by Lora Leigh
Her lips twitched.
It really wasn’t funny, she knew. He was actually mostly serious. He was furious over it. But he was also so dramatic when he was pissed off.
“You’ll sleep with me tonight then?” she asked, feeling lighter, the shadow of agony easing enough to allow her to relax against him.
“We’ll sleep with you,” he promised, his lips brushing against her air. “Stop making me want to cry with those big, shadowed eyes of yours, and I promise we will hold you between us until this hell begins again.”
Until the next party, that is, a week away.
She could do that.
The tension slowly eased away from her, part of the pain easing back, sliding from her senses, allowing her to breathe again.
“My sweet Summer,” he sighed. “I would trade the world and all that is in it to take the pain from you.”
She smiled, remembering another time he’d said that. In Russia, when she’d burned with fever from the bullet Dragovich had put in her shoulder.
He stopped moving.
Looking up, she saw he’d led her to the table where her family sat. Stepping back, his fingers stroked down her arm before he released her, nodded to her parents, then returned to stand next to his brother.
“Hey, Summer.” Mike Taggart nodded to her as he stepped to the table. “Mr. McGillan asked me to find you and tell you he’s getting ready to leave. He wanted to see you first though. He was in the foyer when I saw him.”
He turned to Caleb then with some comment about one of the women bemoaning the fact that Caleb wasn’t dancing.
“I’ll be right back,” she told her parents. “Steven has to leave and I want to make certain to tell him good-bye.”
She strode away from the table and headed inside, weaving through the guests and navigating the crowded dining room before moving through the rest of the house.
The dimly lit rooms past the dining room were silent and empty, the house quiet after the loud chatter from outside.
It took several minutes for her to reach the marble foyer, only to find it empty as well.
Frowning, she stared around, waiting impatiently, certain Steven would show up any minute. Glancing behind her she expected to see Raeg or Falcon, only to realize they hadn’t followed her.
That was odd. They hadn’t taken their eyes off her at any other time, but now they were nowhere to be seen?
Two more minutes, she thought silently, that was as long as she’d wait.
If she waited that long.
A chill eased down her spine. The hairs at the back of her neck lifted in primal warning and she swung around, determined to hurry back to the party, to Raeg and Falcon.
She hadn’t taken two steps when the first broad male form stepped from the dark shadow of the curved staircase. In the next heartbeat, two more blocked her way, weapons gleaming dully in their hands.
“Dragovich is waiting for you,” the heavily accented voice of the taller Russian stated malevolently. “We can take you to him as you are, or bleeding and weak. Your choice.”
“Bleeding and weak” wasn’t acceptable. But then, leaving to meet Dragovich wasn’t exactly the answer as far as she was concerned either.
And where in the hell were Raeg and Falcon?
* * *
She was gone.
Falcon searched the crowd for her as he hurried across the distance to where her family sat—the last place he’d seen Summer before his view was blocked for precious seconds by half a dozen half-drunk guests asking him if he’d seen some blonde who had said she was going to dance with him or Raeg.
No blonde had approached them. It wouldn’t have done her any good to do so either.
“Falcon.” Cal and his sons came to their feet as he glared at them.
“Where is she?” he questioned her father. “She was here and then she disappeared.”
“I thought she was with you,” her father snapped as he and his sons hurried from the table.
“She wasn’t with us.” Fists clenched, he stared around the area again, fury beginning to build inside him.
Summer’s brothers quickly began questioning guests, grabbing arms, stepping in front of laughing couples, demanding to know if they’d seen her.
“In the house,” one of the hard-eyed Special Forces soldiers answered. “I saw her about five minutes ago. Everything okay?”
“Hell no,” Caleb snapped as Falcon raced past them, Raeg close behind.
“Spread out!” Caleb yelled out to someone behind them. “Find her.”
Pushing through the patio entrance, Falcon searched the crowd, ice beginning to fill his veins, the knowledge that she was in danger building by the second.
