by Vanessa Kier
Kirra raised a brow. “There has to be another way? Sound familiar?”
He swore again. Even if he knew where to find the assassin, and could get the man to kill him tonight, he didn’t think that would save his niece. For some reason, his blackmailer wanted to appease Bureh. And there was no way Bureh would be satisfied with only Seth’s death.
Yet the thought of losing Kirra made him see red.
“Even if the two of you can’t rescue the people trapped in the concert,” Kirra continued, “having me surrender will stall for time.” She raised her chin. “I’m tough, and I’m trained in escape tactics.”
“That won’t do you any good if you’re dead!”
“Yes, I realize they might kill me. But this Bureh fellow wants to make an example out of me, right? That indicates he’d prefer to stage some dramatic punishment in front of the media.”
She shrugged. “I have to risk it. It’s not just the life of your niece that’s at stake. It’s everyone inside the concert, as well. I don’t have a choice. There’s no way I could live with myself if I didn’t do everything in my power to save them all.”
He stared into her eyes and knew she was right. God dammit, he’d seen photos from the Hospital Massacre. He could no more leave those people at the concert in the hands of the rebels than Kirra could.
An image flashed into his mind of Kirra’s body hacked apart like the Hospital Massacre victims. A cry of protest rose in his throat. Rage rattled the lid he had on his emotions, shoving it ajar. Threatening to let everything out.
He spun away so Kirra wouldn’t see him struggling for control.
His gaze landed on his phone. No matter what he did next, someone he cared about would be at risk of dying. He couldn’t lose another person he cared about. He…couldn’t. Even if Kirra surrendered, his niece still might end up with a bullet through her skull. Or the blackmailer might target his sister. Then his mother. It would never stop. Until everyone he loved was dead.
Acid tore through his stomach. His grand plan—that the assassin would kill him and remove the threat from his family—couldn’t happen fast enough to save both Kirra and his niece.
His shoulders tightened. The need to fight back became a physical presence clawing at the inside of his skin. He stalked across the room. Stay calm. Don’t scare Kirra by losing it. Don’t risk hurting her. Hold it together.
But he couldn’t escape the bare truth. He remained as trapped as ever. Powerless to protect the ones he loved. Doomed to watch them die.
“No!”
An inferno twisted through him like a tornado, blowing off the lid imprisoning his emotions. Everything he’d been holding back for three years—the rage and the grief; the guilt and the fear; the sheer hopelessness and the soul-numbing despair—erupted with volcanic force. His vision tunneled.
“I won’t let you die!” He grabbed the lamp and swung it against the wall. The shade crumpled and the bulb shattered.
“I won’t let my niece die!” He swung the lamp at the wall a second time. The neck split in two with a satisfying crunch.
He dropped the broken lamp to the floor, picked up the closest chair and smashed it into the opposite wall. When it didn’t break, he slammed it into the wall again. And again. Each blow reverberated up his arms, causing the joints to ache, but he kept swinging.
“Damn you, General Sandberg!” He pictured the general’s face as he hammered the chair into the wall.
“Damn my blackmailer!” He imagined destroying the shadowy figure at the other end of his blackmailer’s calls and put even more force into his blows.
One of the chair’s legs fell off and plummeted to the floor. Seth tossed the rest of the chair across the room.
“It’s not fair that Michael died!” He lifted the other chair over his head. The cushions flew off as he hurled it onto the floor. One of the arms splintered off.
“It’s not fair that I’m the only one who survived!” He kicked the coffee table over, then lifted the end of the sofa and heaved it up until the thing tipped over.
“How am I supposed to live with myself knowing I’ve caused so many deaths?” He spun around and reached out blindly for another projectile. His fingers closed around the vase of flowers on the windowsill. He flung it at the wall.
“If anyone’s going to die it ought to be me,” he howled. “Not you. Not my niece. Me!”
At the sight of the water chasing the broken pieces of ceramic down the wall, the rage drained out of him. The room spun. He sank to his knees, whispering, “I’m the one who deserves to die.”
