Killer Secrets (40 page)

promoted him to security not long after recognizing him. He
had known Antoli was a plant from the start.

The man had been quietly putting together his escape when
Ian waylaid him late one night in Colombia

just after reading the file Diego had on him. Which was a hell
of a lot different from the truth. Just as it

appeared Muriel was different from what he had been
perceived as.

He pushed his fingers through his hair as he focused on
Tehya once again.

"How will you recognize his voice? If you've never
seen him, if you've been on the run all your life, how

could you recognize anything about him?"

A bitter smile twisted her lips. "He left me a phone
number once. Unfortunately, it's untraceable. Reno

has the number. Sometimes, when I want to remember how much
I hate him, I call him. He always

answers. And it's him, trust me. As bad as he wants me back
he would never let anyone else answer that

phone. He's assured me, time and again, that he's my father
and he wants only to protect me. It's Sorrell,

Mr. Richards. I remember that voice from my nightmares. As
a child, I heard him rape my mother, his

voice so calm, so reasonable, and demonic. I'm staking my
life on the fact that it is him."

She was indeed betting her life if what she was saying was
true. Ian let his gaze connect with Kira's, saw

the concern in it. She knew Tehya, and evidently, she
trusted the other girl.

So young. Twenty-three and yet the haunted pain in her eyes
made her appear so much older. He'd

lived on gut instinct too long to discount her, but that
didn't mean he trusted her.

"And I have an ace, one he's unaware I possess."
She stared at him intently then, tears glittering in her

wild green eyes.

"What ace would that be?" he asked carefully.

"I carry his birthmark. It resembles a scythe.
Sorrell's personal mark, the same birthmark he carries."

She turned then, lifted the thin T-shirt she wore, and
revealed the mark low in the center of her back,

below her hips. In the exact center, perhaps two inches
above the cleft of her rear, was the small

birthmark resembling the scythe Sorrell used as his own
personal mark.

Kira moved her gaze from the mark low on Tehya's back, to
Ian. He hadn't tightened, hadn't moved, his

expression hadn't altered in the least, but the tension
suddenly emanating from him was electric.

"No one knows about the birthmark," Ian murmured.
There had been no rumors, not so much as a whiff

of information regarding it, Kira knew.

"No one knew about this except myself and my mother.
She warned me, before she left me with the nun,

to never reveal it. To never let anyone know of it. And I
never have."

"Does Sorrell carry the mark in the same area?"
Ian asked, moving closer as she stared over her

shoulder at him.

Kira watched Ian. He was no longer suspicious; it was as
though something had fallen in to place for

him, some source of information that only he knew.

Ian bent to sit on his heels, staring at the mark closely.

"We have a chance to get him here, Ian." Reno
spoke softly from the other side of the girl. "She's willing

to help us and we have enough to identify him."

"He dies," Ian said, his eyes locked on the mark.
"I don't care how much information he could have." He

rose slowly, straightening to stare at Reno over Tehya's
shoulder. "He doesn't leave alive."

"You'll have to set up protection for her. Something
away from the villa," Kira stated as Tehya pulled the

hem of her shirt back into place. "You'll have to give
him visual proof that you have her. You'll have to

threaten to mark her, scar her. If she's scarred, then her
value to him is diminished. Sorrell doesn't deal in

damaged goods. And his daughter would be an asset. An
extension of his ability to create perfection."

"Antoli." Ian nodded slowly. "We'll set up a
vid, an interrogation of her, make it look good. Give her the

appearance of bruising . . ."

"It will only work if you actually bruise her."
Kira shook her head. "Bruising does more than discolor the

flesh. To convince Sorrell, you're going to have to go
further."

"She's right." Tehya held Kira's hand as several
male heads shook instinctively. "It won't be the first time

I've been bruised. And if your Antoli is as good with
interrogation techniques as I've heard, then he'll

know how to do it right."

Courage. The woman had more courage than she should have at
her age. To even consider allowing a

man as brutal as Antoli to touch her.

Ian let his gaze drift to Kira then. He saw the pain in her
eyes, the shadows, and knew she was reliving

the loss of her own family to the murderous bastard. She
had been ten, but she had escaped the horror

Tehya had lived through. Thank God.

"We don't need to beat her up to convince
Sorrell." Ian shook his head as he turned his gaze back to the

small redhead with the wild green eyes. Eyes that saw too
much, that knew too much. Eyes that broke

Kira's heart with the pain and rage inside them. "All
we need is the visual proof that we have her. He's

chased her this long. Make her accessible and he'll mess
up. He won't be able to help it. He'll be

desperate to secure her."

Kira was watching Tehya's eyes as he said it, saw the
terror that flashed inside them. She had courage,

but she was smart enough to know what she was getting
herself into.

"I'll do the vid," he continued. "We'll take
her to a secured safe house, record it, and send it to Ascarti

via Colombia," he mused. "We'll give him a short
timeline. Make him react quickly."

"He's not far from Ascarti," Tehya said then.
"Wherever Ascarti is, you'll find Sorrell close. But if you

snatched Ascarti he wouldn't come running."

