“I’ll come back,” he said. “I promise, but first I have to—”
“First,” she interrupted, because that word was exactly what had made her rethink her desire to return to what they’d had. “Something else will always come first.”
“I’ll do whatever it takes,” he said. “But, don’t ask me to walk away from the job, not today.”
She understood him more than he knew. “We have something else in common then.”
His pain could just be aggravation, but she couldn’t let his motivation drive her. “You can’t ask me to let you go, not to that. I can’t imagine how it must feel—”
“Feel?” she snorted. “I don’t feel anything. It’s an easy trick to muster, to be numb. I was worried that I might be awkward, or uncomfortable the first time. I thought it would be strange and unpleasant because I’d been with the same single man for so long… but the other girls were right, it’s like… you know it’s happening but your mind, your soul is somewhere else.”
“I won’t let anyone touch you.” Wringing her wrist, he marked her like sheer will could alter what would happen next. “No one.”
“You’re too late,” she said. “What did you think would happen when you left me?”
“Not this, this never entered my mind.”
It had never entered hers either. A series of unexpected events had maneuvered her into her current position, no conscious choice was made. None except to keep herself and her friend safe. “I’m full of surprises,” she said, and this time when she tugged her wrist free from his grip and began to walk backward to the door, he didn’t pursue her. “It was good seeing you again, Hotshot. You look… the same, exactly the same.” She stopped with her hand on the door handle. “It seems I meant that little to you… Goodbye.”
Without giving him any opportunity to respond, she opened the door and left. Once the door was closed, she squeezed her eyes shut and willed herself to forget the image of him. Returning her focus to what she had to do, and how she might explain this, she began to make tracks, fast, because Tuck would shirk his shock and be out of that motel room door in a matter of seconds and he’d already delayed her for too long.
EIGHT
“We have a serious problem.”
Tuck didn’t even know how to begin explaining his night to Brodie and Zara when he got back to the Kindred motel room they’d been using as their base. Brodie was cleaning out his rifle and Zara was reading something on the bed, but both of them stopped what they were doing after letting him into the room.
Brodie wiped his hands on a rag. “One cryptic call in the middle of the night to tell us that you’re alive is not protocol.”
Zara scoffed and shimmied to the edge of the bed. “Now you know what it’s like, beau. What happened?”
“Kadie.” On saying her name, he sank down into the chair next to the door and was pleased to see his colleagues immediately grow concerned. “She showed up at the bar last night, I had to yank her from a group of lowlifes.”
“Oh my God,” Zara said, crossing to crouch in front of him and take his hand.
“Any trouble?” Brodie asked, coming over to stand behind his woman.
Tuck shook his head. “Nothing I couldn’t handle. They’re not the type to follow up, though if I see them around—”
“We’ll handle it,” Brodie said.
It didn’t occur to Tuck for a second not to confide in his kin. One of the best things about being part of the group was knowing that nothing happened to any single one of them, what happened to one, happened to them all.
“What was Kadie doing there? Where is she? Why didn’t you bring her here?” Zara asked.
All valid questions. He had thought about bringing her straight back here last night, but thought better of it because she’d already be off-kilter by what happened. Waking up to one familiar face would be easier on her than waking up with strangers in the room.
Another factor in his decision was their present mission. If Kadie woke up here, she might see what they were up to and might want to be a part of it. Leaving her current situation just to get mixed up in his would endanger her and he wouldn’t have that. Though now he was educated about exactly what she did, he wished he’d brought her to the Kindred.
“She split,” Tuck said. “She wasn’t real happy to see me.”
“Well, of course not, you broke her heart,” Zara said, standing up to put her hands on her hips and lean back on Brodie.
Kadie used to lean on him like that. He’d broken that trust when he broke her heart, he’d never considered that he’d need it back because he thought she’d move on to a happy life and curse him as a mistake she’d never make again. As it turned out, getting involved with him was one of the more sensible mistakes she’d made, if her life choices since leaving him were any measure.
“Where is she now?” Brodie asked. “Extracting her will be easy if we have a location.”
He’d had her that day, she’d been in his reach, and he hadn’t been able to make her stay. Letting her walk out of that motel room was the dumbest thing he’d ever done, but he was still reeling from what she’d revealed. Not only was she selling her body, but she was doing it for a man and believed the scum-sucker thought more of her for it.
“She’s working for a pimp.” Saying that was easier than saying she was selling her body to perverts.
“Sport,” Brodie muttered, and Tuck guessed he had the same dark look when he’d heard that news.
He and Brodie had been in each other’s lives for years, they had seen dark times together, and Tuck was as protective of Zara as he ever would be of his own woman. It didn’t matter that Brodie and Kadie didn’t know each other, Brodie understood—since getting with Zara—what it was to love a woman and be at the mercy of her happiness.
Zara sat in his lap and looped her arms around him, giving him a reassuring hug. Linking his hands at her waist, he kept his embrace loose. Although he appreciated what she was trying to do, it didn’t make him feel much better when Kadie was out there alone.
“We’ll get her back,” Zara said to him. “Priority one applies, everything else can go to hell.”
