by Deadly Game
“No one controls me. No one. Whitney couldn’t control me and I’ll be damned if you do. I’m not hiding while you take the risks.”
Ken stepped closer to her, his eyes glacier-cold. “You’ll do exactly what I say when I say it, Mari. I’m not fucking around here. I’m not about to let you get shot so that you can prove a point. This isn’t about freedom or whatever else you think it is. Sean wants you any way he can have you. He’s got to go through me to get to you. If I fail, and Jack fails and Logan fails, you’re welcome to blow him away.”
Mari’s face paled and she took a step back.
“Don’t you dare look at me like you’re afraid I’ll hit you!” Ken caught her arm and jerked her toward him.
Mari’s hands came up in a defensive fighting position. “Get off of me.”
“That was really sensitive of you,” Jack declared. “Sheesh, Ken, can you be any dumber?”
Ken ignored his brother and pulled Mari tight against his body. “Last night I was so deep inside you we were sharing the same skin. And today you’re going to look at me like I’m some kind of fucking monster.” He looked down at his fingers biting deep into her arm, abruptly let go, and looked to his brother for help.
Jack took great care not to glance at Briony. Baby, you’re the brains of the outfit. Do something fast.
Without hesitation, Briony made a small sound of distress. Instantly everyone looked at her. She wrapped her arms protectively around her large stomach. “Jack. I’m so afraid. Last time …” She trailed off.
Instinctively Mari went to her. “Sean isn’t going to get close to you. There’s no way that will happen.”
“They came last time, Mari, with helicopters, and we barely escaped. I can’t climb the cliff now. I can’t run. The doctor put me on bed rest because I’ve had a few contractions. I can’t fight this time.”
“Mari’s a damn good soldier, Briony,” Ken said. “She’s a hell of a shot and I’ve seen her fight. She isn’t about to allow anyone to get near you.”
Mari shot him a quelling look, but smiled with reassurance at her sister. “I won’t let anything happen to you or the babies. I promise. Why don’t you lead the way to the tunnel?”
“Mari …” Ken had no idea what he was going to say, but he didn’t want to leave it like this. She was wavering about her decision to stay with him, and ever since he’d brought her into the house she’d been different.
“Go. Get it done. I need another gun and a couple of clips of ammo, just to be on the safe side.”
“I can show you where everything is,” Briony said, slipping her hand into Mari’s.
Ken shook his head and followed Jack out of the house, checking his rifle and guns automatically as they cached weapons throughout the yard.
“Keep your mind on what’s going on here,” Jack said. “Otherwise you’re a dead man. She’s not going anywhere.”
“How would you know?”
“I see the way she looks at you. Any fool can see.”
“She isn’t like Briony, Jack. No matter how you cut it, in the bedroom or out of it, I’m going to be rough on her. Sooner or later she’s going to hightail it out of here fast. I don’t know what the hell I’ll do then.” And he didn’t. He couldn’t think about her leaving him because he knew she was contemplating just that. His mind went numb—blank.
“Ken.” Jack put his hand on his brother’s shoulder. “Sean is a trained killer. This isn’t going to be easy. You have to keep your mind on what you’re doing. Why don’t you let me switch places with you? He won’t know the difference.”
Ken shook his head. “I’ll be fine. This is my war, Jack. You just watch yourself up there. If he sees you climbing and thinks you’re me, he could very well go after you or try to take you out with a nice, well-placed shot.”
Jack shrugged. “Then you’d better be in position covering me.”
Ken nodded and went into the shop, emerging a few minutes later with a blond wig on his head. He hunched, trying to make himself smaller, staying to the thicker foliage so anyone watching would only catch glimpses of him. Sean needed to see Jack, to believe it was Ken climbing the rock face. It would further the illusion that Mari was hiking in the woods by herself. Ken took up a position, sitting on a boulder near the spring, lacy fern fronds covering most of his body as he waited for Sean to spot him. All the while his gaze searched the ridges to make certain the enemy wasn’t lying in wait to get a shot off at Jack.
