Deadly Games (32 page)

* * * *

5:06 p.m. Quinlan Kinncaid drove the car. He kept rubbing his head. She watched him.

“Headache?” she asked, sliding her hand over the console and touching his arm.

He nodded. “Yeah, again.” He blinked and shook his head.

“Why don’t you let me drive?” she tried. This would be all she fucking needed.

This damn close and he wreck the car all because he was a male and thus had to drive.

“We’re almost there,” he said, shaking his head again.

Alla shrugged and looked out the window. At least she’d taken care of the guard, Gar, while Quinlan had dressed for the evening. If anyone found the man, he might live, 209

but the sedative dose had been high She’d stuffed him in the spare room in Quinlan’s penthouse.

Reaching down for her purse, she opened it part way, saw the 9 mm Glock inside and smiled. Reaching past it, she pulled out her pill bottle. “I’ve got some aspirin. Would you like some?”

The man was so predictable. He shook his head.

Taking the female approach, she said. “Please, for me. I don’t want to meet your family practically alone and if you’re nursing a killer headache, you’ll look like you hired me to come along. I don’t want your parents thinking I’m a whore.” She held the white pills aloft in her hand.

They looked like aspirin She had wanted them to. With the same initial coating so that they tasted the same--or rather had no taste at all.

But the ingredients were very different and practically tasteless, an accomplishment for her lab techs. Something the drug market and vice scene would love.

Ecstasy plus roofies. Basically. The chemical make up had to be altered a bit. But the feel good of X with the disinhibiter of roofies left with a wondrous little pill.

She could fuck someone all night long, and they wanted it. And the poor souls didn’t really remember all the details the next morning.

The bright side? Supposedly, the downer wasn’t as bad as X. She should make a killing off this little creation.

But then her techs were still trying to perfect it. She wanted buyers not diers.

He finally took the pills, glanced her with a narrowed gaze as if trying to decide, then tossed them back.

He’d already had two others half an hour ago in his coffee. Hopefully he wouldn’t have a reaction. But if he did.… Then she’d deal with it.

She smiled at him and leaned over, the shoulder harness pulling on her, and kissed his cheek, wiping her lipstick off. “Hope they help.”

He nodded and stared at the road as he turned off. He shook his head again.

“Quinlan, quit being a man and just let me drive. You don’t feel well and if you pass out, we could both be injured.” He nodded, slowed and put the car in park.

“Poor baby.” She glanced either way down the driveway. A house sat back beyond the trees and no one was behind them.

She climbed out of the car and walked around. By the time she opened the driver’s door, he was already half unconscious. Smiling, she leaned into the back seat and grabbed her shoulder bag with the lovely little bomb in it. Time to get to work before meeting the family….

* * * *

Ian held onto the ‘oh-shit’ bar as Rori took another curve. “Damn it, slow down.” She laughed. “God, I miss driving. And I just have to say, this right side of the road, is really off. You Yanks should have stayed with the left.”

He shook his head.

She rounded another curve and the lights cut across the road.

“Oh shit!” She swerved to miss the little eyes in the road and Ian felt the tires thump over whatever the hell it was.

Rori slammed on the brakes, and looked in the review mirror.

210

“What the hell are you doing?” he asked, looking back behind them. No cars were coming. He looked in front of them, as she pulled the car to the edge of the road.

“Rori?” he asked.

“What did I hit?” she looked at him, her face creased with…. He had no clue, he’d never seen it.

She opened her door and the interior light popped on. He rolled his eyes, unbuckled his belt and climbed out.

She stood in the center of their lane, dressed in her jeans, squared black high heeled boots, a black jacket, looking down at a dark spot in the road. Her hands were clasped to her chest.

“I killed it,” she said, brokenly.

Ian shook his head and stepped towards her, looking down. What was left of a …

rabbit? was a squashed area of brown fur, blood and guts.

“Uh, yeah, looks like you were successful there.”

She choked a breath out and looked at him as if he’d lost his mind.

“What?” he asked, his hands rising, palms up. “What is with you?”

Her eyes filled with tears. “I just killed bloody Peter Rabbit.”

Ian licked his lips. “Rori, it’s a damn rabbit. Some farmer is glad the thing won’t be eating his vegetables or some such.”

“But I just mowed down a bunny!”

This from the woman hired to kill him. Sighing, he turned and said, “Rori, get in the damn car.”

She stood for another minute and he turned, waited, until she wiped her eyes. “I think you should drive.”

He chuckled then quickly swallowed it as she shot him look.

Without a word, he waited until she shut the passenger door. He looked back at the dead bunny and chuckled, shaking his head.