Exhaling a laugh, he eased her back. “Who are you and what have you done with Swallow?”
Since Kahlil Samara had died three and a half months ago, the Kindred had made it their mission to find out what really happened that day. There were loose ends and they hated those. Tracking Benedict Leatt and Nykiel Sikorski were their priorities because they wanted to assess every threat who knew about Game Time. Only if they were satisfied that the men’s motivations were no longer of the mass destruction persuasion would they be let go, which was really Zara’s order because in the old days he and Brodie would just have taken out the trash.
Seeing the transformation of his best buddy since he’d met Zara Bandini had been quite a journey for Tuck. The confident assassin gave orders and made decisions, but if Zara hesitated, Brodie did what it took to make her happy.
Zara was different too, her time with the Kindred had opened her eyes to the world and she was definitely more cynical than she had been in the early days. Yet, she was still the most optimistic member of the troupe, no doubt about that.
“Right, that’s enough comfort,” Brodie said, bending to snag her arm and pull her out of his lap.
Tuck was no threat to the couple and the trio knew that. Zara was more like a sister to him than a potential mate. It was his lack of sexual interest that allowed him to ignore the texture of her skin and the sight of it when he’d, more than once, walked in on her with Brodie or while she was getting changed. Working in such close quarters meant modesty was a luxury. If someone had to pee and someone else was in the shower, they dealt. It was as simple as that.
Brodie linked a hand around the back of Zara’s neck and she folded her arms. “We need a plan,” she said. “We find her. We eliminate the threat. Then we have pizza.”
She smiled, but Tuck wasn’t as encouraged. “I don
’t know if she wants to leave him.”
“You and I have had this conversation,” Zara said, nudging her knee on his. “You want her back, you’ll get her. There isn’t a better man than you, Swift.” Brodie must have squeezed her neck, because she tilted toward him. “You’re taken, so you’re not in consideration.”
She winked at him and left her love to go over to a laptop on the table in the center of the room, they’d pushed the two beds against opposite walls to make the room for it. “What did she tell you about him?”
“Nothing,” Tuck said, watching her open the laptop and begin to type. “All I know is that she showed up in the bar. I don’t know where she went or who she’s with.”
“Then we start at the bar,” Zara said, fixing a frown on the screen. “Did she have a vehicle?”
“Not that I’m aware of. I can ask Linc.”
She nodded. “I’m going to check our surveillance feed from the parking lot, see if we have her going in. If she came from a vehicle or didn’t arrive alone, we’ll have more information to work from. Do you have a picture? Can you tell me what she was wearing?”
“Not much,” Tuck said. “There are pictures in the personnel files in that terminal. There weren’t many other women in the bar last night, we should be able to spot her.”
That they were setup and monitoring the place gave them a head start and might have been why he was able to let her walk and take some time to contemplate their unexpected reunion.
“Even better,” Zara said.
“Swallow’s on the hunt,” Brodie said with a pride Tuck could admire. “You think we created a monster?”
“I think we’d be lost without her.”
That was the God’s honest truth. Before Zara came into their lives the Kindred had been a definite all-male affair. These days she mothered them all, took care of the manor, and kept their heads on straight. Sometimes he forgot what it was like when Art was in charge because Zara had slid so seamlessly into their ranks.
He’d take his turn checking out the feed if Zara came up blank. In the meantime, he’d go through the business she’d left and figure out what Dempsey had been up to. If Tuck could piece together when Kadie had left then he might be able to figure out what had been the catalyst for her leaving. Maybe a client had offered her a better job or something had caught her eye that would lead him to where she was now.
No matter what, Kadie was now the Kindred’s primary mission. Their other work was important, but it would wait, because looking after their own was always bumped up to the top spot when the need arose. It didn’t matter that he’d broken up with Kadie, she was still his, and he would do whatever was necessary to keep her safe, even if that meant overruling her life choices. Hate him or not, he wouldn’t see her used and broken. She deserved happiness, and whatever it took, he’d make sure she’d find it.
Little of the narrative of Kadie’s life had been pieced together that day. Zara had located images of Kadie going into the bar and had watched right up until Tuck took her out. They confirmed that he hadn’t been followed, so she wasn’t any kind of plant meant to snare the Kindred. But she had been dropped off by a cab and had come inside alone, so they still didn’t know what had brought her there.
In hope that it wasn’t a one-time deal, they decided the best course of action was for Tuck to return to the bar. Doing so suited the Kindred needs too. Intelligence that Brodie and Zara had gathered indicated that their mark was going to show up there that night to complete the deal they’d been hearing whispers about.
If it came down to a choice, they’d go for Kadie and keep her safe. But there was nothing stopping Tuck from carrying on with business as usual, it was the best way to blend in. After how he’d dealt with saving Kadie, some people might be watching him.
Being as normal and benign as possible, he strolled into the bar as if nothing untoward had occurred there. “Surprised to see you tonight,” Linc said to Tuck when he sat in his usual stool. The bartender filled the chipped glass then shoved it to him. “If you’re gonna break this one, let me know and I’ll switch you to plastic.”
