by james
have to go somewhere over the weekend.”
“Rori and Darya going with you?”
Ian shook his head. “No.”
A moment passed, then another and another. “And?”
Looking into the eyes so like his own, he said, “If I don’t come back.…”
Jock sat back, the lines of his mouth hardening, his eyes narrowing. He opened his
mouth, then shut it again.
“If I don’t come back, I want you to look out for Darya and Rori. They really don’t
have anyone else.”
Which was in and of itself true enough. There was some other man, Nikko, he’d
heard Rori talk to occasionally, but he didn’t know who the man was, and he was looking.
A log popped in the fireplace and Ian knew he needed to go. The morning was
growing.
“Where are you going?”
He really didn’t think his father wanted to know that he was basically going to his
‘death’, and he couldn’t explain a thing to Jock because it was all classified.
“I can’t tell you.”
“I guess I don’t need to tell you to be careful?” Jock said ruefully.
Ian smiled. “I’ve been through worse.”
Jock raised a brow. “It’s usually the things we expect to be easy to be the hardest.”
Ian frowned. “You’re starting to sound like Mom.”
Jock’s laughter rang out and boomed off the walls. When he quieted, he asked, “If
I wanted to go into town today to find something for Darya, what would it take?”
Ian shook his head. “I don’t know. At least one guard. I’d really rather you wait
until I had my meeting.” If he left in the next few minutes, he’d be done with all the tests
Pete would undoubtedly have all lined out for him by this afternoon and then be back here
by dinner time.
Jock hadn’t answered him.
Ian looked from his watch to the man across from him in the other chair. “I need
to get going. I am sorry this has disrupted all your lives. That wasn’t my intention on
coming back.”
Jock nodded. “I do understand that much, even if I don’t really understand what
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the hell is going on.” Those eyes narrowed on him again. “You better be back in time for
dinner, or you’ll have to explain to your mom why you’re not.”
He nodded and stood, wondering if he should shake his father’s hand or what, as
Jock stood.
Ian turned away, but a hand on his shoulder stopped him. “I meant what I said
earlier,” Jock said.
“About?”
“Being wrong all those years ago. Brice was.…” Jock took a deep breath.
“A liar?” Ian suggested.
Jock nodded. “Woman wasn’t pregnant or if she was it never came about.”
Ian waited then said, “So you think the baby, if she had one, still could have been
mine.”
Jock shook his head. “No. No, I don’t. I didn’t after I had a chance to calm down.”
Why was it, when something was so long in coming, it was almost anti-climatic?
He’d waited years to hear those words. And today, they seemed.… Not very important.
“Witch did abort Aiden’s baby.”
“Yes, I know.” At his father’s questioning look, Ian said, “Who do you think got
him all the proof he needed? Medical records are rather sticky issues, you know.”
Jock shook his head again. “Part of me wants to know every detail of your life for
the last few years.” Without warning, he leaned in and wrapped Ian in a hug. “And the
other part of me is too damn scared to find out.”
Ian stood awkwardly for a split second, then brought his arms up and wrapped
them around….
His father.
When had the big man become so much older?
Ian took a deep breath and disengaged, smiling slightly. “I’ve got to go, or I’ll
miss dinner.”
His father sniffed and nodded, his brows doing that damn ‘v’ thing they did when
he was trying not to cry.
Ian opened his mouth to say something, but nothing came to mind.
“Yeah, you better get going. With your mother worrying like she is, if anyone’s
late, they’ll hear about it for weeks.”
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CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
Dinner was as strained as he knew it would be. Ian rubbed the back of his neck as
he stood alone at the windows. Probably stupid to be standing in front of one, but he
really didn’t care at present. He hated debriefings with Pete. There was never enough.
More details, more info, more intel. Go over it all again and again and again.
Ian knew it was relevant, but he was just so damned tired. This weekend. This
weekend was the last assignment he had.
Thank God.
His headache had been constant for two days. He just had to make it through this
weekend.
Pete and the agency’s team of docs had been concerned, but he told them to give
him some damn pills and he’d deal with it. He could crash when it was all over. And he
knew he would. Crashing was simply a side effect of what he did. He knew it and
accepted it.
A cell phone chirped. Rori’s new one he’d gotten her today. He glanced at her
over his shoulder as she frowned and answered it.
Then a soft smile spread across those lips. Darya sat in the corner playing with a
box of wooden blocks he’d decided to get her at the toy store before coming home. The
glittering Barbie and accessories were opened, but sat untouched to the side. He watched
as she stacked yet another block up, creating God only knew what. Other than her
screams and that one time at the hotel, she still hadn’t spoken again.
Pain flashed through his head.
“You okay?” his mother asked coming up to stand beside him.
He bit down and nodded.
She frowned. “You look like you have a headache.”
