Killer Secrets (23 page)

Diego was a master manipulator. She had read the secret
file the director of the DHS held on him. The

games the bastard had played with the DEA, the ATF, and a
dozen other agencies would have been

laughable were it not for the fact that he invariably won
and the agreement he had with DHS protected

him if he didn't. Dirty bastard. Diego knew their weakness
just as well as he had known Ian's and he

used it. Like a chess player laying out his pawns and
moving them with insidious control throughout his

little world.

And Ian was his favorite. His knight. His source of pride.
His only son. And he was using him with an

efficiency that bespoke his joy in this particular game. He
was thwarting Sorrell, playing the U.S. law

enforcement and drug agencies, and holding his son in front
of them all like a dog's favorite bone.

Kira closed her eyes at the thought. He was a stronger man
than any she had known. Other men would

have broken under the pressure by now, or given in. The
fear that Ian would turn rogue kept the

Homeland Security director up at night, she knew.

It was a heady drug, the power Ian wielded now. It wouldn't
be easy for any man to walk away from.

And if he didn't walk away from it, it would destroy a part
of her.

She fought the hitch in her breath, the emotions that
boiled inside her, seared her soul. She couldn't

escape the emotions. They wouldn't let her go. They
wouldn't ease. Everything inside her drew her to

Ian, and had been doing so for years. But now, there was a
part of herself that she didn't recognize

anymore. A part of herself she hadn't realized existed
until that night in Atlanta. A woman who loved.

"Stop staring at me like that," Ian ordered her,
his voice its normal roughness. Sleep hadn't made it

huskier or deeper.

"How long have you been awake?" She smiled as his
eyes opened, thick dark blond lashes shielding the

inner depths as he stared back at her.

"Long enough to figure a few things out." His
hand moved beneath the sheet, sliding over her outer thigh

to her hip as she felt her heart jump at the suspicion in
his voice.

"What did you figure out?"

"That you're not here just for me." His lips
twisted mockingly. "What are you here for?"

Kira drew back slowly. Sliding the sheet from her naked
body, she started to leave the bed, only to find

herself held in place by strong fingers that wrapped around
her upper arm.

The problem was, no matter her orders, she was here for
him. Nothing else.

She turned back to look at him, wondering if she had really
portrayed such a cold, bleak image that he

couldn't imagine her caring enough about him to follow him.
To help him.

"Maybe I'm here for myself," she retorted,
tugging at her arm.

That was the truth. She was here to assure herself he
lived, that his soul survived, that he didn't do

something he would regret for the rest of his life. Fuck
DHS and their objectives and agendas. She wasn't

there to keep Diego Fuentes alive, she was there to make
certain the wicked amusement that had once

gleamed in his eyes returned. She was there to share that
amusement. And that was the part of herself

she was so unfamiliar with. The part that needed to see
more than just the cold, hard drug cartel lord.

She needed to see the man again. And she needed to love
him, just as she loved him now. All of him.

"I hate a liar." He sighed, his eyes narrowing on
her as he tugged at her arm, dragging her back to the

middle of the bed with him. "I've been giving this a
lot of thought, Kira. You couldn't have had the

information you did to be in that warehouse last week
without help. Where did you get it?"

She rolled her eyes before leaning toward him, allowing her
hair to cascade over the side of her face and

enclose them in a partial curtain of darkness. No lies. No
games. Just the two of them, the truth, and her

silent promise to protect him.

"Martin Missern's soldiers like to party," she
whispered suggestively. "Ricardo Desoto likes to talk when

he gets drunk. He talked."

Desoto was one of Missern's personal soldiers within his
main security force. Tall, suave, a Latin

charmer with all the sophistication of an alligator on the
prowl.

"And you were there?" Something angry flashed in
his eyes as he tugged her close, his other hand

gripping her neck and holding her in place, her breasts
pressing into the tense, muscled forearm.

"She was there, Ian." The Chameleon.

Kira let her lashes drift partially closed, her voice lower
sensually. "I poured his rum, smiled nice and

sweet, and ran my nails down his arm as he told me
everything he knew. Everything. Even Martin and

Josef Missern's propensity to take Sorrell's rejects as
lovers before disposing of them very quietly." Her

teeth clenched as she drew in an angry breath. "And
Sorrell's suggestion to them that Diego Fuentes

would be much easier to handle if you were no longer a part
of his little world."

Ian's lips tightened, though he released her, slowly,
before rolling to the edge of the bed and sitting up.

Her hands gripped his forearm, frustration eating at her
that he could contain her so easily. They both

knew he could shake her off like an irritating gnat if he
chose.

He didn't. He stilled, his back tightening, as she inched
closer, pressing her nipples against the smooth

flesh and laying her lips at his ear. She could feel the
sexual tension rising inside him then, as it always did

when they touched, when they challenged each other.

"You want answers, Ian? You want to know why I'm here?
Tell me, why did you slip into my bedroom

in Atlanta? Why did you hold me down in my bed and let me
glimpse heaven without the satisfaction of

touching it? Did the big bad SEAL get scared of the little
woman?"