“I’m making no promises,” Tuck said, slurping the welcome heat of whiskey. At least Linc wasn’t asking him to pay for the damage, given this place’s usual breakage, especially after a brawl, one glass wouldn’t be too big of a deal.
“What happened to the brawd?”
Answering questions about Kadie would be impossible without revealing his connection to her, and he couldn’t leave either of them open to that avenue of manipulation. Once a person knew what was important, they knew exactly where to squeeze.
“Don’t ask,” Tuck said, dismissing last night’s events as insignificant. “You seen him?”
Linc shook his head, then cast his eyes behind Tuck. “Couple of his boys are in though.”
Tuck saw the group of quiet thugs chugging draft beer next to the pool tables. While checking them out, he took the chance to glance around at the other patrons, but didn’t recognize any of them as the men who had assaulted Kadie.
Tuck took his focus back to the men Linc had pointed out. “They been in long?”
“An hour maybe,” Linc said. “You’re not a cop are you?”
“My answer hasn’t changed since the first time you asked me that,” he murmured, while still watching the group.
“Just with that lady last night, you seemed… I know men that do that to a woman are scum, but—”
“I had history,” Tuck said, recognizing that he’d have to give Linc something of an explanation. He’d just have to keep it brief. “With that particular lady. But keep that under your hat.”
“Ah,” Linc said with a nod of understanding. “Doesn’t hold her liquor well, does she?”
“No, she doesn’t, never has. But, I don’t think it was the booze in her system that floored her, do you?”
“You hang around long enough you learn not to ask questions.”
Seeing an opportunity, he took advantage of Linc’s interest in the topic. “Have you seen her in here before?” Tuck asked.
“No,” Linc said, wiping down the bar. “But, doesn’t mean much in here, one face looks just the same as another.”
Linc was more observant than he let on, but turning a blind eye, forgetting details was what had kept him in business this long… and in oxygen too. “You’ve been coming in here every night for a week, what’s so important? If you’ve got beef with this guy—”
“No beef,” Tuck said. “I want to do a bit of business, that’s all.”
Linc knew who Tuck was looking for and that gave him excellent cover for coming in here to watch out for Kadie. But he wouldn’t play this game forever, if she didn’t show up tonight, he’d get more aggressive in tracking her down. “Hell of a lot of trouble to go to for business.”
“This guy has what I need.”
Zara had met the fucker face to face, so they’d be keeping her out of the field on this assignment. Having been such an integral part of their previous missions, she wasn’t as thrilled with her passive role, though Brodie was more comfortable with it. Tuck wore a Kindred earpiece tonight, but they were maintaining radio silence while he was in here, the line was for emergencies only.
“He’s not a guy to cross,” Linc said. “Word to the wise.”
“Thanks,” Tuck said, tipping his glass to Linc then taking another sip. “But, I know what I’m doing.”
Linc only took a deep breath, then turned to serve another patron at the other end of the bar. Truth was, it was closer to two weeks that Tuck had been coming in here. But, he’d do it for another two if it meant catching up with the guy. Without a clear signal on the mark’s HQ, all they had to go on were the usual meeting places, of which this was one. A place for dodgy deals that he wouldn’t want on his own doorstep. The Kindred had narrowed this down as the spot to watch.
As far as the Kindred mission was concerned, this was the slow number before the last dance. But things would get exciting yet, t
he real action came when the music was off, the lights dimmed, and the game was reduced to two. Except this time the action would be of the wits rather than the body.
The bar door opened with a rush of bitter air, one man entered, holding the door open, the patrons scowled at the introduction of cold air into their humid room, but the scowls dissolved in lieu of nervous fear. The reactions of the other patrons revealed to Tuck that he had his man.
Taking one step inside, the man he’d been looking for came into view. All of the Kindred work was paying off because he was finally in the vicinity of the villain they’d been tracking. Now all he had to do— Two women appeared at either side of him, beautiful smiling faces, their hands linked into his elbows. Why wasn’t he surprised?
Nykiel Sikorski was evil personified, lower in the Russian mafia’s chain of command than he’d let people know. He had much more to prove, which made him all the more dangerous. This maniac was the Kindred’s mark and there he was, leading little Kadie Harris toward the occupied table Linc had pointed out to him.
If she’d noticed him, she didn’t let on. Sikorski sat, Kadie and the other woman flanking him, standing next to his chair rather than being allowed to sit. The bodyguard who had entered in front of them stood with his back to the three at the table, protecting his master.
NINE
Two birds, one stone, Tuck could handle that. The Kindred mission wouldn’t have to be sacrificed after all. Kadie couldn’t have hooked up with a more dangerous man if she tried, the stakes got higher, but the end game was the same. He’d get his girl and find out what Sikorski knew before ending the guy. The original mission might have called for mercy, if the others had voted that way, but now that Tuck knew the Russian had had his hands on Kadie, there would be no mercy.
Letting Raven and Swallow know they’d found their mark, he didn’t expect a response, but knew they’d be listening when he muttered, “Now we’ve got a party,” before examining what he could see of the table.
Swift (Kindred Book 4) Page 10