It felt that bad. No wonder people could see it. He took a deep breath and focused
on his mother. Her green eyes were concerned and her hair was pulled back into some do.
She wore brown woolen slacks and an off white silk button down.
“You look beautiful, Mom.”
As he hoped, it distracted her. “Thank you, sweetie.” She swept her hand over
some imaginary spot on her shirt front. “Did you eat enough? I noticed --”
“Yes, Mom,” he interrupted. He needed a quiet place. Just him.
“Kaitie, leave the man alone,” his father said.
“Nikko, luv, I’ve really got to go.” Rori’s laughter and words pulled his attention
back to her. She stood over in the corner, talking softly.
His mother and father raised a brow.
Nikko.
“No,” her voice sharpened. “Things are fine. Just….” Her gaze rose to his and
locked. “Complicated.” Then she shook her head. “No, Nikko, not like that. We’re fine.
DEADLY GAMES Jaycee Clark 162
Yes, yes, we’re still looking for them.” She nodded. “I need to go, Nikko. Yes, luv you as
well. Ciao!”
Ian cocked a brow.
Johnno said, “Nikko?”
Rori’s laughter was husky and deep as she flipped the phone shut. “You don’t
want to know, John.” Her gaze rose to John’s. “You’d really rather be in ignorance on
this one.”
They walked out of the room togeth
er, John asking, “Is this the same Nikko you
mentioned in passing before.”
“No, I’ve several men I call Nikko, luv. Doesn’t everyone?”
He ignored them, he’d ask later. God his head hurt.
“You let your wife call other men luv?” Jock asked him.
Ian only stared at him. “No one let’s Rori do anything. She does whatever she
wants to do.”
Pain shot through his brain and he hissed. The edges of his vision were blurred.
“Ian?” someone asked.
Without a word to anyone, he walked out of the room. In the hallway, Johnno
raised his brow, then frowned, said something to Rori and followed him.
Ian didn’t care. He just needed to get somewhere and lie down. Chills danced over
his skin.J
ohnno’s arm slipped around his shoulder. “That bad is it?”
He started to bite out at his friend, but again the pain clawed inside him and all he
could do was stop and take a breath, hoping he wouldn’t be sick. “Fuck, Johnno.”
“I know. Let’s get you to bed.”
Ian could feel his vision wavering. “Bad,” he mumbled.
Johnno slung Ian’s arm over his own shoulder.
“Well, this ought to give all the family something else to talk about.”
Ian tried to smile. “They’re currently wondering about Nikko.”
“Aren’t you?”
“Right now, don’t care.”
“Yes, well, hopefully, you’ll still feel that way later.”
He should probably try and figure out what the hell that statement meant, but
God’s truth. “I hate these.”
“I know.”
They were at Ian and Rori’s room. Johnno paused to open the door.
“I’ll get it,” a new voice said. Gavin. Damn.
The room was thankfully dark.
Someone grabbed his wrist and Ian flung them off.
“You really don’t want to be touching him, Gavin,” John said.
“He’s my brother.”
“That may be --”
God why the hell wouldn’t they shut up?
He all but fell on the bed and moaned as pain knifed through his skull.
“Did you take anything?” Gavin asked.
Ian might have laughed if he’d had the energy or felt like it, but instead he didn’t.
DEADLY GAMES Jaycee Clark 163
He just wished for quiet oblivion.
He started to push himself up and grab the pill bottle he’d tossed on the dresser
from Pete’s doctor’s. But he hated pills.
“Stay the bloody hell there,” Johnno’s voice bounced off his eardrums. “This the
bottle here on the dresser?”
He didn’t even want to nod, just mumbled a yes.
Closing his eyes, he hoped this wasn’t a trek into the dark realm as he called it. A
migraine was one thing. Even a prolonged migraine. A trek into the dark side wasn’t what
he liked to experience. It was soul draining. It was judgment on past crimes and
punishment paid in pain. He called those times, simply the Attacks.
Ian wasn’t in the mood even for his friend. He just wanted everyone out. Silence.
Rori looked at the man on the bed. She knew what he felt. The headaches that
reached up and knifed through the skull so that all you wanted was to be left the hell
alone.
She watched as Johnno gave him a glass of water and two white pills. Be lucky if
he bloody kept it down and wasn’t sick off of it.
He leaned up and took a drink, swallowing the meds and laying back on the bed.
His brother reached again for his wrist and Ian muttered, “Leave me the hell alone, Gav.
You can’t fucking fix this.”
Gavin cocked a brow and grabbed his brother’s wrist anyway. “Be that as it may,
you can either deal with me or you know Mom will be up here taking your vitals. So lay
back and shut up.”
“Pay backs are hell,” Ian muttered, flinging his other arm up over his eyes. “My
pulse is one thing, you try to look at my pupils and I’m libel to put a fucking bullet in
you.”
