“I wouldn’t mind having them, but I’m not exactly camping out looking for them you know. But with you, sure…I could have a couple. You?”
She shrugged a shoulder and her head fell forward onto his shoulder. “I never wanted kids, but with you…yeah, I could have a couple. But not and be single. I don’t think I could handle single parenthood.”
“In case you’re mistaking what we just did, Liv, I just claimed you. You’re mine and I don’t mean that as a girlfriend. You’re mine as the woman I’m calling my wife, my mate, my other. When this is over I’ll handle the legal ceremony, but make no mistake about this, Liv, this was a mating—a permanent mating.”
Her arms wrapped around his shoulders as tightly as she could. He wanted her as a wife. He wanted her always and something about that had tears nearly coming to her eyes. She had finally gotten the man she wanted and she was probably going to die. Life sucked sometimes—it sucked a lot.
“What’s wrong?” He squeezed her waist in the palm of his big hand.
“I was just thinking that this is perfect, that I have you, and this guy is probably going to kill me.”
“He’s not going to get his hands on you, and that is a promise.”
Chapter Three
Chogan took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. He had called in some favors and he was getting backup from the two best men in his unit. He would not lose this woman, and he would make the bastard who killed his sister pay, that was a promise.
Leaving Olivia alone for even a minute didn’t sit well with him, but since he had gotten in contact with Autumn and she had managed to arrange what he needed, a safe house and the import of two of his best teammates while she was at it, it was time for him to get moving if he wanted to be sure he kept his woman safe. He couldn’t do that here in New York. There was too much that could go wrong in a city this size and he wasn’t willing to risk it.
But right now leaving her didn’t sit well with him. He took her down into his Native haven of a basement and left her there with strict instructions not to move. She hadn’t cracked any jokes or tried any humor at all. She simply smiled and nodded in agreement. She would move if she needed the bathroom, but the bathroom was still in the basement so she wouldn’t have to go up top. He had left her with food too, so she wouldn’t have to be hungry. He wasn’t planning on staying too long at his parents’ place, but he wanted to make sure she had food just in case it took longer than planned. His heart broke when he saw how hungry she had been, when he thought of the fact that had he come home sooner he could have prevented that hunger, and he refused to let that happen to her again. He made sure she had plenty of food and water, and he put the heat on for her. He wasn’t there often enough to really need the house hot, plus he was more hot blooded in nature so it never felt really cold in there to him whenever he came home, but for her he would let the heat stay high so she could stay warm.
He thought about how hot he had been last night while she slept comfortably. He had slept in hotter environments so it didn’t destroy him, but he would say having her naked body on top of his didn’t help him sleep. She had slept comfortably on that sofa in the basement with him. He would have loved to take her up to his bedroom, but he didn’t want to risk a possible sighting of her through cracks in the blinds or an errant curtain. He had cleaned up upstairs and came back to the basement after turning off the lights. He knew his house well enough to navigate without light, but there were slithers of street lights coming in through the window shades in places. She was waiting up for him, and when he came down she moved so he could lie down on the couch. She told him she would sleep on the floor. Floor? No, he wouldn’t have that so he pulled her on top of him and held her naked body there. She fit perfectly in his arms even if it did increase the heat, and something else, for him.
He thought about her now. He wasn’t going to be long. She was wearing one of his dress shirts that was sexy on her but still swallowing her since it was too big for her. He had to get her a change of clothes and he couldn’t do that by going to her place. He packed some of his stuff in his duffle and took the cab that waited outside for him. He went to his parents’ home with every intent of leaving swiftly but his mother tried to plow him with food the moment he crossed the threshold.
“I can’t,” he said when she offered him food once again. She lowered her eyes to the ground. “Come sit with me, both of you,” he pointed to the chairs at the dining room table. “Has anybody been in here lately?”
“No,” his father shook his head. “What’s going on?”
“You can’t let this get out to anybody—not even the cops. I found Olivia.”