“Shh.” Kirra’s arms enveloped him. “Don’t say that.”
Seth flinched. “Oh, God. Did I hurt you?” He turned to face her. He expected to see disgust, maybe even fear on her face. By all rights she should be running the other way, finally seeing the truth he’d been trying to drill home. He wasn’t worthy of her love. But what he saw on her face made his throat close up.
Love. Acceptance. Understanding.
“Shh, I’m fine.” She stroked his hair.
He scanned her body for signs that she was lying and hiding an injury, but he didn’t see any new wounds. His shoulders sagged in relief. Yet shame crept up his throat and heated his cheeks. He’d completely lost control. “Aren’t you scared of me?”
“No. Of course not. It was obvious a while ago that you were struggling to hold all this back. I knew it had to come out sometime.”
“But—” He glanced around the room, saw the overturned and ruined furniture, and winced. “I went on a rampage. How do you know the next time I won’t hurt someone?”
“Because you didn’t throw anything in my direction. Even in the middle of your rage you made certain not to hurt me.”
He shook his head. “It wasn’t deliberate. I wasn’t thinking about protecting you, only about venting my rage.”
“That’s because your need to keep me safe is at a subconscious level. It’s part of your basic character. You’re a good man at heart, Seth.” She kissed his brow. “That’s why you can’t give up. We’re going to find a way out of this so that no one dies, okay?”
Weak as a newborn now that his rage no longer fueled him, he closed his eyes and sank into her embrace. His arms swept around her and pulled her tightly against him. He needed her faith and her warmth more than she’d ever realize. She was his only ray of hope.
“Your niece is safe until the deadline, right?”
“Probably.”
“Good. So we have time to work out a plan. It’s time to be the hero your niece needs you to be. To be the strong, honorable man I know. Fight for a solution in which all of us win and your blackmailer loses his hold on you.”
“How do you do it?” he murmured. “How do you keep your optimism that life will turn out okay? After all you’ve been through, how come you’re not bitter and cynical? Because every time I’ve tried to fight back, every time I’ve tried to do the right thing, it’s backfired and people have died.”
Kirra was silent for a long while before she said, “I wish I had some sage advice to give you, Seth. But I don’t.” She patted his back. “I told you that I died on the way to hospital and again on the operating table. What I didn’t tell you is that when I woke up and realized that I was all alone, without a supportive family, without Kyle, without even the dubious companionship of Franz, I pulled out all of my tubes.”
He pressed his cheek to the top of her head, offering belated comfort. “I wish I had been there.”
“The nurses came rushing in as soon as they heard the alarms, but I was fragile enough that the loss of support temporarily threw me into cardiac arrest.”
Seth felt her body expand as she inhaled deeply.
“Neither of my previous deaths resulted in any of those light-at-the-end-of-the-tunnel experiences people talk about. But that last time I wanted to die. I looked forward to the peace.” She choked back a sob. “But I heard Kyle yelling at me. Telling me that if I gave up, then Franz and his friends wo
n. That my parents and their negative opinions of me would be what everyone remembered. That I was better than that.” She pulled away, swiped at a tear, then met his eyes. “I’d always listened to Kyle, so it’s no surprise that my subconscious dredged him up. Whatever the reason, it worked. The doctors brought me back quickly and I was put under guard.” She gave him a rueful smile. “I didn’t try to kill myself again, but I didn’t have any enthusiasm for living. Until Simosihle, the music therapist, heard about what I’d done and came to visit, bringing me the gift of music.”
She put her hand in her pocket and pulled out her guitar pick. “My guitar became my lifeline and my security blanket. That’s why I touch this pick whenever I’m stressed or afraid. It centers me by reminding me of all that I’ve already survived. It reminds me that I’m stronger than I think.”
She touched his face. “Please, fight to live. For our future. For the day when you can meet your niece. Don’t you dare give up. Fight with me.”