Minutes passed. Fifteen. He could see Jack moving up the sheer face of the rock to his favorite lookout spot. To an outsider he appeared to be engaging in a little recreational rock climbing. Ken knew that once Jack was at the top, he would slide into the shadow of the cliff, right into a neat little depression where no one could spot him, and he would have a bird’s-eye view of the surrounding region.
Twenty minutes. Ken bent, picked up a few small pebbles, and idly tossed them into the spring. The back of his neck prickled. He felt an itch between his shoulder blades. There was the whisper of leaves brushing against clothing. It would all be on instinct now, and Ken had survival instincts honed from his childhood, when his father entered the house drunk, intent on inflicting as much pain and damage as he could on his sons. He knew when he was in danger. He was being stalked.
Ken bent down again as though picking up more pebbles. He stayed low, sweeping the area with a casual glance around. He made a great show of selecting flat stones for throwing. A twig snapped off to his left on the narrow deer trail that crisscrossed the hills. The deer had a favorite spot to lie in the shade near the spring. Ken glanced toward the area where the grasses were perpetually trampled and saw part of a pant leg. He palmed the knife in his boot as he straightened, taking care to stay in the middle of the overgrown ferns.
“Hello Mari,” Sean greeted. “If you stay very, very quiet, I might let everyone but your lover live. If you give me trouble, the first person I kill is your whoring sister.”
Ken turned slowly, concealing the knife along his wrist. “Watch your mouth when you talk about my sister-in-law.”
“You!” Sean scowled, anger flitting across his face; then his mouth pulled tight in a snarling grin. “Just the bastard I wanted to meet.”
“You’re not very smart, are you?” Ken asked, taking a step to his right to see if Sean would follow. “Did you think I wouldn’t protect her?”
Sean circled Ken, eyes restlessly searching the area around them, measuring the distance separating them. “I saw you on the mountain, climbing,” he said conversationally. “How the hell could you be up here?”
“My brother, Jack,” Ken replied without emotion. All rage had disappeared, and he felt the inevitable ice flowing in his veins, slowing down time, tunneling so that all he saw was a man with targets painted on his body.
“You can’t have her. I know you took her from me.”
“She was never yours. She’s her own person, Sean. You can’t treat her like a possession. She has her own mind and her own will.” Even as Ken said the words aloud, his heart sank. He was as bad as Sean, trying to hold her to him when he knew she needed to fly free. He couldn’t change his nature any more than Sean could undo whatever he had allowed Whitney to do to him.
Sean palmed his knife. “It’s going to be a pleasure to kill you.”
“Do you really think it’s going to be that easy? You sold out, asshole, and you didn’t even do it gracefully. You must have loved her once, loved her enough to decide you could just take her—own her.”
“Like you? I saw what you did to her.”
Ken backed away from the spring, luring Sean toward open ground where Jack could get a clear shot at him. “You loved her so much you let those bastards strip her naked and photograph her. You let the doctor stick his fingers inside her, touch her when you knew how much she hated it. You don’t deserve her.”
Sean tossed the knife back and forth between his hands, all the while circling, forcing Ken to continue to give ground. His smile ne
ver wavered, a small, evil grin, his gaze hard as he compelled Ken to back a few more feet. Ken was aware that he was close to the crumbling edge of the bluff. He shifted on the balls of his feet—waiting.
Sean feigned an attack. Ken didn’t respond. The smirk faded just a little. “She was always meant for me. Whitney promised her to me.”
“In return for betrayal? Did you report the women’s conversations? Their plans for escape? You were the one who told him Mari was going to try to talk to the senator about Whitney’s disgusting baby factory. He was really angry over that one, wasn’t he? He gave you the heavier dose of Zenith, and you injected it in her like the good little toad you are.”
Sean hissed a breath out, feigning another attack, moving forward with incredible speed and striking with a flowing roundhouse punch. Ken just managed to jerk his head out of the way and pull in his belly enough to avoid the slice of the knife.
“I had no idea it would kill her. He said if she got hurt it would heal her. I wouldn’t ever let him harm Mari.”
“No, you’d just let a perverted doctor touch her and take pictures to plaster all over his wall so he could jack off at night.” Ken glided forward, a blurring figure, his wrist flicking several times, as he moved on past Sean. He was now only a few feet from the edge of the bluff. “You’d just beat her bloody and rape her. You sick, twisted fuck.”