“What?” His father looked shocked his mother looked worried. Between the two of them he could read where their minds had gone, but it was his father who spoke first. “She’s not…she’s not…”
“Dead?” He finished the words his father couldn’t. “No. She was hiding at my place.”
“Hiding? Doesn’t she know people are looking for her?” His mother’s tone was irate. “Doesn’t she know she could help solve this murder? Why won’t she come forward?” She was angry and he could tell that. He had to explain. “I’m calling Detective—”
“No you’re not. Sit down, Mom, this is important.” He waited until his mother sat back down. “She saw the murder. She saw the man and she heard the call he put in while he didn’t realize she was hiding in the closet. He told the guy on the other end to send two officers to take care of it—it being Amber’s body. Officers implies the cops have some dirt in their department and I can’t risk her life that it’s somebody handling the case.”
His mother gasped and his father growled angrily. “Cops? Dirty cops? Which ones?”
Chogan could hear the anger in his father’s tone and he knew that meant the man was ready to pull out a weapon and go hunting. “Not sure. What I do know is from what Olivia told me this guy comes across like an assassin. I think Amber found his kill list.”
“So he killed her,” his father shook his head again. “And Olivia is the only one standing in his way now.”
“Yeah. I didn’t tell her my conclusion of what this man is. I don’t think I should tell her right now. I’ll get confirmation, but I don’t need it. Everything adds up to one thing—”
“Assassin,” his father finished his sentence and Chogan nodded in affirmation.
“She feels hurt, guilty even, thinking of all the what ifs. What if they had finished the other room earlier? What if they had worked faster and been out of this guy’s room before he got back? What if that case hadn’t fallen open? And what if she could have saved Amber even though I know that she knows she couldn’t do that.” The what ifs could kill a person, not just their body but their soul, their sanity, and their heart. What ifs couldn’t be fixed, but they held great power nonetheless.
His mother nodded. “What if she had been the one cleaning where Amber was cleaning?”
He nodded. “That too.”
“Amber would have saved her.”
“No she wouldn’t have. From the way I hear the story nobody, unless they had a gun of their own, stood a chance at saving Amber. Had Olivia been in her place, had things gone down exactly the same, then they both would have died.”
“Olivia lived.” He saw a tear stream down his mother’s cheek and he questioned her thoughts. He couldn’t read her. Was she wishing the positions had been reversed? No, he couldn’t imagine she would think that at all. But she was a mother in loss of her dearest child and maybe she was wishing it. Maybe she was wishing Amber wasn’t the one who went into the grave.
“Amber would have hid too then,” she nodded. “Then she would be here with us protecting her while Olivia was the one buried.”
“And you think that’s right?” He felt a twinge of anger within him. He hadn’t wanted to lose either of them. “Amber would have died too. The only thing that allowed Liv to hide was her small stature. Amber was taller and wouldn’t have been able to keep her h
ead below the line of the safe. She was also heavier, not fat, but definitely not what people walk around calling pencils so she wouldn’t have fit in the tight space either. There is no way both of them wouldn’t have ended up dead unless that case had never opened and those photos and papers hadn’t fallen out.” In retrospect of his words he realized he had called her Liv. While he did it around her more now than before, he never called her Liv in earshot of his family because he had always hid from them his feelings for her. He had hid his feelings from her too and now that he thought about that he realized how dumb he had been. To hide was not in his makeup yet he had done it with such precision that she hadn’t known how he felt about her, that not even his family had known.
