by Lora Leigh
"Of course it does," Kira said gently. "As long as one person loves, Mikayla, then it always exists. The lack of acknowledgment doesn't cancel it out." She shook her head. "It won't matter when he's gone," she said painfully. "Do you think he'll ever remember, Kira? That he'll look back and know what he left behind?" She watched as the other woman sat forward slowly, her arms folding over the tops of her knees. "I don't know, Mikayala. What I do know is that Nik leads a very dangerous, very lonely life. I would think those memories would be something he would be unable to forget, especially during the darker times he faces."
"Is he a mercenary?" Mikayla wasn't entirely certain what he was, but she had a feeling he was much more than anyone wanted to admit.
"Of a sort," Kira agreed. "A very specialized one, though. Nik makes things happen. His expertise is in weapons, and in logistics. He would have made an excellent commander if that was the route he had wanted to take."
"Before his wife and child's deaths?" Mikayla needed to know as much about him as possible. As much as she could get from the few who knew him.
"Even then," Kira stated. "I've always thought Nik was a man searching for something he had never had. Funny, though, when I saw him here the first time, he no longer gave that impression."
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Mikayla's heart clenched. "He doesn't love me, though. If he loved me, Kira, he couldn't walk away."
Kira smiled at the statement. "Funny, I don't see him walking away, Mikayla." Her lips parted to comment, to assure the other woman she could feel him already walking away, when the lights went out.
Mikayla immediately dropped to the floor. She'd been shot at enough that she wasn't about to remain standing.
"I have a light," she hissed to Kira as she scrambled to her appliance drawer and pulled free two small Maglites that she kept on hand for emergencies. Kira was there beside her, her fingers slipping over one of the lights.
"Do you have a weapon?" The other woman's voice was quiet, carrying no farther than Mikayla's ears.
"Dad gave me a .22." She pulled the tiny six-shot gun from the drawer.
"Well, hell," Kira sighed. "At least it shoots bullets. Now come on. Stay close to me. We're going to slip out the back and make our way to my car."
"Call Nik."
"The phones are jammed; I hit the panic button to Ian's phone the second the lights went out and the call wouldn't go through. We're going to have to get out of here, then call once we get out of range of the jammer. Turn off the flashlight and stay close. The light will only give us away."
Mikayla's eyes were slowly adjusting to the dark, but with that came the shadows that seemed to shift and twine throughout the room.
Kira was calm, confident, as though it were no more than a game. Mikayla knew it was much more.
She could hear her heart beating in her eyes as her chest tightened, restricting her breathing. Panic was only a breath away as Kira, staying low, began to make her way to the opened doorway.
Swallowing past the tightness in her throat, Mikayla stayed close to Kira as they crawled quickly through the room and past the doorway.
"Ian will know something's up soon," she promised Mikayla. "We have a system. When my hourly ping doesn't hit his phone, then he'll know there's trouble."
"Ping?" Mikayla felt stupid asking the question.
"It's programmed into our cell phones, like a computer. Every hour when we're apart the phones ping each other automatically. If the signal doesn't go through on one end, then the phone alerts the other. It's a safeguard." Mikayla nodded, though it made about as much sense as anything else did anymore.
Making their way through the short hall to the kitchen, Mikayla tried to make out whatever might or might not be in the shadows. Whoever had managed to cut the electricity could be waiting anywhere. No doubt with a weapon. Now this was just getting ridiculous. It wasn't as though anyone believed she had seen Maddix kill Eddie Foreman. Why the hell was he determined to kill her now as well?
Moving up on the glass sliding doors, she slid in behind Kira at the edge of the door frame.
"Damn, you have no cover out there," Kira cursed as they stared out at the 211
moonlit backyard and open deck. "Nik should have fixed this for you."
"He's been rather busy," Mikayla stated breathlessly. She heard a small snort. "No doubt." And a second later the door began sliding open.
"We go out low," Kira ordered. "Slide out along the side and slip over the deck to the yard. If we can get to the side of the house, then we'll have more cover to the car."
