by Lora Leigh
Risa turned and braced herself against the desk.
“We’re friends,” she said simply. “Nothing’s changed.”
“Even though we lied to you about Micah? We set you up?” Yeah, that was Emily. She could go for the jugular when she needed to.
Risa’s lips quirked. “Yeah, well, I’ll just be sure to remember this the next time you try to fix me up with one of your husband’s friends.”
There wouldn’t be a next time.
“Coffee.” She cleared her throat as she turned and headed for the kitchen. “Micah drinks it faster than I do. He finishes the pot before I’ve finished the first cup.”
She was uncomfortable, and Risa hated feeling that way with the friends who had helped through the horrors of readjusting to life after nearly two years of drugged captivity in a private asylum.
She moved into the kitchen and begin preparing the coffeemaker. She wanted to turn back to them, to joke as they once had, but the time for joking was past and the future undecided.
“How long was this operation in its planning stage?” she asked the women as she finished and turned back to them.
She kept her fingers curled over the counter’s edge behind her as she watched them.
Emily breathed in deeply. “Kell told me when the information came in that you were in danger. They had a week to get a plan together.”
Risa nodded at that as her throat burned with a mix of humiliation and despair.
“Why wasn’t I told the truth?” She wasn’t angry now. The anger had been burned out of her by the truth that when this was over, Micah would be gone forever. “Did you think I couldn’t handle it?”
“We didn’t have time,” Kira stated as the three women moved to the kitchen table. “We got a workable plan together and arranged for you to meet Micah. Just meet him, Risa, to see if you could tolerate being around him. You’ve not exactly been agreeable to dating in the past six years.”
Risa’s gaze sliced toward the other woman as she smiled thinly. “Yeah, being the belle of the ball wasn’t high on my list of priorities. Could have had something to do with all those nasty little nightmares that kept plaguing me.”
Kira nodded at that. “You’re stronger than I ever believed you were. But we couldn’t risk telling you before you met Micah. We weren’t certain of your strength or your ability to handle what you were facing. That’s why it was agreed that we’d wait and have the federal attorney meet with you instead.”
“Probably a wise move.” Risa nodded.
“Risa, we lied to protect you,” Emily said then. “Micah truly is a friend, as you’re aware; he’s just not an active or retired SEAL.”
“Why Micah?” She stared at the three women then. “What did they do, draw straws to see who got to babysit the neurotic mark?”
She didn’t ask the question in an angry manner. Anger wasn’t simmering; it wasn’t even lit. She was curious, but the truth of the answer frightened her.
“Micah demanded this assignment,” Kira told her, a smile curling her lips. “After a few choice phrases in Hebrew concerning Orion’s parentage. He wouldn’t let anyone else take the job.”
“You know Hebrew?” Risa asked then, her heart pounding, the words Micah had whispered to her that morning still resounding through her head.
Kira nodded. “A bit. Not a lot. Enough to know that Orion’s parents are likely lame camels lying in their own waste. Or something to that effect.”
Risa grinned at the thought of that. For a moment, a brief moment, she considered asking Kira what the phrase Micah had whispered to her meant, then changed her mind. Whatever it was, it was something between the two of them alone. Maybe later, after he was gone, she would figure it out. Until then, she would let Micah hold his secrets.
“Risa, the lies weren’t so bad,” Emily said, her blue eyes somber and filled with regret. “It was for your life.”
Risa stared back at her friend for long moments before she nodded slowly.
“I would have done the same for any of you,” she finally whispered, knowing it was the truth. “The friendship wasn’t in danger, Emily.”
No, only her life was in danger from a killer who had never been caught, and one who had never failed.
“Coffee.” Risa turned as the timer went off. “We could have used the wine, but it’s a little early for it.”
“Hey, it’s five o’clock somewhere,” Kira drawled. “I say we do the wine first, then the coffee.”
“We’re her bodyguards,” Morganna reminded the older woman with a laugh. “We can’t have wine.”
