by Selena Kitt
What in the world?
There was a yard to the left, as stern and functional as the sign on the perimeter gate that read, ‘Kill House’. A group of men in the yard were strapping on tactical gear, helped by two guys in civvies. She got out of the car and pocketed her keys, making sure to lock the door—not that anyone would dare steal anything here.
The temperature had risen since breakfast, so she pulled off her hoodie and tied it around her waist. It was warm enough to walk around in jeans and a tank-tee. Too warm, really. She fanned her face a little. She’d probably regret the jeans too, after a while.
She saw him as she slipped through the gate, drawing glances from some of the men. Ric was bent over in the corner, yanking the laces on his boots and making low conversation with a man who had cropped blond-grey hair. The man looked vaguely familiar. The older man said something to make Ric laugh.
A little hitch jolted inside her—Ric’s whole face lit up when he smiled now. She’d never seen him look so relaxed and carefree. My God, that smile. He stood, gathering his hair back into an elastic band, sunlight dancing off his short sideburns, making them glow dark-blond. His black, long-sleeved shirt clung to the muscles of his shoulders and upper arms like a second skin.
Annalesa slowed her pace, not wanting to interrupt them, but Ric glanced her way and waved, stopping only to pick up an enormous assault rifle from the ground by his kit bag. As he approached, her slack-jawed staring at his alpha gear had turned into a grimace at his weapon.
“Please tell me that’s just a paintball gun?” She’d seen the orange tip—a sign that the gun was no longer actually firing live rounds. The thing looked like it weighed as much as she did!
“It is.” He laughed, bending to kiss her cheek. “You’re nearly an hour early. We were about to do an assault simulation.”
“I thought I’d get in a little target practice before we hooked up. I’m rusty.” She glanced around, frowning, hands on her hips, and wrinkled her nose at him. “But the range seems to have moved.”
“Sorry, forgot you haven’t been here in a while.” Ric grinned. “The range is where the conference rooms used to be. Dad expanded Ryker’s private security wing, so we built the kill house for urban assault training. Private security is now Anders Arensen’s baby. You remember Anders, right?”
And there he was—the older man who had said something to make Ric laugh.
Annalesa put her hand out as the man with the silver-blond hair joined them. His hair was so close-cropped she could see the pink of his scalp.
“Good morning, Commander Arensen.” She did remember him, now.
“Just Mr. Arensen.” He shook her hand—a confident, firm grip. “I’ve retired from the Forsvaret.”
“Still with NATO?” she asked, trying to remember what her stepfather had said about the man.
“Yes, I’m still the liaison. It’s good to keep the company’s ear to the ground.” He let go of her hand, giving her an appraising look. “Do you like my kill house?”
“It’s... beautiful.” She blinked at the fat, squat building. What, really, could you say about something called “a kill house?” She didn’t like the way he claimed ownership of it though—even if it was his “baby.”
Arensen gave a short laugh, turning to clap Ric on the shoulder. “And what do you make of your brother’s incredible transformation?”
“I didn’t recognize him,” she admitted honestly.
“You won’t recognize him in the field, either,” Arensen assured her, squeezing Ric’s big shoulder in his hand. “He’s been working with our operations team for two years. We’ve got him up to mission-capable standards.”
Ric looked quite proud of that fact and she smiled her congratulations at him. She felt proud of him, although that seemed to matter to him far less than the older man’s opinion. Annalesa told herself she was being ridiculous, but she didn’t like the way Arensen seemed to claim Ric’s success as if it were his own.
Ric had been the one doing the work, after all, and she didn’t like to think of him training with a man who looked like he’d step on a kitten if it got in his way. But maybe she was judging the man too harshly, she told herself, as Arensen turned back to Ric. Clearly the older man felt he’d done his duty in being polite to her and began barking out instructions for the upcoming simulation.
“Keep a better eye on your six,” Arensen admonished. “I can’t count the number of times you forget to watch your own damned back, Ryker, for fucksake—”
“That’s because I’m busy watching yours.”