"Okay." Yeah, that sounded like a plan. All they had to do was get over the deck.
"I thought you said the front would be covered?"
"Any assailant worth his salt would have help, and they'd have all exits covered. Any prey worth their salt assumes all exits are covered and takes the line of best defense."
Mikayla would decide if that made sense later.
Breathing in deeply, she moved as Kira slipped out the door, following close behind and staying as low as possible.
The moon seemed as bright as daylight as Mikayla stared into the darkness desperately, trying to pinpoint the shadows. She could feel the panic, the fear, rising inside her. They weren't making it across the deck fast enough. She could feel it. She was so focused on it that when the first crack of wood just to her left splintered, she didn't even know what it was.
"Run!" Kira didn't bother trying to be quiet.
Mikayla felt the other woman's hand grip her arm, jerking her across the deck as that plop, plop sound began pelting against the side of the house. A window shattered above their heads as they reached the end of the deck. Kira pushed her over the side and as the other woman followed a hollow sound of pain came from her lips and she collapsed on the grass.
"Fuck me. Ian is going to be pissed," Kira groaned. Mikayla knew what had happened. Gripping the other woman, Mikayla jerked her to her feet despite the curse that fell from Kira's lips.
She'd been shot. Mikayla could smell the blood, felt it as Kira fell against her, her wounded shoulder pressed against Mikayla's arm.
Mikayla fought to get Kira to the side of the house when the quiet sound of bullets striking around them began to enrage her. She fired into the darkness. The pop of the little .22 wasn't loud enough to suit her, but a bullet was a bullet, right?
She doubted it, but she could hope it was.
She didn't realize she was crying as she struggled to drag Kira around the side of the house. Mikayla wouldn't have realized she was cursing if she hadn't heard the word
"fuck" fall from her own lips.
Reaching the corner of the house, she threw Kira around the side of it. Wood splintered above Mikayla's head once again, raining small splinters of wood around her as she ducked and fought to drag Kira to her feet.
"Bastard got me in the leg," Kira cursed, her breathing heavy as Mikayla fought to catch her breath. "At least we have some cover here." It was little enough. A small toolshed that they were tucked against. There was cover on two sides, leaving them too exposed.
"Kira, I'm sorry," Mikayla panted. There was no way out of it. She could feel the 212
danger coming closer, death marking the very air as she fought to figure out what to do, which way to turn.
Things were happening too fast. She hadn't had a chance to do too many things. She hadn't told Nik she would always wait for him.
"Mikayla!" She heard him.
Jerking around, she saw him. Two tall, dark figures were racing across the yard, weapons drawn, as sirens could be heard in the distance.
The steady, silenced strikes of bullets against the house had stopped. Whoever had waited in the darkness to pick her and Kira off like sitting ducks were gone now.
"Kira!" Ian was suddenly at the other woman's side, his voice calm, concerned.
"Two. Shoulder and leg." Kira was breathing roughly. "I might need help pretty fast, Ian."
"An ambulance is on its way, baby," Ian prom
Mikayla felt Nik beside her. She hadn't moved. His hands were going over her, his gaze watching her in concern.
"They're gone?" she whispered as she stared back at him. "I didn't get to see who it was, Nik. I'm sorry."
His pale blue eyes were like white-hot flames in the darkness as the flash of lights began to fill the night and neighbors began filing from the houses.
"That's okay, I did." His face, his voice, was hard as stone. "I saw who it was, Mikayla. And I'll take care of it."
She shook her head slowly. "Don't leave me again Nik. We'll take care of it." Nik prayed for the ice to return within his soul. He prayed like a broken man praying for death as he stared into Mikayla's shocked, horrified eyes. The race to get to her and Kira once Ian's phone had emitted that hard, shrill pulse in the truck had nearly gotten both men killed. Nik had raced through town like a madman. All he could see was Mikayla's blood; all he could hear was her screams echoing in his head.
To find her alive was a prayer answered. To realize just how many of his barriers against emotion had been destroyed was a nightmare.