“Sure we can.” Kira grinned. “We just can’t get tipsy. Well, except for Risa. And I think a little tipsy wouldn’t hurt her in the least.”
Risa laughed at that, though she got the coffee cups down rather than the wineglasses.
Tipsy wouldn’t hurt her, but she didn’t want to be tipsy now. She didn’t want to miss a single moment that she could spend with Micah by shadowing it with alcohol.
“So, what was so important that Jordan needed Micah?” she asked as she set the coffee on the table, grabbed her own cup, and took her seat. “He doesn’t normally call this early.”
“A CIA operative has been watching you and Micah,” Kira told her. “Nik managed to capture her just before daybreak, and they’re questioning her at the moment. Micah’s their interrogation specialist.”
Risa inhaled slowly. “The CIA? Why would they be watching me?”
“I guess we’ll find out when Micah’s finished.” Kira shrugged, though her gaze was distinctly wary. “Are you sure you don’t want that wine?”
At the moment, she really wasn’t sure.
MICAH RESTRAINED a sigh as he walked into the spare bedroom and stared at the captive bound, gagged, and blindfolded in the wooden chair that sat against one wall, devoid of the disguise she had used while watching him and Risa each time they left the apartment building. He was the team’s interrogation specialist. This was his job, and he had to do it in a way that would hide his identity from this woman—a cousin he was fond of.
They were all screwed now.
“Bailey Serborne.” He almost grinned as she remained completely motionless. “You’re slipping.”
He nodded to John; good old Heat Seeker grinned rakishly before pulling the tape from her mouth.
“Bastards!” The insult was a snarl of fury. “Do you think I don’t know what the hell is going on here? Every one of you will fry for this.”
Micah held back a chuckle. She was a wild one. She was enraged and with good cause. He had no doubt Nik didn’t play up the big bad Viking image that fit him like an old pair of jeans. Real comfortable.
Micah straddled the chair he had placed six feet in front of her and crossed his arms over the back.
“We’re in trouble here, buddy.” He looked up at John.
“Oh really?” Sandy blond brows arched in question. “How so? She looks dainty enough to me. I bet we could skin her out, chop her up in bite-sized portions, and sell her to the local dog food company. They’re always looking for cheap meat, you know.”
Micah winced. Cheap meat? he mouthed in amazement as he nearly laughed.
John grinned and shrugged.
“Cheap meat, your scrawny asses.” She fought the ropes holding her.
“Scrawny asses? She must be talking to you, Seeker,” Micah stated as he shook his head. “I have it on rather good authority that I have a nice ass.”
“Yeah, but your authority is prejudiced,” John snickered. “She’s not seen mine yet.”
“If you want to keep your ass, you’ll make sure it stays that way.” Micah frowned back at him. He didn’t consider that much of a joke.
But Heat Seeker only grinned.
“I’m talking to both you morons,” she screeched. “Let me the hell go.”
“Keep your voice down or the tape goes back over your mouth,” Micah warned her sharply. “Don’t forget, Ms. Serborne, you are the captive here, not the o
ther way around.”
“Yeah, and the boss wouldn’t let me tie her down on the bed,” John grunted. “What kind of captor doesn’t tie his pretty captive to the bed, hm? I think we should file a complaint.”
While he spoke, John lowered his head until he was speaking against her ear, the smile on his face decidedly playful. One of these days, John Vincent was going to be forced to take something or someone seriously. Micah wanted to be there to see the fireworks.
“I’m not working alone.” She tried to slam her head into John’s. “I’ll be found.”
“Your partner’s dead,” Micah informed her. “He died in Russia in that little trap you laid for Orion. You haven’t been assigned another partner. Actually, you’re in rather a lot of trouble with your boss these days. Didn’t he tell you to back off in locating Orion?”
Micah knew the director had ordered her off the investigation she had taken upon herself.
She froze. “Sons of bitches,” she cursed. “Who the hell are you?”
