disgusted look at the door they had just closed. “We don’t allow staff or visitors in the room and Nik had the location of the furniture moved into the normal walk paths of the room before we arrived. No one could have known the layout.

  “We’re not fucking rookies, Tehya,” Micah reminded her, his voice, his eyes icy cold. She had offended him and she hadn’t meant to.

  Tehya inhaled slowly. God, she didn’t have time to deal with the male ego or tender feelings tonight. She’d had enough. Her fingers curled into fists as she fought back her own smart-assed response. The need to rip the eyes from the bastards that had attempted to kill Jordan was nearly overpowering.

  They had almost succeeded in taking from her one of the few people she knew she could depend upon. The only man she had ever loved. The only man she hadn’t been able to resist from the moment she had laid eyes on him.

  Her point was the fact that Nik had reserved the room in his own name. At the earliest, they might have known she was in the room the day after. And as Micah stated, they hadn’t allowed anyone inside the suite, even staff. Furniture in both the living and dining suite as well as the bedroom had been moved.

  The only way any type of video or audio could have been placed inside the room was before they arrived. They had checked for surveillance equipment, though, she knew that. Hell, she had helped do it and they had found nothing.

  Could the would-be assassins get that lucky?

  No maids were allowed inside. Room service was never called, one of the men had gone out for food instead. Somehow, some kind of surveillance had to have been placed in the bedroom. It was the only way Frackle and Fillipinni could have known where Jordan was sleeping without the aid of night-vision equipment.

  “Lights were left on here in the living suite,” Jordan pointed out. Even in the dark it wouldn’t be that hard to pick out the white comforter on the bed and the side the larger body lay on.

  “What would be the point behind killing Jordan?” Noah asked softly, the quiet tone more indicative of the danger raging inside him than the icy control the other men displayed.

  “He protects me,” she said painfully. “That was Sorrel’s favorite game. To kill whoever stood between him and his goal of acquiring me. Right down to my mother.” She turned and watched Jordan, aching, filled with such regret that she could feel her stomach turning with the thought of the blood that had been shed when she was younger. “I killed Sorrel. How is he still haunting me?”

  She remembered killing him as well as his son. She remembered seeing Raven and Sorrel’s lifeless eyes gazing back at her. Blood had soaked their chests from the bullets they’d taken to the heart. She remembered it all, yet, it was as though they still lived.

  Pushing her fingers through her hair, she turned away from the others as they gazed back at her silently, somberly. She feared pityingly. She didn’t want their pity and she had been cruel to accept their help.

  They had lives, families. They had children, friends.

  She only had them until she had moved to Hagerstown. And even now, she hadn’t truly made friends. No one would miss her, save those who stood in the room with her now. And they would go on. They would remember her fondly. They would regret her death. But no one cared enough to truly grieve.

  Perhaps not even the man sleeping with her. The man she had given her heart to.

  She couldn’t look at him. She couldn’t face the danger she had brought to his life. And she had been too weak to run, too weak to remember the lessons she had been taught in the past.

  Never make friends, because they died.

  Never love anyone, because they were murdered.

  Never, ever, dream of a life that could include a measure of security or of peace.

  “Tehya.” Suddenly, his arms were surrounding her, turning her, pulling her against the muscular strength of his chest.

  He was warm, stron
g. He held her as though he could protect her against anything, anyone that would strike against her. He held her as though he were bulletproof, and she knew no man could make that claim.

  “I wanted it to be over,” she whispered as her fingers curled into the loose material of his shirt. “I just wanted it to go away, Jordan. It should have died with Sorrel.”

  “And it will,” he promised her, his lips against her ear. “I promise you, this time, we’re going to bury it for good.”

  She turned slowly.

  She should have run, she should have protected him when she had the chance.

  * * *

  He was going to kill.

  It was all Jordan could do to keep from stalking into the other suite and murdering the two men where they sat.

  “You expected this,” Noah stated quietly, accusingly, as he stared back at Jordan from the other side of the table.

  “I would have been stupid not to.” Jordan shrugged as Tehya finished bandaging his side more than an hour later, after Micah had been found to stitch it. “They just moved faster than I expected.”

  “I would have expected another attack to come outside the protected area,” Micah inserted as he sat back in his chair. “It came too soon.”

  Jordan shook his head in denial. “The first attack was an attempt to take Teyha. Whoever’s pulling the strings here wasn’t aware she had friends willing to protect her.” He glanced at John Vincent and Travis Caine. “Tonight’s attack was the taking of an opportunity.” He glanced at Teyha. “They thought they had the advantage so they took it.”

  He sat back, aware of the others watching him thoughtfully as he hid a mocking smile. There was a reason he was a commander in the Elite Ops unit. There was a reason he had been given more freedom than any other commander in the private covert operations organization.

  Because he knew how to cover his ass, and he knew exactly how to push to achieve a reaction.

  “We know whoever’s been searching for her has a personal stake in it,” he began.

  “And how do we know this?” Nik was the one that leaned forward to question the observation. “I’ve gone over the past reports filed on her mother and the deaths of the men attempting to protect them, as well as the months Teyha was in France and the attempt against her there. I would say it’s more likely one of Sorrel’s partners attempting to punish her for killing Sorrel.”