Ian nodded slowly as he turned back to Reno, his eyes
narrowed, the air around him pulsing with

danger. "What kind of probables have you run?"

"We checked out the names she gave us of those who
tried to help her. They were dead. Deaths were

by torture. They died hard and likely gave Sorrell
everything they knew. It fits with his particular MO.

Evidence we've gathered about his network suggests it was
his personal handiwork. No one knows

torture in his organization as well as he does. We know
he's indeed French, Tehya's mother was of

French descent. Reports on her death suggest that she
hadn't been in Nicaragua more than a few weeks

when she was snatched from the street. There were a few
witness reports, but you know how sketchy

local law enforcement is there. It was dropped within
hours; only the notification and questioning of

witnesses was kept until her body was found."

"Her name was Francine Taite. She was the daughter of
a French industrialist driven to bankruptcy after

her kidnapping. They died before my birth. She was
kidnapped and sold, according to the information

she gave the nuns, though she never gave his name. Thirteen
years after her disappearance as a child, she

was dumped out of a dark sedan on a dirty street in
Nicuragua. She had been raped. Her fingers

shattered, the soles of her feet had been burned. She died
slowly," Tehya recited, a frown marring her

brow as she seemed to stare off into nothing. "She was
tiny, delicate. I remember her crying. I never

remember her laughter."

She seemed to shudder as Kira moved to Ian's side. His arm
went around her naturally, pulling her to his

side, feeling the pain that worked through her as Tehya
turned to Reno. "I'll require a weapon. I won't let

him take me, Reno. It stops here. Either he dies, or I
do."

Reno nodded slowly.

"We need to get this together and get moving on it,
before Sorrell figures out what's going on," Ian said.

"If he's never more than a step or two behind her,
then he knows she's been here watching me. It could

be the reason he fired a missile at me rather than a gun on
the last attack. Do you have a safe house in

mind?"

"Right here." Reno grinned. "She's been here
since the night Kira moved out. All we need to do is get

this vid made and shipped out and wait for the response. We
have everything set up. We were just

waiting for you."

"Fucktard," Macey muttered as an aside.

Kira watched the grin that tugged at Ian's lips. Evidently
tonight wasn't the first time Ian had heard that

particular insult. He stared around at the other men.
"First chance I have, I'm telling your women you left

them to play on the beaches in Aruba. Fitting punishment, I
think, for driving me crazy with that sniper

rifle you've had trained on me for the last two
weeks."

"Best telescope I own." Macey snickered.
"Felt it, did you?"

"Every time you stroked the trigger, I felt it,
Macey," he growled.

"Should have shot you," Macey grumbled.
"Dumb fuck. You should have let us in on the fun. You're just

plain selfish, Ian. I've always said that about you."

Ian pulled Kira against his side. She felt the warmth of
his body, the strength, the steady confidence.

"You have no idea. Remember, the next time you train
that telescope on Kira, I'll shove it up your ass."

Macey winced, but the tension that had filled the room
began to dissipate.

For the first time in eight months, Ian felt the
camaraderie, the sense of teamwork that he had relied on

for so many years.

And in his arms, close to his side, he felt the center of
his soul. He had avoided the acknowledgment,

tried to deny it, fought to push it away. But as he stared
at Tehya Talamosi, and saw a woman alone,

fighting to live in the face of a monster, he realized how
very similar he had once been to her.

Kira had filled that part of his soul. The part that had been
empty and alone. The part that had fought to

live even though the danger of the monster had passed. And
he prayed that Tehya would find it as well.

Twenty-three

SHE HAD NEVER IMAGINED WHATkind of life Tehya had endured.

Kira slipped into Ian's room from the balcony, barely
glancing at Deke as he rose from the chair by the

bed as she escaped to the bathroom.

She felt sick inside. She knew Tehya, she had met her in
France nearly six years before. They had had

coffee as Kira watched a French diplomat sell classified
documents to a Russian agent. They had spent

the weekend shopping, laughing, and being girls. Two
strangers in a strange land, and Kira had never

guessed the danger Tehya had been in.

She had suspected her to be a rival agent. For a while Kira
had wondered if she were an assassin or

part of a kidnapping team. But the other girl, though
distant, her eyes often shadowed with pain, had

never mentioned anything that Kira could have used to fuel
her suspicions.

She had met her again in Afghanistan working with the Red
Cross. Again in America, once again

working with the Red Cross, just after Hurricane Katrina.
She'd had no idea the hell the girl was living

through. Damn, she'd had no idea how young she was or what
she was searching for.

Safety. Protection from a monster. The identity of the
monster. Why hadn't she put it together?

Kira slammed the bathroom door closed. Why hadn't she
figured out that the kid was in trouble? Hell,

she hadn't even known she was a kid. It was those eyes.
Those wild, shattered, haunted eyes. She

couldn't have been more than seventeen the first time Kira
had met with her in France. Kira had assumed

she was another agent. She had played the game when the
girl had sat down at her table, leaned back

and smiled and asked if the chair was taken. A very
inexperienced agent. But Kira had played the game