“Tsk-tsk now, we’re asking the questions,” Micah chided her.
She snarled. Her lips pulled back from her teeth and the sound that came from her throat was pure throttled rage. He grinned at that. He knew how to push her buttons.
“I’m not answering your damned questions.” She struggled against her ropes again.
“I still say we sell her for cheap meat,” John reminded him. “We could get a few bucks out of her.”
“It would be tough for a Rottweiler to gnaw on,” he finally chuckled. “Our Ms. Serborne is rather stubborn.”
She was still now, her jaw working as she clenched and unclenched her teeth. He swore he could hear her molars grinding.
“She’s a pretty little thing,” John crooned, grinning wickedly as a growl sounded in her throat. “And she just makes the cutest little noises.”
Breathing roughly, shaking with anger, she remained still this time.
“You know, she took me away from a rather important day that I had planned,” Micah sighed. “I’ll tell you what, if I don’t get what I need in the next, oh…let’s say ten minutes, then you can skin her out and see what the going rate on cheap meat is today. How’s that?”
John laughed as he squatted next to her chair and checked the ropes holding her.
“Yeah, some old lady’s terrier will have a hell of a time chewing her up.”
“He’d just spit her out,” Micah laughed.
John wagged his brows and mouthed, Not me. Micah could only shake his head in amusement.
“Now, Ms. Serborne, I’m sure you wouldn’t enjoy the preparations to make you a dog treat. So why not just tell us nicely who you’re looking for? You’re threatening our own little op here, and we don’t appreciate it.”
Her mouth remained a straight, stubborn line. Micah knew that line. Strangely enough, his father had once had the same determined, hardheaded set to his lips when he was pissed off.
She was family, sadly enough.
Micah’s father, Garren Abijah, hadn’t been Israeli. He’d been adopted by the Abijah family when his parents had been killed visiting them.
Garren Serborne had become Garren Abijah, with no objection from the American branch of the family. The blond-haired Nordic giant who Garren Abijah had later become, raised amid a Mossad family, had been recruited by the CIA with Mossad’s blessing and worked primarily in Israel.
Bailey Serborne, the little witch sitting in front of him, had been the daughter of Garren’s favorite cousin. Once they had become adults, the two men had made certain they visited often.
Ben Serborne, Bailey’s father, Bailey, and her mother had been the only American family in attendance at both Ariela and Garren Abijah’s funerals.
Bailey had cried on Micah’s shoulder. Already an agent with the CIA, she had vowed to kill Orion. He had nearly killed her instead. Orion had killed her partner, then knocked Bailey unconscious and sliced her wrists. Not enough to bleed her out, just enough to scar her for life.
The bastard was taking a toll on his family, Micah thought furiously.
“Psst, I don’t think she can answer questions if you don’t ask them,” John reminded him long moments later.
As John spoke, he was rubbing a long swath of Bailey’s thick black hair between his fingers, pulling at it just a little and causing her to make another of those enraged little snarls of fury.
“You’re here for Orion,” he began.
“I’m not worried in the least about fucking Orion,” she snarled. “Not now.”
Micah’s brows lifted. “Why not now?”
“You’re the bastard sleeping with his mark, aren’t you?” A satisfied little smile curled at her lips. “I’ve been trying to figure out who the hell you were for a week. I finally recognized your voice. Where did you pick up your buddy?” She tried to slam her head into John’s when he blew into her ear.
“And you heard my voice where?” Micah asked, neither confirming nor denying the charge.
“At the nightclub the night you picked up the Clay girl,” Bailey sneered. “She was rather easy, wasn’t she, bub?”
It was a damned good thing Bailey was family; otherwise, he might have to kill her for that.
“Now, you should have warned me that you wanted to play hardball,” he said coldly. “I could have let my friend here take some hide off your arm just to prove he could do it.”
She stilled as John ran a finger slowly down her arm.
He was going to have to have a talk with John about his chair-side manner here any moment.
