by Julie Kenner
“You okay?” he asked Diana.
She nodded. “Fine.”
She was probably lying, but he couldn’t really blame her. He would have said the same thing in her position. The situation was what it was, and the only way through it was through it.
He navigated the Rover through the rundown city. It was different from the capital city of Algiers, the buildings old and startlingly white against the blue of the sky and sea, the surrounding brush that was reminiscent of Greece. There you could feel the history, could see it in the domed architecture and even the Church of the Holy Trinity built in the late 1800s.
Beni Saf was a seaport town in the truest sense, a place where people lived hard lives unloading cargo from aging docks, where their skin was etched by the moisture-less air, the salt of the sea, the sun that always seemed too bright. Leo could see why Antonis Stavros would find it an ideal location to bring in illegal cargo. It wasn’t a place anyone wanted to go, wasn’t a place that drew tourists or travelers.
Finally, they came to a low slung house on the outskirts of town. It was old but not derelict, well maintained but not at all grand.
In other words, the perfect safe house.
The Americans knew how to do something right at least.
He turned off the car, and turned to Diana. “Let’s go.”
Chapter Eighteen
Diana knew as soon as they pulled up outside the house what was happening. She should have expected it; Leo would never let her come along as they intercepted the arms shipment coordinated by Stavros.
She took his hand and let him pull her into the house. He was expecting her to argue. She could see it in the set of his shoulders, the rigid line of his mouth. Could tell by the way he avoided her eyes.
Braden Kane followed them into the house, locking the door behind them. The ceilings were low, the rooms small and dark except for a couple of small lamps flanking a low slung sofa. They had just stepped into a narrow, tiled living room when a giant hulk of a man rose from a chair near the wall.
He was at least six-four, with wide shoulders made even wider by the tactical gear covering his back, chest, and arms. His hair was cut so close to his head Diana might have thought he was bald if not for the glimmer of gold hair at his scalp.
“Miller,” Kane said as they entered the room.
“They have you dressing like a pussy, too?” The man asked, eyeing Kane’s trousers and button down shirt. The question had a hint of humor even as it sounded like a challenge.
“Fuck you.” Kane’s voice was nonchalant as they moved into the room. “Everything cool?”
“Everything’s cool,” the man named Miller said.
Kane made the introductions, then turned to Leo. “Ten minutes.”
Leo nodded, his face grim, then gestured to a long hallway. “Diana.”
Diana followed him into a sparsely furnished bedroom and sat on the bed against one wall. “It’s okay.”
“What’s okay?” he asked.
“You’re leaving me here with that guy, Miller.”
“It has to be this way.” His voice was hard, like he was bracing himself for her argument. “I won’t be able to think straight if you’re there, and I can’t guarantee your safety there either.”
She smiled, then stood and wrapped her arms around his waist, leaned her head against his chest. “I understand.”
“You do?”
She nodded, relishing the soft feel of his cotton T-shirt under her cheek, the spicy, purely male scent of him. She slid her hands up his chest, lacing them around his neck as she tipped her head back to look up at him.
“I hate to admit it, of course, but I won’t be of any use to you there.”
He looked down at her. “You’re amazing, you know that?”
“Maybe,” she said. “But that doesn’t mean you need to stop saying it.”
He chuckled, and the echo of it spread through her chest. It had been awhile since she’d heard him laugh. She’d forgotten how his face lit up, how he was transformed from a serious man carrying the weight of shame on his shoulders to the playful boy who’d chased her across the lawn.
She touched his face. “Promise me more of that.”
“More of what?”
“More of your laughter. More of your love.” She swallowed against the tears in her eyes. There would be no place for crying in Leo’s life. No place for it in their life together. She would be strong for him instead. She would start now. “Just promise you’ll come back.”
He bent his head, took possession of her mouth, kissed her until she was breathless. “I’ll come back,” he said against her lips.
She nodded, then stepped away from him. She had a feeling the impending separation was just as difficult for him. She would make it easier. From now on, that would be her goal. To make things easier for the man who had done it for her through her entire life.
She forced her hands at her side, resisted the urge to touch him again. “I love you, Leo Gage. I’ve loved you as long as I can remember.”
He smiled. “I’ve loved you longer. And I'll be back.”
And then he was gone.
Chapter Nineteen
“Where the fuck are they? You confirmed the shipment, right?” Leo asked Kane.
“The shipment’s in,” Kane said. “We’re just waiting on Stavros to pick it up.”
They were crouched in the shadows of the cargo port in Beni Saf, their weapons at the ready. Somewhere in the darkness, fifteen men like them watched through infrared goggles, waiting for someone to claim the shipment of weapons that had arrived two hours before.
“How do we know Stavros will pick it up himself?” Leo asked.
“Pattern,” Kane said, scanning the area through his goggles. “He’s a control freak. Doesn’t leave the big stuff to his men. We’ve missed him by minutes in the past. Not this time.”
The note of determination in Kane’s voice made Leo feel better. Kane knew what he was doing, and he had the skill and knowledge of Homeland Security behind him, not to mention all the other armed men waiting in the shadows of the cargo containers. If Leo had any chance of neutralizing the threat against Diana, this was it.
