by Lora Leigh
Her Glock was strapped to her bad thigh, just below the stitches, though she’d threaded the support strap behind the holster and attached it to the belt to relieve any stress to her leg. On her left thigh she wore the sheathed, bone-handled knife that he knew Chaya had left her when she was three. And no doubt there was a smaller knife tucked into each boot and two four-inch throwing knives in small sheaths tucked between her T-shirt and pants.
The woman was hell with a knife, just like her mother. Laying within easy reach on the dresser was her preferred assault rifle. The shorter stock and barrel made it perfect for her smaller frame.
“You should weapon up,” she warned him. “You and Ethan both. If I remember correctly, Rastor Davinov had a team of Russian Special Forces members that worked for him when he was given the Davinov properties and businesses in Russia. There were five of them, not counting Rastor and his sons, Ilya and Gregor. If Ilya’s still alive, they’ll follow him to complete Rastor’s objective. Whatever that may be.”
“You think the boy’s involved?” he asked.
“I saw him once in passing. Grecia kept Nickolai out of the public light pretty much. He’s Grecia’s only male heir after he disowned Viktor. What he’s doing in Somerset with Lucas Mayes, I have no clue.” She lifted the assault rifle from the dresser, inserted a loaded magazine, and chambered it as she spoke.
Watching her push several more loaded clips into the pockets of the mission pants positioned on the outside of each leg, he frowned at the information she’d given him.
“And you think Rastor’s remaining men will still try to take Bliss? What would be the point?” It didn’t make sense to him that they’d keep coming after their commander was killed.
“What was the point to begin with?” she asked him, now fully armed. “Whatever it was, he was still coming after Bliss even after he realized I was here. And he knew who I was, there’s no doubt of it considering the order to kill me before they took Bliss. When we were protecting Grecia, it was just after he married his French wife and they moved to Paris for the summer. I remember he and his brother were at odds at the time because Grecia was transferring businesses to France. He wanted to leave Russia. Now his son is here with an American SEAL he’s calling uncle, and his Russian family members are trying to kidnap a kid the boy is known to talk to?” She stared back at him, her expression confident now, knowing. “This isn’t about me or the Mackays. Grecia’s been hiding his heir from his eldest son and the family he left in Russia for some reason. And someone’s afraid Bliss knows something. That’s why she was targeted. And that’s why the rest of those soldiers won’t stop until the mission is finished. It’s not just the son and uncle. Grecia had four other brothers who lost heavily financially when Grecia left. No doubt they all want revenge. And they’d know me as well as my reputation.”
That made far more sense than a former client suddenly targeting Angel.
A mistake, Duke thought. If they had killed Angel, the force that would have come after them, from Russia to hell and back, would give the most fearless heart nightmares.
“Did you profile the Davinovs before Tracker took the job?” Duke narrowed his eyes on her.
Tracker often had her profile certain jobs that he got a feeling about. That feeling that it could be more than he was being told.
“Of course.” She blinked back at him. “I profiled Grecia Davinov and his children, as well as Rastor. Gregor and Ilya not so much, but considering it’s been four days since we killed two of their shooters as well as Rastor and Viktor, then I’m surprised Ilya hasn’t already attacked. We’re resting on borrowed time, though. They’ll make their move soon. If it were me, personally, I would have struck yesterday.”
If there was anything that the Army and his cousin Natches, a hell of a Marine commander, had taught him, it was that no one lived long as a soldier if they didn’t develop certain instincts. Instincts that led a man to follow a certain commander or not to.
Angel was Tracker’s second-in-command as well as their profiler when needed. She didn’t have military training, per se, but she’d been training nearly her entire life. She’d learned in the face of overwhelming odds how to survive and how to size up people quickly on limited information.
They stepped into the small kitchenette, where Ethan still waited.
“Weapon up,” he ordered. “I’ll be out as soon as I’ve done the same. Warn Natches and Chaya we need to get ready, just in case.”
Nodding quickly, Ethan turned and left the room while Duke returned to the bedroom and began changing into mission clothes.
“You’ve got it bad, don’t you?” he asked, referring to that feeling that would take over her, that sense of danger on the horizon.
“From the second I saw Bliss crying in the kitchen,” she admitted. “But I’ve been restless since I saw the pictures the other night. Now it’s like I can feel their breath bearing down on my neck.”
After putting on the matching camo mission pants, he pulled the drab green T-shirt over his head only to meet her knowing look.
“What’s the family’s ETA?” she asked as he tucked the shirt into the pants.
“Midnight,” he admitted. “Tracker was picking up J.T. and Mara after meeting with a contact and they were flying straight out to Hickley’s Farm. Chaya knows they’re coming. She and Mara spent several hours on video chat while you were unconscious.”
She cocked her hip and propped a hand on it, her expression going from knowing to irate.
“You know, I’m getting tired of everyone believing they can manipulate me without my knowledge of it. Or hide details I might think are important,” she warned him.
Now that sounded ominous enough.
Sitting down he pulled a boot on and laced it quickly.
“I’ll make note of that,” he promised, pushing his foot into the second boot.