“Sorry. Maybe she wasn’t so easy after all.” Her smile was tight. “But you are the man that moved in with her. I know you are. You’re after Orion, aren’t you?”
“So what makes you think you shouldn’t have to worry about Orion now?” he quizzed her curiously.
“Micah Sloane, age thirty-two, Navy SEAL, my ass,” she snorted. “You’re a nobody, Mr. Sloane. You have a very impressive record, and you just happened to be listed as working with the Durango team in the Middle East. Sorry, sweetcheeks, that doesn’t jife with me. You’re no SEAL.”
“Then what am I?”
“A nightmare,” she said with a strange sense of private satisfaction. “I wondered if you were with Orion, or Orion himself having fun. But Orion doesn’t work with a partner.”
“Ow. Shit.” Score one for Bailey; her hard head met the equally hard forehead of Heat Seeker. “Now dammit, you didn’t have to do that,” the other man laughed as he backed away a safe distance.
“You’re working with a moron,” she sneered. “Couldn’t you find anything better?”
“Not on such short notice,” Micah said coolly. “Why were you checking me out?”
Bailey remained silent.
“Let’s not go through the whole song and dance again,” he sighed. “Just tell me.”
“Orion killed family,” she finally stated. “I want a piece of him.”
“You and about a dozen other families,” he grunted. “What makes you so special?”
“What makes you so special?” she countered. “How did you figure out where to get in and how so quickly?”
“My business,” he informed her. “Answer the question.”
Her teeth snapped together as John blew another puff of air at her ear.
Bailey had some damned sensitive ears, and Micah knew it. He’d watched her nearly break a man’s neck ten years before when he’d dared to blow in her ear.
“He killed my family, my partner, and he scarred me,” she raged. “What other excuse do I need?”
Did she need more? She had more than he did, but he knew Bailey. She had more.
He shook his head again. “I’m going to start skinning you myself,” he told her. “I’m running out of patience. Why do you want Orion?”
“Because he knows the identity of a monster,” she spat. “The doctor that worked with Clay’s father. A scientist. He’s responsible for the rapes and horrific mutilations of several
teenage girls in Ukraine. Girls I knew.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Girls I promised to protect.”
Micah closed his eyes and breathed out roughly. He’d had no idea that Bailey had been part of the group of agents that had escorted four teenage girls to a private clinic on the Ukrainian border. Those girls had been taken from the clinic that night by a doctor who had “bought” them from the nurses there. The girls had been found three weeks later in St. Petersburg in a cold dark alley, naked, mutilated, tortured beyond belief.
“I’m sorry about that,” he said softly.
“We were supposed to protect them,” she breathed out roughly. “We swore we would. One of those girls was a damned genius in math. Another was an artist. The youngest wanted to be an astronaut; the oldest just wanted to be safe.”
Risa’s rapist definitely got around. “And how will killing Orion help you to find him?” Micah asked. “He was no more than an employer if he’s involved with Orion.”
“He’s involved,” she answered wearily. “It’s the same doctor one of my family members was tracking. Orion killed her.”
“Ariela Abijah,” Micah said softly.
Bailey stilled as John watched curiously.
“Yes.” She finally nodded, swallowing tightly. “He killed Ariela. Six weeks later my cousin Garren all but killed himself when he rushed a suicide bomber. Two years later, their son, David.” She pronounced his name “Da-Veed,” a sound Micah hadn’t heard for six years. “He was killed two years later when he tracked Orion down to a freighter off the coast of Tel Aviv. Two years later, Orion was hired to kill a Russian double agent I was protecting. He killed my partner and nearly killed me.”
“And six months later you lost the girls from Ukraine,” he stated.
She nodded wearily. “It’s the same man,” she breathed out roughly. “The doctor that hired him to kill Ariela is the same one that tortured those children. And Orion can lead me to him. I’ve been following rumors for two years. It led me here. I almost had him when he attempted to kidnap her.” She shook her head. “In the confusion another vehicle side-swiped mine and I lost him.”