He took her hands in his. “You make it sound so simple. But history has proven me right. People I care about get hurt or die.”
“Not this time,” Kirra said fiercely. “Because this time you’re not alone.”
“Kirra—” He wanted to tell her how much her support meant to him, but he couldn’t find the right words. So he simply said, “Thank you.” He placed a soft kiss on her forehead. “No matter what happens in the next few hours, I’m so grateful that I met you. You—” He looked away. But no, that wasn’t fair. She’d been open and vulnerable with him. He needed to respect her enough to do the same. So he met her eyes and let her see everything he was feeling, including the fear that still lingered. “You showed me that there still are bright spots in the world,” he murmured.
Her eyes filled with tears and she gave him a watery smile.
He pressed his forehead to hers a moment, just absorbing her closeness. “I’m going to ask your brother for help. If it was just him, he wouldn’t be able to do anything. But if I’m right, he belongs to a group that might have the connections I need to protect my family.”
Kirra put her hand against her mouth and looked at him with such joy and pride, it made him uneasy.
He stood and walked into the kitchen, to the shelf holding the landline phone. “But not from my satellite phone,” he said as Kirra followed him into the room. “I don’t know if my blackmailer can access a list of the numbers I call.” He found Dev’s number on his sat phone, then dialed from the landline. But the call went immediately into voicemail. Seth met Kirra’s eyes and shook his head while Dev’s greeting played. “This is Jarrod,” Seth said brusquely. “I have a life and death situation.” He took a deep breath.
“Tell Indy that a little girl needs his help.” There was still a likelihood that if the assassin didn’t get him, he’d be arrested by the military. But he didn’t care as long as his niece survived. He gave a brief description of the situation. As an American, Marcus was more likely than Dev to know people in the States who could protect his family. “Don’t call me back on my sat phone. It might be monitored. Use the house phone.” As he hung up, he felt oddly light.
“I’m so proud of you,” Kirra murmured, hugging him tightly.
He hugged her back. Even if his family did get protection, what about Kirra? The blackmailer knew about her now, which meant she could be used as leverage against him. Seth knew from experience that his blackmailer didn’t react well to being thwarted.
He had his suspicions regarding the identity of his blackmailer. The man’s influence across the region pointed to him being the same man who’d sponsored Dietrich, Natchaba, and Morenga. As long as his blackmailer lived, Seth would remain under the man’s control.
Leaving him with two options. Go on the run and hope he could find a place where his blackmailer couldn’t reach him. Or die as he’d originally intended.
But tonight he had Kirra and he was going to savor every moment.
He brushed a kiss over her hair. “I need to shower.”
“All right. I’ll start dinner.”
“No, Kirra, I can cook. I want tonight to be special.”
She shook her head. “Since I don’t have my guitar, cooking will give me something productive to do with my hands.” She stepped back and shooed him out of the room.
He glanced over at the debris in the sitting room. “I’m going to clean that up first.”
After he dumped the trash in the bin out back, he took a fast shower. When he returned to the kitchen, he discovered that Kirra had cooked pasta and improvised a sauce from the non-perishable supplies. While she worked, she hummed her last song from the festival.
“That’s an amazing piece,” he said, even though he’d told her that before.
“I’m glad you like it.” She tossed him a smile over her shoulder. “I wrote it about you.”
He froze, remembering how that song had reached in and grabbed hold of his soul, bringing tears to his eyes. How the entire crowd had been enthralled by the haunting beauty of it. “Me?”
He didn’t…He couldn’t…To think that he’d been the one to inspire such haunting music. What had he done to deserve such an honor?
“Mm-hmm. I started working on it the first night we met. I have another song, one I didn’t sing at the concert, that’s about what happened with the attack on the bus. But I’m not ready to sing that one publicly yet.”
When he didn’t respond, she turned her head and raised her brows. She must have been able to tell that she’d left him speechless, because she directed him to set the table while she poured out the water from the pasta and mixed it with the sauce.