And he had to neutralize the threat against her. He’d become convinced it was his purpose. The life he’d chosen, everything he’d learned and experienced, had brought him to this place where he was the only thing standing between Diana Barrett and the man who would make it his mission to kill her.
“Two Rovers entering the gates. Stand by.”
The voice sounded through Leo’s earpiece, and a moment later, the shine of headlights swept a tower of containers.
“Roger that,” Kane said softly. “We have eyes.”
The port was smaller than most cargo ports, a simple “U” with fishing boats on one side and metal shipping containers on the other. Leo watched as two vehicles eased onto the long stretch of pavement between the stacks of containers and the dock leading to the water.
Kane looked at him, his voice a warning. “Let us lead, Gage.”
Leo nodded, holding back the words he wanted to say: that he would let them lead as long as they got Stavros. That the minute is seemed like Stavros might get away, Leo would break protocol and take the guy down. Whatever the cost.
The cars stopped halfway up the row of containers. Leo held his breath as the vehicles idled, wondering if there was any way Stavros had seen the men lying-in wait for him. But then the rear doors opened on the lead vehicle, and two men in black jackets stepped from the back of the car. They looked around and moved to the car behind them, flanking the back doors.
Leo sharpened the focus on his goggles, played with the contrast as he honed in on the figure stepping from the car. His mind compared the man against the images Briony had shown him in London, the photographs Kane’s people had shown him in the pre-mission briefing.
Tall and meaty, the man’s face was pockmarked with old scars, his hair slicked back and oily even from a distance.
It was him. It was Antonis Stavros. The man who had killed Maggie Kinsley. The man who would kill Diana unless Leo got to him first.
He hadn't told Kane about his plans to kill the man. As far as the Americans knew, this was an intercept operation. Get the guns. Take the man behind their sale into custody. Interrogate him about the network of underground arms dealers that criss-crossed the globe.
Except Leo didn’t care about any of that. He cared only about saving Diana. And she wouldn’t be safe until Stavros was dead. Kane could interrogate Stavros’ men all he wanted, but Stavros was his.
“Target in motion,” the voice said in his earpiece.
“Copy,” Kane said softly.
Leo watched as Stavros walked to one of the containers, the men on either side of him armed with semi-automatic weapons. Watching Stavros move toward his cargo sent a flood of fresh anger through Leo’s body. The other man didn’t seem at all concerned. Didn’t seem rushed or afraid. This was a man who hurt people to get what he wanted. Who was so sure of his power and control that it never occurred to him that he might one day be stopped. That he might one day go too far.
Stavros gestured absentmindedly at the container, and one of the other men jumped forward, keyed something into the control panel. The man on the other side handed him a crowbar, and the first man used it to pry open the metal door. It shrieked as it creaked open, the sound like a beast howling into the Algerian night.
“Waiting for your go,” Kane whispered into the mouthpiece attached to his jacket.
They’d already discussed the necessity of confirming the contents of the shipment before taking Stavros, and Leo tried to see inside the container as Stavros stepped inside with the two men. It was dark, the interior nothing but a smudge on the darker smudge of the night around it. He could only hope one of Kane’s men had a better view. Stavros wasn’t leaving here alive either way, but Leo wanted to see Kane get his hands on the shipment.
“Still waiting for your go,” Kane said again.
“Stand by.”
Leo held his breath, his finger itchy on the weapon in his hands. And then the voice came again.
“Cargo confirmed. Move in.”
“Let’s go,” Kane said.
But Leo was already gone, moving into position according to the plans Kane’s men had outlined before they left the old warehouse that had acted as a staging area.
He hustled around the container that had given him and Kane shelter, staying low as he moved toward the murmur of voices coming from inside. Several black-clad figures moved in his periphery, surrounding the container as Leo made a beeline for the entrance.
And then all hell broke loose, the men inside the container crying out in alarm as they realized something was wrong, a flash of gunfire erupting from the interior of the container. Kane’s men took up positions behind surrounding cargo holds, firing into the night as Leo made his way toward the still idling vehicles.
Stavros’ men would try to get him out alive, and the Rovers were the best way to do it.
The doors had already opened on the lead car, and two more men emerged, firing in the direction of Kane's men. It was a flash of color in the goggles, and Leo wondered if their enemy could even see them or if they were just firing blindly in the night, hoping to give Stavros cover.
He got his answer a few seconds later when two figures darted across the pavement near the end of the dock, doubling back toward the vehicles. One of Stavros’ men had gotten him out of the container, moved him toward the front of the dock, away from the gunfire while the others held off Kane and his men.
And now Stavros was coming back for the car, just like Leo had expected.
He dropped to the ground, used the car in back to low crawl to the car in front while bullets tore through the night. When he reached the lead vehicle, he waited, listening for the sound of approaching footsteps in the break between gunfire, hoping he was right and that Stavros would make a run for the car in front.
He did, and Leo positioned himself at the rear of the car, listening as the sound of footsteps crunching on pavement got closer. Then the back door on the other side of the car was being opened, someone shouting urgently in Arabic.