He was just turning to rush through the dining area when a gunshot exploded from deep within the house.
“No!” The denial burst from Falcon’s lips as he began shoving guests out of his way, racing for the front of the house where the shot originated.
Dragovich had found a way to get to her. God, they were supposed to protect her. They were supposed to keep this from happening.
He was at a full run when he hit the foyer and came to a hard, agonizing stop.
Blood stained the marble. Too much blood.
Jerking the handgun from the small of his back, he moved quickly for the open doors and the shadowed entrance beyond.
The lights that had lit the area earlier were dark now, shattered glass on the landing attesting to the fact that they’d deliberately been blown.
Using hand signals, he directed Raeg to the blood trail leading from the house, then pointed to the rooms on each side of the entrance. Rushing into the room he chose for himself, he paused at the side of a window, crossed himself, then unlocked it and opened it just enough to ease through it, using the cover of the high shrubs to block his exit.
“Bastard…” He heard Summer curse from his right, somewhere from within the heavy growth of pine that grew along the edge of the house.
Checking for Raeg, he nodded toward the tree line.
“I hope you burn in hell…” Summer cried out.
Keeping to the cover of the trees, they moved quickly toward the sound. As they neared the side of the house he glimpsed Summer’s brother Caleb and her father following, armed and obviously following the sound of her voice as well.
“They’re heading for the swamp,” Caleb snapped as he got close enough. “If they get her to an airboat, she’s gone. We’ll never find her.”
It was night. The swamp was a primal, hungry creature at night, Summer’s father had once told him.
He heard Summer cry out again and sprinted into the tree line, hoping his night sight adjusted quickly enough to allow him to avoid any of those damned alligators that seemed to lurk anywhere.
A light ahead of him pinpointed Summer’s location. Spreading out, Caleb and his father moved in parallel to the glow of the flashlight.
“Caleb will kill you, Mike,” Summer cried out, pain and fury filling her voice.
“You bitch. You deserve it.” Mike Taggart’s voice carried through the night air. “You fucking neutered me when you took that knife to me. Ruined my life!”
She cried out again as the sound of laughter met the crack of flesh against flesh.
He’d hit her.
He’d kill the bastard, Falcon told himself.
“You tried to rape me. I was thirteen,” Summer yelled as Falcon caught sight of her struggling between Taggart and another, larger male.
“You deserved it, you stuck-up bitch,” Mike snarled. “Always thinking you’re better than everyone else. A little sedative to your daddy’s drink, and he was out like a light. You shouldn’t have fought me.”
The fury building inside was a dangerous thing, Falcon thought distantly as he caught Raeg’s eye and directed him behind the two men, Russians, one being supported by the other as they trailed Taggart and the silent captor as they dragged her through the trees, moving closer than ever to the water and no doubt an
airboat waiting for them.
He was obviously wounded, Falcon thought with satisfaction. Trust Summer to shed blood. She was damned good at that.
“Mike.” Caleb stepped out in front of Summer, Mike, and that bastard helping him drag Summer through the night. “Let her go.”
Falcon glimpsed Mike’s face as the other man laid the barrel of his gun against Summer’s head.
“Well hell, and here I was hoping you wouldn’t know it was me.” Mike’s laugh was bitter, filled with anger. “You should have given me that loan I asked for, Caleb. Then I wouldn’t have had to do this.”
Falcon slipped closer, edging in from tree to tree.
The two Russians behind Mike and the larger abductor weren’t nearly as dangerous as the one holding his gun against Summer’s temple.
As Falcon moved into position to attempt to draw the lead kidnapper’s attention, he found Raeg to make certain his brother was in place to fire a killing shot to take the bastard out.
Raeg was lifting a rifle to his shoulder another guest, one of the Special Forces soldiers Falcon had seen earlier, had handed him.