“I don’t need mine watched,” Arensen snapped, although he was wearing a half-smile, half-scowl on his face. “Who’s training who here?”
Annalesa stepped back, giving them space as they sparred in a series of masculine half-insults while they worked out an extraction strategy. Clearly they’d done this before and she just was in the way.
She shaded her eyes from the sun, looking where the conference center used to be, where Ric said the new range now resided—when she overheard Arensen comment about Ric being heavy on his feet when clearing a room.
“You gotta be smoother, Ryker. Pie those corners. You’re like Frankenstein’s monster thudding around clearing a room.” Arensen snorted a laugh at his own metaphor. “Can’t get lazy just because you’re so close—don’t want to let them hear you at the last minute.”
Ric nodded, taking in the criticism, but the words made Annalesa’s spine stiffen. She pointed over to the kill house, directing her comment at Arensen.
“So, am I wrong, or did you model that on the Navy Seal training center in Virginia?”
“We did.” Arensen raised a fine, silver eyebrow. “By financial necessity, it’s a little more compact, but—”
“Well—” she interrupted, crossing her arms and narrowing her gaze at the kill house. “Unless you’ve got carpet and other acoustic-buffers in there, I’d venture to say a prima ballerina would sound like an elephant clearing those rooms.”
“Wow!” Ric laughed loudly at that, sliding an arm around her neck, his face full of pride. “Where the hell did you pick all that up from?”
“Cyril—the model-bastard.” She returned his smile, liking the weight of his arm around her shoulder. “He had this thing about American military stuff.”
“You were clearly paying attention, Miss LaFevre.” Arensen’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Would you like to see our little exercise close up? We could even change the scenario from simple assault to a hostage extraction—with you in the starring role, of course. If you were willing to volunteer...?”
She peeked up at Ric to see if he was okay with the idea—he shrugged and looked at her as if to say, why not?—then Annalesa broke into a grin of sheer delight.
“Love to,” she replied—in truth, she couldn’t wait to see Ric in action. The thought made her feel warm all over.
“Put your hands out, Miss LaFevre.” Arensen produced a length of soft cord from a pocket around the back of his flak jacket and doubled it.
She held out her wrists, doing her best to flex the muscles in her forearms as much as she could—a tactic the aforementioned Cyril had told her about—so she might have a little slack in the rope when she relaxed.
From the look on Arensen’s face, she knew he was the kind of man who took these “little exercises” quite seriously, and she wouldn’t put it past him to take the whole thing too far. She expected him to tie the knots tight, and he did—but she was actually a little surprised he didn’t use zip-ties.
“Ready, prisoner?” Ric grinned down at her.
She noticed him studying the way her wrists looked, all tied up like that, and she liked the light in his eyes.
Ric escorted her into the kill house, directing her to a small bunker room just inside the front door on the left. It was a video viewing room, and he put her in front of a cart of monitors so she could see the entire assault on several split-screens from her position. He looped another rope beh
ind the knot, securing her wrists and lashed it to a post.
“You okay?” He squatted down, checking the ropes, and she could smell his scent, clean and deliciously masculine. It made her mouth water. “Not nervous?”
“I’m fine. I trust you.” She smiled, loving the look of concern on his face as their eyes met. “I just hope no one gets me with one of those paintball guns. I hear they sting like hell.”
“Like all kinds of hell.” He grimaced. “Tactical protection’s great, but there’s still the occasional guy who thinks it’s funny to paint my ass.”
“Really?” she laughed. “They wouldn’t dare!”
“They’re paid to dare.” Arensen appeared at the door and jerked his thumb back at one of the guys who had previously been wearing civvies, but who was now wearing a grimy white t-shirt and filthy jeans, dirt smeared all over him.
Such realism, she thought, and suppressed a giggle.
“This is Henrik,” Arensen told her by way of making introductions. “He’ll be the last line of defense before Ric or I get in to liberate you.”