Damn her, she could make his heart melt in his chest at the most fucking inopportune times.
Like right now.
“You know I love you, right, Angel?” He wondered how the hell he’d managed to wait so long before he claimed her.
“Yeah, well.” She cleared her throat and brushed back that little fringe of bangs that just fell right back in place. “I love you, too. But I’m still going to end up hurting you if you don’t stop conniving against me, Duke. It’s very disconcerting.”
There was no time to kiss her. If he started, he’d never stop.
“No more conniving,” he agreed. Lowering his lashes, he shot her a look of sensual promise. “Unless it involves that very pretty little body. How’s that?”
She blushed, brushed back that fringe of hair again before turning and heading quickly out of the bedroom. Seconds later he heard the door between the suite and the kitchen open then close, and he knew she was back in the main part of the house.
Running his hands over his face and blowing out a silent breath, he stared around the room. Like Angel, he could feel that tension at the back of his neck, like a breath of dread bearing down on him.
Hunter’s instinct, Tracker called it.
His uncle Ray called it a prey’s instinct.
In this case, he was more apt to call it as he saw it. Prey. That was what he was beginning to feel Angel had become, along with Bliss. They were the prey, and he’d be damned if he was going to allow it to continue, and he knew his Angel. Being prey just wasn’t in her nature. Soon, she’d become the hunter, and the thought of that . . .
He snorted in amusement, shaking his head.
Hell, this hard-on was going to kill him.
• • •
Stepping back into the kitchen, Angel saw Natches putting two plates and silverware in the dishwasher. His and Chaya’s, she assumed, because Bliss was picking at the food on the plate sitting in front of her.
“Breakfast was wonderful, Angel,” Natches told her, hi
s expression, his voice solemn as he glanced at Bliss.
“Yes it was,” Chaya agreed from where she stood at the door. “And Natches was happy not to have to worry about it.”
The weariness and heartache in her mother’s face was painful to see.
“Chaya does good. Don’t let her fool you,” Natches drawled then, the look he shot his wife one of love and concern while the comment had Bliss’s head jerking around to stare at him momentarily, as though he were crazy.
“Really?” Angel questioned innocently. “Because I seem to remember her deciding to fix me breakfast one morning.” She watched the little wince that passed over Chaya’s face. “My favorite. Pancakes.”
At that, Chaya turned to her quickly with a warning look.
Angel smirked. “Before I got breakfast that morning I had to listen to one of the fire crew beg her for a date no less than three times before he’d take no for an answer.”
Natches gave his wife a long, thoughtful look. “Why was the fire department there, sweetheart?”
Angel tucked her hands in her back pockets and waited for Chaya’s answer, affecting a look of pristine innocence when her mother threw her a disgruntled look.
“Natches, you know how sensitive security systems used to be.” She rolled her eyes as though it were silly. “Burn something the least bit and it would go off. And if you didn’t get to the keypad fast enough the program contacted the fire department.” She shrugged negligently.
Angel nearly gaped at the gross understatement.
“The curtains were burning,” she reminded her mother. “And they were far enough away from the stove that I still have trouble figuring that one out.”
Why did she want to laugh? Why did that look of narrow-eyed warning her mother shot her have laughter bubbling in her throat?
“You were three, BeeBee,” Chaya pointed out tolerantly before turning back to Natches. “You know kids remember things far differently than the actual events.”
Angel was about to choke on her amazement now. Chaya said that so innocently, so sincerely.
“Hmm, no, but maybe you’ll explain it to me later,” Natches suggested as Duke stepped into the kitchen from the suite at the same time Ethan entered from the hall.
“Declan and Harley will be ready if they’re needed,” Ethan told her.
“Two other cousins from the other side of the mountain, Jacob and Jonah, are on overwatch. We’ll join them,” Natches stated, collecting his assault rifle, one similar to Angel’s, from the counter behind him. “If they do come and they get past us, then get to that safe room with Bliss until help arrives.”
Angel arched her brow and noticed Chaya’s lips twitch.
“I mean it, Chay,” Natches growled. “Don’t take chances.”
“Yes, Natches. You’re still sexy when you get all He-Man,” she assured him as though it were a question. “Get your ass in trouble out there and you sleep on the couch, though.”
His eyes narrowed back at his wife.
“You’re in trouble,” he muttered, pointing his back at her with arrogant certainty. “Trouble.”
“According to you, I am trouble.” That smile of complacency and sensual awareness that curled her mother’s lips was highly uncomfortable to see, Angel realized, looking away as Natches pulled his wife to him for a quick kiss.
“Disgusting, huh?” Bliss sighed, shaking her head. “You’d think those two are still on their honeymoon.”
“Completely disgusting.” Duke laughed, swung Angel around, and stole a quick kiss, then tapped her ass as he strode past her.
“Buzzz,” Ethan hissed as he followed, obviously finding immeasurable enjoyment in the nickname.
“You know I’ll end up hurting him,” she informed Bliss, who’d obviously heard it, if the small tug of a grin at her lips was any indication.