Gavin chuckled.
Johnno shook his head. “I don’t know whether he’s joking.”
“You get these migraines a lot?” Gavin asked straightening. “How bad is it?”
“Ever been stabbed in the brain?”
Gavin’s lips twitched. “No, and I’ll warrant neither have you, lest you wouldn’t be
here.”
Rori went to the bathroom and wet a washcloth. Coming back to the bed, she said,
“I’ve always likened them to some medieval torture of hot pokers in my bloody brain.”
Ian groaned. “Thank you, love.”
She gently laid the cloth on his forehead. “You need anything?” she whispered.
“For everyone to get the hell out. And leave me alone. Yeah.”
She asked John, “Has he always been such a compliant patient.”
“Rori,” Ian warned.
“Let’s go,” John said, taking Gavin’s arm. Gavin looked as if he wanted to ask
more questions. She half-assed expected him to pull a stethoscope out at any minute.
Luckily John pulled him out of the room. At the doorway, John stopped and
looked at her. He nodded to her and she mouthed ‘Darya’. He nodded and left, closing the
door softly behind him.
She didn’t move. The silence became comfortable. Ian didn’t move. She almost
wondered if he was breathing.
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“You get these too?” he asked, his voice low and gruff.
She started to reach out and run her fingers through his hair, but decided against it
as she didn’t like anyone to touch her when her headaches were raging.
“Upon occasions.”
“With analogies of hot pokers, I don’t have to ask if they’re bad.”
Again, they lapsed into silence. She scooted up onto the bed, sitting beside his
head. He lifted it and shifted so that he lay on her lap.
“Our lives are screwed, Rori.”
She chuckled and gently grazed her nails along the back of his neck. “Does that
hurt?”
With his eyes still closed, he said, “No.”
Barely touching him, she hoped she relieved some of his pain.
“You should be downstairs with Darya,” he mumbled.
“She’s fine. Safe and playing with the blocks you brought back for her. She’d
noticed when you left and Jock went and sat on the floor with her, telling her he’d build
her a house.”
Ian still didn’t open his eyes, just grunted. “Damn,” he whispered.
His face taut with pain, the lines around his mouth deeper, harsher, the lines
around his eyes more pronounced. The skin more pale than she was used to seeing on
him. Black lashes lay in short spiky crescents against his skin. She lightly traced the
crooked line of his nose, the outline of his ‘M’-ed hairline.
He was right, their lives were messed up.
“Who’s Nikko?” he whispered.
Never opened his eyes. She’d hoped he’d been almost asleep. Instead of
answering him she put her hand on his chest and leaned back against the headboard.
His other hand came up and laced with hers. “Nikko?” he pressed.
Rori shook her head. “What you are to Darya,” she said, choosing her words.
“That’s what he is to me.”
He opened his eyes, and she could see the pain clouding the blue irises and
narrowing his lids. “I’d like to meet him then.�
��
She grinned. “Oh, you will.”
“Sounds like he’s not very happy with me.”
She chuckled again. “He’s not. He’s thinking of killing you. I had to explain
you’re just a job.” Once the words were out of her mouth, she wished she could take them
back.
His eyes bore into her with an intensity she wanted to ignore and meet straight on.
“Just a job?” he asked, quietly.
She leaned further over and gently kissed his lips, the edges almost white with
pain. “Well, it was either that or tell him we were lovers.”
That wicked grin of his was starting to mean way too much to her. “There is that.”
Again she kissed him, just her lips brushing his, and then sat back. “He asked
about Darya.”
“Why?” he asked, frowning.
She shook her head. “I don’t know. Because I’m involved. Because it’s so bloody
close to my own story, I don’t know.”
DEADLY GAMES Jaycee Clark 165
“What is your story?” he asked.
She took a deep breath, the snakes slithering through her gut. She looked at him
and ran her fingers over his hair, barely touching. “You certainly are chatty for one who’s
in pain.”
For one long moment, he stared at her, and for whatever reason, she actually
thought about telling him. But why? It was none of his concern. None of his….
He closed his eyes. His fingers tightening on hers. “You know a husband really
should know his wife.”
She shook her head and ignored him. She watched the ceiling fan, studied the art
work on the walls. Rather impressive actually. They were probably just prints of Van
Gough and Mary Cassett, but then with the Kinncaids, these could just as easily be some
originals. She’d rather not find out.
She looked around. Just as she’d first thought. Someone could nick some really
nice things from this house alone if someone were so inclined. She wasn’t. She could
have cared less about such things. Just because people had nice things, the best of
whatever… Did not make them worthy of any respect in her book.
Actions, the person themselves made the impression on her, good or bad. Not
what they owned or where they came from.
“So when will I meet him?” he asked, breaking the silence.
“You should rest,” she whispered.