Holding her close, he watched as the police and ambulance arrived. Kira was prepped for transport as the chief of police pulled up and watched, his expression stony, from the side of the street as another car pulled onto the curb. Nik wasn't surprised to see his commander, Jordan Malone, step from the vehicle. Robert Denover, the criminal investigator, stood to the side of the ambulance questioning Ian as Jordan moved to them. Nik had no intentions of being a part of this. He'd seen who had shot Kira, who had tried to shoot Mikayla, even as he and Ian had rushed from the truck, their own weapons drawn.
Nik couldn't believe it. A part of him had been certain, despite the evidence, that Maddix Nelson hadn't been involved in any of this. Only a stupid man would hire someone of Nik's reputation to investigate a murder he had committed. But it had been Maddix. There had been someone with him, Nik had seen the other shadowed, unidentifiable figure, but he'd clearly seen Maddix.
"Don't mention that Ian and I saw anything," he warned Mikayla as the investigator glanced their way. "You only saw shadows and bullets, nothing else." 213
Mikayla nodded. "That is all I saw."
Her voice was still quivering as she trembled in Nik's arms. He should never have left her, he admitted. She would have been far better protected with him than she was without him. He should have known this would happen. He'd allowed both Ian's wife as well as his own woman to be placed in danger because of his own fears. Because of his knowledge that he was growing too close to her. That leaving her was going to be that much more difficult.
His arms tightened around her as Jordan moved to them.
"I need backup," Nik told Jordan. "Mikayla and I are heading to the Nelson home. I saw Maddix Nelson here tonight."
Jordan's gaze sliced to Mikayla. "Leave her with Ian."
"No." Mikayla's hands jerked up, gripping Nik's arm where it crossed over her breasts, holding her to him. "Not this time. I'm going, or I promise you everyone on this street will hear about it."
Nik grimaced. Jordan was right: the best thing to do would be to leave Mikayla with Ian. Jordan would ensure her protection, even from the police.
"Nik, you do this and I promise I'll slip away from him." Her voice was husky from the tears that Nik refused to allow himself to see. "I have the right to face him. You know I do."
"The right and the ability are two different things, Ms. Martin," Jordan informed her.
"Who the hell are you anyway?" Mikayla bit out, the fury in her voice catching Nik by surprise. "You don't tell me what to do and what not to do. The last I heard, I already have a father."
Nik noticed the almost-amused quirk to Jordan's lips as he glanced back at him.
"She's too damned stubborn," Jordan told Nik. "This isn't going to work." Nik shook his head wearily. "We don't have a choice but to make it work. I can't afford the distraction right now. She goes with us."
And he prayed. Like a dying man praying for salvation, Nik began to pray. Mikayla sat silently in the front seat of the truck as it pulled into the Nelson driveway several hours later. There should have been a sense of triumph, she thought as she stared at the lights blazing in the house. At the very least a sense of satisfaction. Finally, Maddix Nelson would be brought to justice.
"Mikayla and I will go to the front door," Nik told Ian and Jordan as they sat in the back. "Slip around the back and come in behind us. Maddix doesn't know he was seen. He's not going to expect trouble if he just sees me and Mikayla." The plan was simple. He and Mikayla would get into the house. Once he saw Maddix was alone, then Nik would let him know he was seen.
Nik had promised the other man retribution if he learned he was involved in this. The police would be called later. First, though, Nik would have his pound of flesh for Mikayla.
"Slip this into the back of your jeans." Flipping the safety on the small handgun he laid in Mikayla's hands, he stared back at her. "Keep your shirt pulled over it. Stay behind me, and if things go from sugar to shit, head for the nearest exit. Understand?" She nodded, her amethyst eyes wide as excitement flushed her face. Damn, he hoped he was right about this. Everything pointed to Maddix being 214
alone in the house. He wouldn't expect Nik and Mikayla to be showing up if he had been seen. He should be off guard. That was all Nik needed to make certain Mikayla was safe.
"Let's go." He got out of the truck before coming around to help Mikayla out. Jordan and Ian slipped out unnoticed, sliding into the darkness as Nik led Mikayla to the front door.