“I think it’s cute,” Bliss decided. “Like an older brother. Only nicer than mine.”
“I thought Declan was nice.” He’d always been nice to her anyway.
Bliss shrugged.
“He calls me Sister Mary Bliss,” she said, her expression uneasy as she pushed the fork through cold scrambled eggs. “He said Dad has already ordered my habit and chosen the convent.”
The too-serious and far-too-responsible Declan?
“Who knew he could joke?” Angel was impressed. She wouldn’t have expected Declan to do so.
“I don’t think he’s joking.” The uneasiness in Bliss’s voice and expression wasn’t for effect either. “I keep finding searches for convents on the computer after Dad’s finished using it.”
Natches was going to end up getting his ass in trouble where his daughter was concerned if he wasn’t careful.
“Let me guess, it just started since he realized you were interested in boys?” Angel snorted. “Go figure. Of course you found the searches. He wanted you to find them. I’ve watched so many fathers we’ve protected play those games with their kids.” She gave a dismissive wave of her hand at the idea of it.
It never failed to amaze her the games those fathers had played with their daughters.
“Really?” The fear had eased some from Bliss’s face, but the curiosity that filled it now had Angel instantly realizing she could be stepping into something she didn’t want to step into. At least not yet.
“The convent trick.” Angel cleared her throat. “There’s so many different ways of playing that one, I could write a book.”
Yeah, that cover was lame as hell, she admitted.
“Uh-huh.” The knowing look on the teenager’s face assured Angel she hadn’t pulled that one off. “That book’s going to be really boring, Angel.”
“Eh, I’ll fill it in with Mackay machinations. It’ll definitely sell then.” That was bestseller material there.
Picking up her fork once again, Bliss continued to play with the cold, now-unappetizing food on her plate. And Angel couldn’t ignore that tingle just beneath her neck any longer.
Glancing at Chaya, she saw the way her mother stayed focused on the property behind the house as though searching for something.
Moving to the window next to Bliss she looked between the slat and the wall. The sun-dappled yard looked peaceful, serene.
Which didn’t explain the chill crawling up her spine.
“Angel?” Bliss asked softly.
“Yeah, Bliss?” She searched the boundary line and as much of the shaded forest as she could see.
Davinov’s men, all Russian Special Forces, would be damned good. Not that she and the team hadn’t gone against them before; they had. They’d moved several individuals out of Russia with the Davinov organization hot on their tails. But that didn’t mean they could be taken for granted.
“Why did you wait so long to find us?” Bliss asked, her voice low. “Why didn’t you let us know who you were, that you were alive, sooner?”
The question had a wave of emotion straining at the mental gates she placed on them, had to place on them whenever she worked. But there were those that slipped free, that leaked past her guard and filled her mind.
Why hadn’t she come forward? It was more than just believing her mother had deserted her. As much as that had tormented her, memories of how much her mother had loved her before that trip to Iraq had tormented her more.
“I was fifteen before I remembered,” she told her sister. “And it took several years just to process what I was remembering, to accept the memories and make sense of them.” She was still trying to make sense of so much. “Maybe one day, when this is over, you and I will talk,” she assured her. “When both of us can think and make sense of what we have to say to one another.”
She remembered how she’d felt when she remembered.
Shame. Fear. Anger.
Those first memories had been of her time in that hotel and Craig’s phone conve
rsation. A conversation her mother swore had never taken place. That anger had followed her until she was trapped in the hospital at eighteen.
What she’d felt after that still confused her. She’d been at a bar several weeks later, the trash mouth she had running like it usually did, when something had awakened inside her.
Shame.
Pure, painful shame.
She had drunk far more whiskey than normal, was quickly becoming drunk enough that Tracker would have to carry her out of the bar. And Duke and Ethan had been there. Duke had been glaring at Tracker, Tracker staring into his drink.
And she’d just been finished.
Finished with the person she was, finished with so many things that didn’t make sense.
Evidently she’d been finished with living, too, because after that, the near-fatal injuries had begun. One per year. Keeping her out of the fighting, keeping her sidelined in logistics and planning only.
Maybe Duke had been right. Maybe she’d been desperate to get out of that life and find more time to grow hungrier for the family she knew she had in Kentucky.
Whatever the reasons, the hunger had grown after that, and she’d found it impossible to stay away for long.
The tightening at the back of her neck was driving her crazy. If she were there with her team and the safe room wasn’t set up to call everyone but the Air National Guard, then she would have already shoved Chaya and Bliss inside it and gone hunting.
Because they were out there.
Reaching to her ear, she gave a tap to the earbud communication device she wore and waited for the return tap from Ethan and Duke.
Nothing. Which didn’t mean they weren’t capable; it could just mean they were waiting, watching, and unwilling to move enough to tap the device.
Or it could mean they were tracking a problem.
Careful to keep the move from Bliss, she slid the assault rifle to her chest, her finger moving close to the trigger.
“Bliss, stay low and get in the hall. Now,” Angel ordered her, keeping her voice low.
Bliss didn’t argue or demand explanations. She slid from the chair to the floor and quickly crawled to the hall.