There were others moving through the trees, silently, no more than shadows as they blocked any attempt to reach the boat waiting at the edge of the swamp beyond the glow of the flashlight Mike held.
“Just let her go,” Caleb suggested reasonably. “All of you can walk away then.”
Like hell, Falcon thought. Not a single bastard involved in dragging Summer from the house was getting out of there. At least, not alive.
“She’s not worth it, Caleb,” Mike snapped then, having obviously lost his senses. “She’s trouble. She always been, and you know it.”
“She’s my sister,” Caleb reminded him. “My baby sister. The one you tried to rape!” he snapped then. “Did you think I didn’t hear that shit? You betrayed all of us. We were family and you didn’t give a damn.”
“I’m losing the farm…”
“There’s no excuse,” Caleb snarled. “Now let her go.”
“She will die.” The Russian pressed the gun tighter to Summer’s head. “You will move, or I will kill her now.”
“Yeah?” Caleb sneered. “She’s the only thing keeping you alive, you dumb bastard. You really want to do that?”
The big Russian grinned as he moved the gun from Summer’s temple. Before he could reposition, a shot rang out.
Falcon watched as brain matter exploded from his big head and splattered against Summer’s face even as she tore herself from Mike’s grip and threw herself to the ground.
That shot wasn’t theirs. Neither were the three successive ones that took out the two Russians trailing Summer, and left Mike on the ground, groaning from a shot to his abdomen.
Falcon rushed for Summer, aware of Raeg at his side. Reaching her, they hauled her from the ground as half a dozen male guests followed, surrounding them as they quickly moved Summer from the line of fire while Caleb and his father dragged Mike behind the thick trunk of a nearby tree.
“Summer, baby?” Once within the cover of the trees, Falcon pushed Summer behind a stack of boulders resting against a pine, his hands running over her quickly as Raeg cushioned her against his own body, holding her close to his chest. “Are you okay?”
“Fine.” She nodded, her voice shaky, her face bruised. “Who took that shot?”
“Don’t know.” He shook his head, the vibration of the satellite phone tucked in his jacket pocket drawing his attention.
Jerking it quickly from his pocket, he stared at the display, shock resounding through him before he handed it to Raeg.
Dragovich at the Taggart hunting lodge.—Father
* * *
Raeg read the message and knew in an instant who had taken the shots.
“Caleb,” he called out.
“Who’s taking those fucking shots?” the other man answered.
“Your dad with you?” Raeg called back.
“Here,” Cal answered the questioned.
“Cyclops is taking the shots,” he called back, knowing Summer’s father would connect the codename.
Silence filled the night for long seconds.
“Cy? You out there?” Cal called out then. “Come on now, answer me. Tell me you’re not gunnin’ for my little girl tonight.”
The fact that Summer’s father knew things he shouldn’t would surprise him later, Raeg told himself as he searched the darkness, looking for the man who had once been a hero, only to turn into a monster.
“She’s a tough girl.” Laughter filled Roberto Falcon’s voice, the hint of a Spanish accent fluid, not at all what a merciless killer should sound like. “Reminds you of a young Leasa, doesn’t she?”
The familiarity in the disembodied voice was apparent. Summer’s father knew far more than he’d ever let on to any of them.
“She does, Cy,” Cal called back. “I need to get her out of here though. You gonna try to stop me?”
Silence filled the night again for long, tense moments.
Raeg could feel his heartbeat slowing, could feel the night filling with a heavy foreboding as he shifted to help Falcon cover Summer further, to keep her from coming into their father’s crosshairs.
“Go after Dragovich, Cal,” a voice called out, the night distorting his location. “Your daughter’s safe. For now.”
For now.
Falcon hung his head, relief and desolation sweeping through him.
She was safe, for now.
“Move out,” Cal ordered. “If you’re going with us, we’ll meet at my truck. Move it.”
Shadows began shifting through the darkness. With a fluid, almost natural flow, they moved quickly back toward the house.