Things could have gone differently. There were a lot of things that were domino effect. If one thing had happened a different way then maybe the next one wouldn’t have happened at all. His mother could think role reversal but Chogan could see the bigger picture. Dare he say that if his sister had put everything back faster it wouldn’t have happened either? She didn’t know what she had found, but he knew his sister would have figured it out eventually. When the first murder appeared in the news he knew his sister would have had recognition of what she had found. The assassin knew that too, and Chogan was sure of that. No matter how things had gone down one, if not both, of these women would have died because of a simple accident turned fatal. And his woman, had she not been the type to check and triple check things, she could have come out the bathroom area sooner and the man could have seen her and shot her too. In her words what slowed her pace was she thought there was a speck of black in the tile and so she used the brush to scrub over it again when she realized it wasn’t a speck, but a chip that she was going to have to report. Damage was something, as she said, that was fixed with haste no matter what that fix entailed. Had she walked back sooner both women would be dead and he knew that.
“I know this,” his mother sighed as if reminding herself to think logically with her head and not with the aching heart of a mother who lost her only daughter in a horrid way.
“It wasn’t her fault.” He made sure he said that clearly.
“I know this too. I don’t want either of them to be dead, but I wish we could bring Amber back. I wish it had never happened.” She shook her head. “You must protect her, Chogan. You must keep Olivia safe.”
He nodded. He didn’t need his mother to tell him that because he had already come to that decision the second he saw her cowering in fear on his couch. “I called in some favors and a couple of my team men are going to come to help me, and I got a safe house to put her in while we work this. I’m going to have to disappear for a while and take her with me. I can’t go to her place to get clothes so I need to leave what’s in my duffle here and borrow some from Amber’s room. I know they’ll be too big, but they’ll be better than nothing.”
His mother nodded. “I’ll help you pick something that might fit her. She’s so tiny. Amber was a giant in comparison so I know the pants won’t work, but there are some nice sun dresses in the back of the closet area that a tank top under might work for her. Her breasts aren’t as big as Amber’s is…Amber’s was,” she corrected with such sorrow in her voice that Chogan could feel her pain stabbing him like a thousand daggers.
“Thanks,” he said. “I don’t want to leave her for too long so I’ll need to work swiftly here.”
She nodded. “I’ll take care of this. You stay here and talk with your father. I’m sure he has questions and I know he’ll fill me in after you’re gone.”
Chogan nodded and watched as his mother took his duffle bag. “Mom,” he waited for her to turn around. “Put my clothes in my old room with some of the other stuff that you kept here. If anybody comes looking through your house we don’t want them to find my stuff in Amber’s drawers.”
She nodded again before leaving him alone with his father.
“How is she?”
Chogan smiled just thinking of how his father’s concern for Olivia felt right, felt perfect, felt like family. “Hurting, scared, angry. She blames herself for not being able to save her.”
“From what I have from the limited information the cops shared with me, and from what you have just said, saving her wouldn’t have been possible. Had she made a move she would be dead now and both of their bodies could be anywhere and we would have never had final proof that either of them were murdered.”
Chogan nodded. He understood that the cops, the media, all of them could have spun it as just two women running off and not telling their family. He could just imagine what could have filled the two seconds of airtime they would have given his sister and Olivia.
“I can’t tell you where we’re going, or when we’ll be back, but I can tell you I’m going to find the bastard and I’m going to handle this.”
His father nodded. “I figured you would, even if you hadn’t found Olivia I knew you were going after the man. Be careful.” He placed his hand on his shoulder. “Come back to us alive, and bring her back with you the same way. I know you feel for her. I’m your father and I see it every time you look at her. Bring her home. Make her yours; don’t wait because you never know what tomorrow will bring.”
Chogan nodded. He wouldn’t tell his father that he had already made her his. No way was he going to admit to that right now. He hadn’t realized his father had noticed how he felt, but he should have. His father, while nobody probably noticed, had a keen eye. There didn’t seem to be much he didn’t notice, sense, or know without words. He could hide his feelings from Amber and from his mother, but he hadn’t been able to hide them from his father.
“How did you know? When did you know?” He had to know the answers.
“Well, I’ll be honest that it wasn’t how you looked at her right off. I noticed things, but with that hard and distant look on your face like you’re on some covert mission twenty-four hours a day no matter where you are I couldn’t tell. But the last time you were here and we were driving up toward the boarder for a couple nights away from the city you did something I hadn’t ever heard you do before.”