Leo pulled open the door on his side, making sure he had eyes on Stavros before he fired. After that it was a series of flashes, one bleeding into the other.
Stavros’ eyes wide with surprise.
The familiar sound of Leo’s gun firing, the hot kick of it in his hand.
A man standing in the door near Stavros and firing across the back seat.
The hole, neat and clean, opening up in Stavros’s forehead as a lightening bolt drove itself through Leo’s chest.
His momentary elation at the knowledge that he’d gotten Stavros. Elation that lasted only as long as it took to realize that he’d been shot, too.
The man on the other side of the car was raising his weapon again. The barrel of it was startlingly clear, a long, dark tunnel leading to eternal slumber.
He braced himself for the impact. It was worth it. He had done what he came to do.
But then the man was crumbling, falling onto the back seat over Stavros’ dead body as a bullet hit him from behind.
Leo collapsed onto the ground. He wasn’t sure if the gunfire had really stopped or if he was already someplace else, moving far away from his body. From this place. From Diana.
He closed his eyes. It didn’t matter.
She would be safe now.
Chapter Twenty
Diana walked down the long, white hallway, trying to stifle the fear that threatened to overtake her. It had been that way since they first brought her to the hospital, and now her panic at the thought of losing Leo was inexorably tied to the fluorescent lighting and smell of antiseptic.
“Back so soon, Miss Barrett?”
She looked up, her eyes landing on a familiar nurse with blue hair and hot pink scrubs. “What can I say?” Diana asked. “I can’t stay away.”
The nurse winked. “Can’t say that I blame you.”
Diana laughed, the sound unfamiliar and strange as it emerged from her throat. It had been awhile since she’d laughed.
Two long weeks to be exact.
She continued past the nurses station, raising a hand in greeting as she made her way to the room halfway down the hall.
She stopped when she got to the door, taking a deep breath and reminding herself that Leo needed her to be strong. He was improving, and while the doctors said he had a long road ahead, he would survive. So why did she still feel the clutch of panic when she entered his room? Why did she still wake up in the middle of the night, alone in Leo’s flat, crying?
They were stupid questions. It didn’t take a psychologist to know that even thought she hadn't been on the dock in Algiers, almost losing Leo had delivered its own kind of blow to her psyche. She’d known as she waited at the safe house with the big soldier named Miller that she loved Leo.
She just hadn’t realized how much.
Not until she had to make the long drive to the military base in Tunisia where Leo was already being loaded onto a medi-flight. Not until she’d held his cold, still hand as they made their way back to London, looked at his pale face, wondering if he would ever laugh or grin or kiss her again.
Then she’d known unequivocally that she didn’t want to live without him. She’d spent every moment since — every second he was in surgery, every hour he was unconscious — praying to a god she wasn’t sure she believed in to make him well. Because now her life without him had been exposed for what it was: barren, lonely, so very dark.
She took a deep breath as she approached the door, then pushed it open with a smile on her face. And there he was, head turned toward the window, chest rising and falling.
She stepped quietly into the room and made her way around the bed, not wanting to wake him. His face was peaceful in repose, the masculine features she’d become accustomed to somehow morphing into the boyish ones she remembere
d. She watched him for a moment, her heart overflowing. Then she brushed back the stray lock of hair and kissed his forehead.
His eyes opened with a start. She was glad he didn’t have a gun. He undoubtedly would have reached for it.
“Shhhh,” she said, touching his cheek. “It’s me. I’m sorry to startle you.”
He sank back into the pillow. “You were supposed to get some rest.”
“I did.”
He smiled. “I bet you haven’t been gone two hours.”
“Almost,” she protested.
He laughed, then clutched the bandage on his chest. “Fuck. Will it always hurt to laugh?”
“I hope not,” she said. “You’e coming home tomorrow. And I plan to make you laugh plenty, so you better toughen up.”
He grinned. “That’s my girl.”
It had been a learning curve, teaching herself not to hover, not to show pity for him even when his face contorted in pain after the four hour surgery to repair the nick in his heart. She’d had to resist the urge to baby him, to do everything for him, to hiss at anyone who asked too much of him. It wasn’t what he wanted, and she’d quickly learned to hide her own fear, her own pain, behind a mask of indifference.
Of course, everything you’ll be fine.
Of course, you can do it yourself.
“Kane was here,” he said.
She sat down next to the bed in a chair that had become as familiar to her as the one she used to occupy at Abbott. “Really? What did he say?”
“They’ve intercepted six arms shipments in the two weeks since Beni Saf, I’m an asshole for taking Stavros out on my own… you know, the usual.”
“Yes, well, it takes an asshole to know an asshole,” she said.
He laughed, clutching his chest again. “You’re going to kill me.” He patted the bed. “At least comfort me before you do it.”
She eyed him suspiciously. “I don’t think Nurse Owens would approve.”
“Fuck Nurse Owens,” he said. “I want to feel you next to me.”
She sighed, then eased onto the bed beside him, laying her head gingerly against his shoulder. “Is this okay?”