As much as he’d hated the damned parties that had been planned, he gave Summer’s family credit for inviting the very type of man needed in the event Summer was actually threatened.
“I’m going,” Summer snapped as he and Raeg helped her to her feet. “Don’t even start…”
“I would never imagine you wouldn’t go,” Falcon agreed, and though Raeg agreed too, the thought of having her anywhere where Cyclops could get her in his crosshairs terrified him. “Let’s go.”
Chapter
EIGHTEEN
Roberto Falcone, “Cyclops,” had obviously beaten them to the Taggart hunting lodge.
Dragovich lay in the middle of the wood floor, a broken bottle of vodka next to him, the back of his head mixed into the brain matter staining the floors and the blood seeping into the rough planks.
With him were three of his top lieutenants, the worst of his followers. Cowering in a closet was a young woman, bruised, her clothing torn, terrified and in shock.
On the table next to Dragovich’s body was a note.
You’re welcome, sons. I’ll be in contact.—Father
He would be in contact?
The bastard.
Raeg grit his teeth, the muscles in his jaw bunching as Summer stepped around the dead to get to the table. She’d changed clothes in the back seat of her father’s pickup as they raced for the hunting cabin. Rather than the dress and strappy sandals she’d had on at the party, she wore the black mission outfit she kept in the go bag she’d tossed into Falcon’s SUV before they’d left the house.
Falcon had braided her hair, cursing the thin chains her hairdresser had woven through the curls as he plucked them free. Surprisingly, he hadn’t damaged a single one of the little trinkets that he’d dropped into her palm.
The long, heavy mass of hair was neatly confined from the crown of her head to the middle of her back, showing off her high cheekbones, slightly tilted witchy eyes, and pouty lips that were thinner now with displeasure.
“What is this?” Lifting her gaze from the note to meet his, Summer stared back at him with a level, demanding look. “And why are we suddenly worried your father’s going to kill me, Raeg?”
Her expression was cool, almost knowing, the persona she pulled around herself as Belle, revealing the highly capable
agent she actually was. She had the ability to do that, to separate the agent from the woman, to become the cool, deadly powerhouse determined to survive and complete the mission at all costs.
And that was the woman he was facing, Raeg realized. This wasn’t the woman he’d gotten used to over the past two weeks. The softer, sometimes emotional, always sensual lover who blew his mind in her acceptance of both him and Falcon.
She was the agent Raeg had refused to accept for so many years because the last agent he’d allowed into his heart had betrayed not just him, but his brother as well, in her attempt to learn the location of a man so dangerous that his own country had feared him. Even now, more than a decade later, his enemies in Spain were still searching for him.
“What is going on?” she demanded when no one spoke.
Her hands held the assault rifle with steady confidence, but as he stared back at her, Raeg could see the anger that flickered in the back of her gem-hard violet gaze.
“Might as well tell her. That secret was never as buried as you thought it was, Raeg,” her father told him softly from where he stood on the other side of the room. “You tell her, or I will.”
Because she was in danger now. Because Cyclops knew his sons would give their own lives for her, and that alone made her a weakness as far as their father was concerned.
“You knew him,” Summer accused her father then. “You knew things about Raeg and Falcon you never shared with me.” The promise of a later confrontation filled her face as she shot her father a hard look.
Raeg had a feeling Cal wanted to roll his eyes at his daughter.
“Girl, sometimes a man needs his secrets just to keep his own sanity,” her father snorted, the hard purpose in his gaze assuring his daughter he didn’t regret his decision. “But now, the time for this secret has come.” His head turned, his stare slicing into Raeg once again, then into Falcon. “The time for it came when you made the decision to involve her in that part of your lives.”
When they’d made the decision to become her lovers. The accusation, though unsaid, came through loud and clear.
“Cal’s right,” Falcon breathed out roughly as he stood behind Raeg. “But now isn’t the time to explain it.”