“Hi, Henrik.” She looked at him, judging he was about her age. He wasn’t quite as big as Ric, but he was still pretty big. He had white-blond hair and a sweet smile that she returned. Ric scowled at that, but she pretended not to notice. “I’m Annalesa.”
“Ma’am.” He gave her a little salute. “You want chair? Water?”
“I’m fine,” she assured him, unable to suppress a little laugh. It wasn’t because his English was so broken—his accent was obviously Scandinavian—it was the offer of creature comforts that made her want to giggle. “It’s nice to know I’ll be in the care of the politest insurgent ever.”
“Now, now, Miss LaFevre, no chatting with the hostiles. We don’t want to have to add the reality of a gag.” Arensen quirked a half-smile and dipped back into the corridor to give an ear-punishing whistle.
In a moment, all the men from the yard were clustered at the doorway of the video room. He gave a rapid run-down of instructions in Norwegian, then in English.
“So, all nine insurgents, take up your positions. Ric and I will be the last of the extraction team sent to rescue the hostage and neutralize your threat. And remember—all sidearms are to be stowed.”
“Bet you a hundred bucks I get more kills than you.” Ric grinned at Arensen as the men dispersed to their defensive positions.
“It’s a bet.” Arensen returned his grin, shaking Ric’s hand to seal the deal.
As they left, shutting the video room door behind them, Annalesa looked around to get her bearings. Like every other room in the compound, this one was open-topped—there was a ten-or-twelve-foot gap between the top of the wall and the ceiling.
A scaffold of poles ran above the room, fitted with sliding cameras so every angle of an assault could be recorded from above—for debriefing purposes, she assumed. The walls were lined with some kind of soft but thin-looking impact foam, presumably so they could protect their ballistics results for later study.
There was a small, open window to her right, and a flimsy, portable-looking fold-out desk within kicking reach next to the monitors. There was nothing interesting on it other than a pile of papers and a couple pencils. Her pet ‘insurgent’ gave her a brief, nervous smile and leaned against the door, waiting.
While he fidgeted with his paintball gun, she slid around the post she was tied to and hooked a foot around the leg of the desk, pulling it a little closer. The ‘insurgent’ didn’t seem to notice or care, so she edged it closer still.
She wanted the pencil.
After all, she’d agreed to play hostage, but she hadn’t promised to be on her best behavior, had she? So while she was waiting for Ric and Arensen, she decided to see if she could stir up a little trouble.
She checked the monitors again and couldn’t see either of them. Then two of the three guys patrolling the perimeter fence went down in a spray of neon blue paint. The third pitched face-forward, his back yellow. Ric darted out from the concealment of her Kia and, on another camera, she saw two guys patrolling the compound roof stagger backward, also spattered with yellow. Arensen remained invisible but he picked off the man guarding the main door into the compound.
Annalesa smiled. So, they each had three, then.
Henrik stiffened, glancing out of the window into the corridor, and she managed to tip the little table until a few sheets of paper slid, pushing the pencil off. She sank down, hiding it under her knee.
“What you doing?” Henrik turned round sharply at the noise, speaking his guttural form of broken English
“Can I sit?” She smiled sweetly at him “Sorry, I should’ve taken you up on it when you offered me a chair.”
“Ja, ja—sit. Whatever.” Henrick was busy shuttling back and forth across the room, checking for movement along the corridor, on the monitors, and in the skylights.
Annalesa worked the pencil vertically between her knees and drove the point up into the knot between her wrists. It gave easily. She twisted her wrists until she could’ve pulled her hands out of the bonds without a problem, but she kept them where they were.
It was weirdly quiet outside.
She glanced at the monitors and saw an insurgent who’d tried skulking along the outside wall go down in a spray of blue.
Then the door exploded inwards and Annalesa screamed out loud.
Henrik staggered sideways as yellow paint blasted across his forehead, and then he took a blue blast to his ribs.