“What’s that?”
“You called her Liv. Oh I know you didn’t notice and you switched back to calling her Olivia by the next sentence, but that one part, when we were talking about Amber’s closeness to the woman, you called her Liv. You also spoke of her with sympathy for the pain she felt without her family. I knew, but I didn’t say anything. I waited. Like a wolf I stalked my prey,” he laughed. “I can’t believe I got away with it when it comes to you. But when we got back, before you left, you let your eyes drink her in like a man who was trying to firmly ingrain every inch of her in his mind.”
He chuckled softly. He had been trying to do just that. He was heading back out for what he knew was going to be another hard mission, going in hot and hoping to come out alive. He didn’t know how long the mission would take. It wasn’t as if they got a call one day and finished the job in eight hours. He knew he could be out for a long time, and he also knew that if they only had a week of down time that he might not make it back to the States before the next mission called them to duty.
Chogan took the duffle out to the taxi that was waiting for him. He waved to both of his parents before getting in and asking the man to take him to one of the rental car places that Autumn had arranged a vehicle for him at. No tracking devices included,” she had said. He would still check to be sure before he got too far on the road.
“You’re heading out?” The cabbie looked up in the rearview mirror. Chogan didn’t trust people in general, but his radar was top notch and this man had the hairs on the back of his neck on edge.
“Yeah, I can’t stay here. I have to get away,” he said. “For a little while anyway. I hear Maine is good this time of year. And until I can go back on active duty getting out of this God forsaken city seems fine by me.”
“Ah, yes,” the blue eyed blond haired young man nodded. “I read about your sister in the paper. I’m
sorry.”
“Me too,” he said as he looked out the window and hoped the man would shut up soon.
“The cops find the other girl yet?”
“No,” he heard the harshness in his tone and welcomed it. This man would think he was angry because the cops hadn’t found her. He wasn’t exactly silently trying to think of a way to shut the man up. He could think of several ways to shut him up. Cutting out his tongue seemed like an option. But no, he couldn’t do that—yet.
When he got to the rental place he gave his name and an older man came out, talked friendly as he led him to the car and then talked seriously once they were out of earshot of other employees.
“It’s exactly what you need, Marine. I’ve added a few things while I was at it.” He popped the trunk and showed him what appeared to be an extra spare tire. The man laughed, probably knowing what he was thinking. “That’s the only spare. It’s on top because your weapons are on the bottom. Godspeed,” he handed him the keys.
“Thank you,” Chogan nodded and shut the trunk before going around and checking out the car. He saw the man smile and nod his approval of the fact that Chogan hadn’t taken him at face value. Once Chogan was satisfied the car was in proper order without any possible threats to him and his mission, he got behind the wheel, started the sleek engine of the Chrysler Hybrid and took off. The car ran smooth but somehow he still wished he had received an SUV or a truck. Still, this would do for now.
He got back to his place, pulled into the garage and made sure to get the clothes for Olivia inside. She didn’t look thrilled to wear a dead woman’s clothing but she didn’t protest. When she came out from the bathroom wearing the yellow sundress he knew what his mother meant—his sister was taller, more voluptuous in the breasts and the hips. Still, Olivia looked pretty good in yellow.
He helped her onto the back seat and draped his blanket over her. “Stay undercover until I give you clearance to get up.”
She nodded and pulled the covers completely over her body. He adjusted the top to make sure all of her was covered after he stuck a smaller pillow under there for her head. He tossed the bag he packed for her and the bag of clothes he packed for himself in the trunk and then put the bag with the snacks on the front seat. He secured everything, rerouted the alarm feed and upped the garage door before pulling out onto the street. Yeah, his house was the epitome of perfect for his needs, but he couldn’t do what he needed to do here. The place Autumn had acquired for him in Montana should do just fine.
Kill List (Special Ops #8) Page 6