Sean stared down at the blood dripping from his arm, belly, and chest. Thin lines stretched across his skin. He swore and lunged again, this time, blade up, going for the softer parts of the body. At the last second Ken pivoted, allowing Sean’s forward momentum to carry him past, the wrist flicking again. This time Sean’s left cheek, neck, hip, and thigh sported long wicked-looking cuts.
Sean screamed, fury burning in his eyes. He danced in, a big man, light on his feet, snapping a quick thrust and following it with a hard forward snap kick to Ken’s thigh. The second kick took Ken in exactly the same spot, deadening his leg. Before Sean could retract the leg, Ken drove the point of his knife deep into the man’s calf, twisted, and jumped back, precariously near the edge of the cliff.
It was a particularly brutal injury. Blood sprayed in wide arcs, and Sean yelled obscenities, desperation creeping into his eyes. “You fucking freak. You really think Mari could want a man like you? Maybe if you wear a mask to cover the horror of your face.” He spat at Ken, reached down as if to pull the knife from his calf, but snapped upright, throwing his own knife at Ken’s chest.
Ken moved with blurring speed, tucking his shoulder and rolling to the side to avoid the weapon. It burned across his right bicep, shaving skin. Sean followed the knife, rushing Ken, certain his heavier body would send Ken over the edge. Ken gripped Sean with two hands, one at his throat, the other on his upper arm, superhuman strength, a vise steadily closing, crushing. Sheer terror swept through Sean. He had been counting on his own enhanced strength and his hatred of this man, but he never expected the enormous strength in Ken’s body.
Sean fought like a wild animal, desperately attempting to knock the legs out from under Ken, twice more finding the spot on the thigh he’d kicked. Ken seemed inhuman, a monster! Nothing affected him, that grip relentlessly tightening. Choking, coughing, Sean flung himself backward with all his weight, his feet scraping for a purchase as the earth crumbled and gave way beneath him.
The weight of Sean’s body suddenly was a deadweight on the end of Ken’s arm. His grip on Sean’s throat was the only thing preventing the man from falling. They stared at each other, Ken on his knees, trying to find a way to dig his toes into the soft dirt for a purchase, to prevent himself from going over the edge with his enemy. Sean gripped Ken’s arm, determined that if he went crashing to the rocks below, he would take Ken with him. Blood made his grip slippery, but desperation gave him added strength. He dug his fingers into Ken’s skin. The edge crumbled more, sent dirt skittering down the cliff face. Ken opened his hand to allow Sean to fall, but the man clamped on his wrist with both hands.
“I go, you go,” he snarled. “Pull me up, damn you.”
“Not in this lifetime, you son of bitch. You’re out of her life forever.”
“So are you then.” Sean’s teeth clenched, his grip tightening like a vise.
The edge was giving way, more dirt and rock tumbling down, Ken sliding with the weight of Sean’s body pulling him. He had no leverage to fight, nothing to hang onto, and the earth around him was shifting and sliding.
Don’t move. Jack’s voice was utterly calm.
Hell. Ken swore at his brother, trying to stay absolutely still. He was moving, sliding down the cliff while Sean hung on like a terrier.
A hole blossomed suddenly in the middle of Sean’s forehead, and then Ken heard the crack of the shot. The bullet had passed close to the top of his head, shaving off a few hairs as it whistled past. Sean’s grip loosened abruptly, his fingers sliding away as the body fell to the rocks below.
Ken threw his body backward, rolled over, and stared up at the blue sky, his arm feeling as though it had been torn out of its socket. He was drenched in perspiration, and his leg, where Sean had landed several kicks, felt as if a sledgehammer had been taken to it. He dragged air into his lungs and waited there, knowing Jack would come.
Clouds spun across the sky, casting shadows over the ground. Ken closed his eyes and felt exhaustion roll over him. He was sick inside, his body and mind fatigued. His scars throbbed painfully, too tight for his skin, reminding him that Sean was right. He could no longer hide what he was from the world. Mari knew. Mari saw him for what he was. He couldn’t hide behind a handsome face anymore.