She slid her arms over his shoulders and he reached up to
grip her wrists.

"You want me," she reminded him. "And you
hate it. Don't you, Ian?"

She knew he did. She had glimpsed that in Atlanta. His
anger, the irritation and frustration in his

expression each time they were around each other. The
knowledge of it still held the power to hurt her. It

twisted inside her and tugged stingingly at her emotions.
Which she thought was totally not fair. After all,

if he had to affect her so severely, why couldn't she
affect him in the same way?

"You're a complication." He unwrapped her arms
and rose to his feet, naked, aroused. "Nothing more."

She sat on her knees on the bed, watching him in the dim
light of the rising sun as he turned and glanced

at her over his shoulder.

"I'm heading to the shower," he said. "I'll
meet with Deke in the sitting room while you get dressed. We

need to talk before heading down to breakfast."

"About what?" Rising to her feet, Kira paced over
to the robe that a helpful maid must have left lying

over the cushioned chair at the bottom of the bed.
Shrugging it on, she belted it before glaring back at

him.

"Your role in this little debacle of an
operation," he grunted in disgust. "I still can't believe I was
stupid

enough to be played so easily by Missern." His
narrow-eyed glance of irritation wasn't lost on her.

"Oh yes, this is going to be such a hardship for
you." Her smile was all teeth. He better watch out,

because she knew how to bite too. "Why didn't you just
ignore him, Ian? Martin may have almost gotten

the first hit in, but I promise you, I would have gotten in
the last."

She knew how to deal with bastards like Missern. It was men
like Ian she had always had problems

with.

"I should have ignored it." He shrugged, turning
from her again. "As you stated, you know how to take

care of yourself. But the damage has already been
done."

He gave her his back and strode off, naked and buff and so
male she would have creamed her

nonexistent panties if she weren't so damned pissed off.

"The damage has already been done?" She rushed
for the bathroom door, then turned, mortification

flaming across her face as she saw him poised at the
toilet. "Jeez, Ian."

She heard his smug chuckle a second before the door slammed
at her back. Then the snick of the lock.

The son of a bitch.

"You are so wrong!" she gritted out after the
sound of the toilet flushing.

Not that he paid any attention to her. The sound of the
shower finally came through the doors, causing

her to pace away from the bathroom door to the closed
balcony doors. She pulled them open, stepped

out to the balcony, and proceeded to the doors that led to
the room Daniel was staying in.

She paused outside the glass doors, peeked in, and caught
Daniel's eye where he was sitting in a chair

lacing his boots. Glancing to the door of the bedroom, he
rose quickly, jerked his shirt from the back of

the chair, and shrugged it over his shoulders before
opening the door and going out to the balcony.

As the door closed behind him, Kira was in his face,
hissing. "Is Durango team on the island?"

Daniel's eyes narrowed, his hand moving to button his shirt
lazily as he stared down at her.

"How would I know?" he asked coolly.

Oh hell yes, he knew. She recognized that look on his face
and that tone of voice.

"How long have they been here? And before you step
over the line and lie to me, I'd remember who

signs your paycheck, Mr. Calloway."

She was furious at the thought that Daniel would go behind
her back and contact the team. She was

even angrier to realize that he would have had to go behind
her back to find out enough about this

operation to think they were needed.

He blew out a hard breath. "I don't lie to you, Kira,
so can the 'Mr. Calloway' crap and the threats. I

suspect they're here, but I don't know where, and I'm not
bothering to find out. Extra security wouldn't

hurt any of us."

"You suspected and you didn't tell me?" She
glanced quickly back to the room she shared with Ian. "He

knows they're here, Daniel. And if they're here, there's
only one reason for it. To take him out."

"Has he gone rogue?" The question was a
legitimate one, she knew.

"Hell no, he hasn't gone rogue, nor is he a traitor.
Ian doesn't have a rogue bone in his body and you

know it. But that's not the point. The point is, he can't
afford even the slightest hint that he isn't rogue.

What the hell are they thinking to come in here like
this?" She kept her voice low, so low that she knew

Daniel was reading lips more than actually hearing the
words. "Do you think DHS isn't covering his ass? I

knew it when they sent me in to protect Diego. They won't
admit it, but trust me, Daniel, Ian is

sanctioned."

"Have you seen them?" he asked her carefully.

She shot her bodyguard an irritated glare. "You know
better than that."

"Has he?"

She shook her head quickly.

"Then don't worry about them. If they're here, they're
here for their own reasons. Let's see what

happens."

And he had still kept from saying, one way or the other, if
he was in any way involved in their arrival.

"Warn them." Her smile was icy. "To make
damned sure they don't put him in harm's way. Damned

sure, Daniel. Or a lot of heads are going to roll. Do you
understand me?" His would be one of them.

"Anything happens to Ian, and I swear to you, as God
is my witness, they'll pay for it."

His lips quirked, and in that flash of amusement she could
almost see why his wife thought so much of

him. Almost. Right now she was too damned mad to make the
effort.

"You're like a lioness protecting a cub." He
folded his arms over his chest as he leaned against the