Still reeling from her revelation, but more determined than ever to make this last night memorable, he lit a couple of candles he found next to the sink, then shut off the overhead light.
He glanced several times at the landline phone, longing for it to ring, for her brother to say that yes, he’d help. Yet at the same time, Seth didn’t want anything to interrupt this private time with Kirra.
“So,” she said once they were both seated. “Who is Indy?”
“Ah. How to describe Indy, aka Marcus Jones. You could say he was the best damn helicopter pilot in the U.S. army.” Seth chuckled. “According to him, anyway.”
Kirra raised a brow. “Rivals?”
“Oh yeah. Best friends, too. Once upon a time.” He took a bite of pasta. “We had a fight, then I got transferred to Southeast Asia, and he ended up in Afghanistan. But before that, yeah, when we weren’t out raising hell together, we competed to see who was the better pilot. We had a friendly competition going about who was better.”
For the rest of the meal he told her stories about Indy and she responded by relating a few of the more amusing heists she’d pulled off. It was the most relaxed he’d felt around another person since before the attack in Southeast Asia. When they finished, he cleaned up, then performed a perimeter check.
Kirra had disappeared into the bedroom. He hesitated, then knocked on the door. He knew what he needed tonight, but he’d dragged her emotions all over the map today, so he didn’t know if Kirra was on the same page.
She answered his knock with a soft “Come in.”
He stepped inside, but she didn’t look up from her cross-legged position on the bed where she was scribbling in a notebook and humming an unfamiliar tune.
“Just a sec,” she murmured. “I need to get this last bit down.”
For a long while he stood in the doorway, watching her. She’d turned off the overhead light and wrote by the light of a lantern set on the bedside table. She was so vibrant, so full of goodness and life, that he still couldn’t understand how she’d come to love him.
“There. All done.” Kirra closed the notebook and rose from the bed. Her gaze heated as she prowled toward him and he shot straight into arousal. The worry and fear of the day slipped away. Right here, right now, there was no blackmailer. No assassin. No rebels. Only Seth and Kirra. And what he wanted more than anything was to
make love to her one more time before he died.
He made a low sound of need and stepped toward her.
Her hands lifted and she peeled off her shirt and bra. His breath hitched as he drank in the sight of her. With a seductive smile, she slid her hands down her hips and unzipped her pants.
He reached for her, wanting to undress her slowly, but she lightly slapped his hands away, then leaned up and nipped his lip. The little pain shot pleasure straight to his groin.
He kissed her deeply. Ah, God. He’d never get enough of her. She tasted like heaven. Like every hope he’d ever had. He placed his hands on her hips, shoved her pants to the floor, and devoured her mouth.
Breaking the kiss, Kirra stepped out of the puddled fabric. Then she reached up with both hands to push her hair away from her face in a gesture at once sensual and innately feminine. The movement made her generous breasts jiggle, temporarily distracting him. He pulled her against him and reverently ran his hands from her shoulders, down to her waist, and back up again. A couple of raised scars interrupted the smooth, silky softness of her skin, but the scars served as reminders of Kirra’s strength. Humbled by the trust she’d placed in him by allowing him free access to her body, he stroked her again, punctuating the action with kisses along her jaw and down her throat.
He was rewarded by a completely feminine sound of pleasure. Smiling in satisfaction, he stepped back so that his hands could cup the heavy weight of her breasts.
But that’s all he did. Just held them. There was something very satisfying about touching a woman’s breasts. Something beyond the sexual. The heavy weight of her spilling over his palms pleased him as well as excited him. Because it was a sign of trust. And having Kirra trust him with her body meant everything.
He bent his head and placed a soft kiss on the slope of each breast. Kirra wriggled impatiently against him and he chuckled. He had so much he wanted to show her tonight.
Wrapping his arm around her waist, he scooped her up in his arms and carried her over to the bed. He swept her notebook out of the way, then placed her facedown.