The doors opened as they approached them, a confused Maddix Nelson staring back at them in silence.
"Nik?" He looked at Mikayla. "I heard there were problems at Ms. Martin's home?"
"A shooter." Nik escorted Mikayla inside as Maddix stepped aside. Mikayla stared around the foyer, her gaze searching, ears listening for anyone else who might be there.
"Come into the living room," Maddix said, a note of confusion still in his voice as he invited them into the room. "Is there something wrong?"
"A few things," Nik stated as they moved into the luxurious television room. "Are Glenda and Luke here?"
Maddix shook his head as he moved toward a well-appointed wet bar. "Glenda is out with friends and Luke hasn't been around for a day or so. He'll show up when he sobers up, I imagine." The hint of disgust in Maddix's voice wasn't feigned.
"Then you're alone?" Nik asked.
Maddix glanced up from the drinks. "Is that a problem?"
"Only if you weren't here when Mikayla was attacked," Nik stated coldly.
"Then we don't have a problem." Maddix shrugged. "Would you like a drink?"
"No, thanks. We're fine."
Maddix fixed his own as Mikayla watched him. Surely there would be some hint of nervousness, something other than confusion, as he fixed his drink, glancing at them with a frown.
"Nik, why are you and Ms. Martin here?" he finally asked as he moved to the butter-soft leather sofa in front of a cold fireplace and took a seat. "I'm going to assume it has something to do with the shooting."
Mikayla stayed close to Nik as he shifted and glanced to the open doorway.
"I saw you there, Maddix."
Maddix stared at them as though he couldn't process Nik's words. "Excuse me?"
"I saw you." Nik moved, sliding his hand to his side to release the weapon holstered there.
"I'd leave that gun there if I were you, Steele."
Mikayla swung around, her heart in her throat; the only thing overriding her fear was her anger as she saw Luke Nelson standing just inside the doorway, gun in hand and pointing to them.
"What the fuck is going on here?" Maddix moved slowly to his feet as Mikayla glanced at him, his gaze widening, shock and bemusement marking his face. The same bemusement she was beginning to feel herself.
Maddix acted innocent. Luke was definitely guilty of something, but he looked nothing like his father, physically; there was no way she or Nik could have mistaken him for Maddix if he had been the one at the house.
"Luke, put that damned gun away," Maddix ordered harshly. "What the hell is 215
going on with you?"
Luke's smile could have rivaled Nik's for icy disdain.
"You're inherently stupid," Luke drawled. "I realized that before Mother ever divorced you. You'd think you'd be smarter with all the success you've had with the business Grandfather gave you when he retired."
Maddix's eyes narrowed. "What have you done, Luke?"
"Let's say I made my choice and picked the winning team." Stepping back, he glanced to the hall, and a second later Mikayla well understood how Maddix Nelson could be in two places at once.
The man who stepped into the door was his exact likeness. He was even dressed in the same clothes Maddix was wearing.
"Good evening, Ms. Martin," he greeted her, his voice an exact match to Maddix's as well. "It seems my marksmanship isn't all it should be. Though if it were, where would my witnesses be?" He chuckled, a low, evil sound that sent a chill racing up her spine. It was almost impossible to believe. Maddix Nelson had no brothers. How many times had she heard that Maddix Nelson was his father's sole heir when he had taken over the business? As though being an only child were a handicap.
If the look on Maddix's face was anything to go by, then the belief was mutual.
"Luke?" Maddix spoke to his son, but the disbelief and confusion in his voice were heavy.
Luke laughed. It was a mocking sound, heavy with cruelty.
"Maddix Nelson, meet your twin brother, Floyd Cantwell. Did you know your grandfather was the one who made the decision to split the two of you up at birth?" Luke's smile was hard, brutal. "To raise Floyd with the knowledge that he was the lesser son, the one he threw away? I understand how he feels."
Maddix pulled his gaze from the brother to the son. Mikayla could see the disbelief in Maddix's gaze, the agony, and the fear.
"I never threw you away," he whispered as though in shock.
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