Ric cleared the room, unable to help grinning and dropping her a wink as Arensen pulled himself in through the little window. Annalesa registered the score as four kills each, but twisted around to look at Henrik, who leaned against the wall, nursing a nosebleed.
“Hey, I’m sorry—I aimed high.” Ric hunkered down to check the man’s eyes. “Didn’t mean to. You okay?”
Henrik muttered something in Norwegian and bent forward, putting his rifle down and his head between his knees.
“Scene’s not over,” Arensen barked. “You got Henrik first, so now we have four kills each. Which means there’s someone out there we missed.”
“Yeah, but this is supposed to be a demonstration exercise and I got Henrik in the face.” Ric had his hand on the back of the groggy kid’s neck as he looked around for something to stem the nosebleed.
Annalesa did the same, but there wasn’t anything. Then she remembered the hoodie tied around her waist.
“Ric, use my shirt,” she offered.
“You sure?”
“It’ll wash.” Annalesa heard the click in the same moment as Ric.
They both looked up to see Arensen pointing his rifle at Ric’s temple.
“Stand down, soldier.”
Ric put his rifle down and rose slowly from his crouch. Just as he was half-hunched, he rolled forward, Arensen’s rifle blasting paint over his head.
Ric hooked his legs between Arensen’s and pitched him sideways, snatching the rifle as his mentor struggled to regain his balance. He slid the rifle across the floor to the corner of the room and bounced on the balls of his feet as they squared up, drawing their knives.
Ric chuckled. “I suppose it takes a politician to be a turncoat.”
“Good lesson to learn now rather than later—after you’re CEO,” Arensen said. “Politicians are more dangerous than almost anyone—especially warrior politicians.”
Annalesa rolled her eyes.
This Arensen character was clearly a first-rate teacher, but also had an element of melodramatic-wanker about him, too. Since they were paying zero attention to their hostage, she slipped her wrists out of her already loosened ropes and tugged Henrik’s rifle up into her lap. There were two paint cartridges in the chamber. Good.
She looked up to see Arensen backing Ric up against the wall of the video room, now pointing a sidearm in his face. Ric feinted left at lightning speed, yanking the gun down and twisting it out of Arensen’s grip. Arensen slashed at Ric’s forearm with the knife,
leaving a smear of blue paint from the thick edge.
“That’s your brachial artery gone, Ryker. You’ve probably got a minute’s fight time left in you.”
“You said no sidearms.”
“I’d be a crappy instructor if I didn’t teach you that you can’t trust anyone, son. This is the gun business. Always have a contingency plan.”
Arensen grinned, dropped his paint-knife and lunged to the side of Ric’s body, sweeping an arm across his chest and his legs out from underneath him.
Ric landed with a grunt, and at that point, Annalesa decided she’d had enough of the amateur dramatics. She got to her feet, keeping the rifle trained on Arensen as he straddled Ric.
“Five kills!” Ric brought his hands up in a sharp blow, mimicking the breaking of Arensen’s neck with a light hold around it. “I win!”
“Look down.” Arensen smirked.
Annalesa saw a knife—a real knife—pointing at the bottom of Ric’s ribs. It was digging into his flak jacket, but as far as she was concerned, the mentor was getting into his role just a little bit too much.
“I told you,” Arensen said. “There’s no greater motivation than money.”
Annalesa squeezed the trigger and a round of pink paint exploded across Arensen’s flak jacket. The shock made him drop the knife and he stared dumbly down at the mess across his chest.
She met Ric’s eyes. At first he stared like he didn’t even know her, but then a huge grin curled across his face and he threw his head back, laughing.
“Holy hell, Leesa! You’re a badass!”
She just grinned and blew imaginary smoke away from the tip of the rifle.
“Congratulations, Miss LaFevre.” Arensen stood and saluted her. “You’d make somebody a very difficult hostage.”
He put a hand down to Ric to haul him off the floor and gave her the first full and sincere smile she’d seen. “I admit, I’m pleasantly surprised. I’m not often caught off-guard, but...”