And she would always have the contrast staring at her every morning if she did stay. How could she look at Jack and not be ashamed to be with Ken? Even so, it didn’t matter. He was as pathetic as Sean. He wanted her to stay. To love him. He needed her, when he’d never allowed himself to need anything or anyone. Ken reached out to brush his mind against hers, needing the touch almost more than he needed the air he was fighting for.
Mari. It’s over.
I know. Jack sent word to Briony. There was a small hesitation. You know I can’t stay. You know I can’t.
He had known, but he couldn’t accept it. His heart nearly stopped. Don’t. Don’t do this. I’m coming to you now, baby.
I don’t want you to. And then there was only a black void. Emptiness. No soft intimate brush, no echo of laughter or companionship. Simply emptiness. She was gone, shutting him out of her life. No more happiness. No more feeling alive. It was all gone.
His gut clenched, and he rolled to his knees, sick with the idea of losing her. He retched over and over, knowing absolutely that she left. He couldn’t blame her. It was the only smart thing to do, and Mari was smart. He smashed his fist into the ground. Once. Twice.
“Ken.” Jack was there, kneeling beside him. “I thought I’d lost you.”
He looked up at Jack, not really seeing him. Ken realized he was lost—he’d been lost for a long time. Mari had brought him back to life. “She’s gone.” His gaze jumped to Jack’s face; he saw a hint of guilt creep into his eyes and fade. “You knew?”
Jack sat back on his heels, his gaze watchful, wary. “Briony is crying. She told me Mari hugged her and said she couldn’t stay—that she belonged with the other women.”
“And you didn’t tell Logan to stop her?”
“Mari is a trained soldier. I didn’t want to risk Logan or Briony getting hurt. You can’t keep Mari tied up for the rest of her life; you know you can’t.”
“You son of a bitch.”
“Ken. Be reasonable.”
He didn’t feel reasonable. He felt like his world was crumbling around him. His mind felt fractured, his head roaring, thunder crashing in his ears. “How long ago?”
“Take it easy, Ken,” Jack said to soothe him.
“Damn it.” Ken’s fist slammed into the dirt, although he wanted to smash it into his brother’s face. “How long ago?”
“She
left as soon as she knew Sean was dead.”
Ken surged to his feet, a sudden cold blast spreading through his body. The knots in his belly tightened to the point of pain. His mouth went dry, the air in his lungs rushing out, to leave him gasping. He had time. He had to have time to stop her.
He shoved past Jack and began to trot down the mountain. He didn’t dare run full-out; the trail was far too treacherous and his leg was on fire. His steady, ground-eating trot would get him there quickly. He tried to keep his mind a merciful blank, but her image insisted on crowding in. Her smile, her dark chocolate eyes, the way she tilted her chin. He choked back a sob, felt his heart exploding, tearing at his chest.
The mountain, the forest, his world, his sanctuary, was a hostile, unyielding place. He couldn’t see its beauty, didn’t want its beauty.
Nothing—no one—could take her from him. She was life. She was happiness. She was his only reason to keep going. He needed her desperately. Her sisters couldn’t have her. They didn’t need her the way he did. He had been so alone, so empty. Each day, he had worked, breathed, lived as an automation, and then she had come into his life and everything in him had come alive.
They couldn’t take her from him. The universe couldn’t be that cruel. He wanted to scream his denial, but he needed to save his strength. He ran through the trees, leapt over rocks, foliage tearing at his skin. His damaged leg throbbed and burned right along with his lungs, but the image of her rising up to taunt him kept him running. Why had he left her? Why had he allowed them to be separated when she was so uncertain about their future? He had known she was wavering—feeling uncomfortable and unsure of herself in a foreign environment. He shouldn’t have been so arrogant and bossy. He could have asked—not ordered—her to go into the tunnels.
He wouldn’t let anyone take her from him. She could understand his turbulent nature, his wild cravings, and he understood her need for freedom. He recognized strength in her, an iron will, the same as it was in him. He recognized her loyalty; it ran deep and pure, the same as it was in him. They fit together, two halves of the same whole. They belonged.