Ian climbed in, put the car in gear and continued on.

She was adorable. Completely adorable. The woman was one of the best assassins, and she freaked when she ran over a rabbit.

Smiling inwardly, Ian drove up to his parents’ house near dark. Quinlan’s Lexus sat in the driveway.

Rori hadn’t said a word.

When she reached for the door handle, he grabbed her hand. “What are you thinking about?”

She took a deep breath. “Sorry I flipped back there. I’ve had a lot on my mind all afternoon and Mr. Rabbit just.…” She huffed out a breath.

“What?” he asked again, running his thumb over the ring he’d placed there on her finger.

“You come from all this,” she muttered. “Kinncaids are all about family.”

And he wanted her a permanent part of it. “So?”

“So, I realize I don’t know … that is….”

“What?” he asked, something in him tightening.

She took another deep breath. “Half the damn time I don’t know what I’m bloody doing with Darya. I wonder if I’m doing it wrong, what it is, how to do it better, how to 211

make her feel safe…. And then other times….’

“Other times?” he prompted.

“I can see why people have kids. Like at the hospital. The baby was.…” She frowned. “Well, different, all … little.”

He chuckled, leaned over the console and kissed her. “They’re supposed to be.”

“I can’t ever have one.” Her voice wavered. “When the doctors told me, it didn’t mean anything.”

Her eyes filled with a pain he couldn’t take away. But wanted to. God he wanted to. He held her hands and waited. “Never thought about it. Never wondered until last year when I went in for my physical and my doctor started to run tests.”

“Why?”

She shook her head. “I had a cyst. Nothing major, nothing he was worried about, but felt I should know I was sterile. From the rapes, or from an infection, he wasn’t certain. But I won’t have kids.” She looked out the windshield. “And it never really bothered me until today.” Then looking at him, with a sad smile, asked, “Isn’t that pathetic?”

He shook his head. “No. It’s normal. We’ll adopt more.”

She blinked, then shook her head. “You come from this” She motioned to the yard and everything. “Kids and heirs and begetting and all that.”

He grinned. “I never wanted kids, Rori. Never planned to get married.”

She snorted.

He took her chin and turned her face to him, studying the angles, the long lines that showed more strength than any woman he knew, because some of her roads he’d traveled and others he could imagine only too well. “I never wanted to put someone in that kind of danger,” he admitted softly.

“After being shot at, almost blown up, and left behind, I can appreciate that decision.” She shook her head. “We are so fucked up, luv.”

He laughed. “I love it when you say that.”

“That we’re fucked up?”

“No, luv, going all British on me.”

They climbed out of the car and walked up the driveway. At the door he paused, held her hand and rolled the wedding band on her finger. Looking at it, he said, “You know, I’m glad I got this when I saw it.” The gold reflected in the soft outside lights. “It fits you. You. Us. Whatever.” He held her hand, brought it to his lips and kissed her finger that held his mark. Ian leaned in and kissed her, held her face in his hands and tried to show her everything he couldn’t put into words.

He finally, reached behind her and opened the door. And the first thing he smelled was Elianya.

He almost jerked back, but thankfully didn’t. Still standing with Rori, his hand still on the doorknob, he scanned what he could and catalogued it as surely as he would any other hostile situation. He saw the coat and glancing in the hall mirror caught a flash of a woman with a gun. God help them all.

Leaning closer, he whispered into Rori’s ear. “Follow my lead. Get pissed, scream at me, call me names and then leave. Whatever you do, do not go in the house, don’t even look in the house Take the car, call John and get your ass back here.”

212

“Why?” she asked, tensing against him as he pressed the car keys into her hands.

“Tell, John to call Pete. Elianya Hellinski is here with my family in the living room. From the gun in her hand, I’m pretty damn certain it’s not a friendly sit down. How the hell….”

“I’m not leaving you.”

“Damn it!” he yelled, pushing her towards the yard. “I’m not asking you, Rori.

I’m fucking telling you.”

She took a deep breath, her eyes flashing. “This is so bloody like you! Everything is always Ian’s way. On Ian’s time. At Ian’s convenience. Well I’m tired of it! Sick and bloody tired!”

“Lower your voice,” he said, still loud.

“I don’t have to. I’m tired of this game. Tired of being at your bleeding beck and call. It’s not my fault if you can’t accept the truth.”

“What truth?” he still didn’t look behind him, but left the door open enough that anyone in the living room beyond could hear, if not all, at least enough to understand the disagreement.

“You don’t listen!” she yelled. “I’m leaving!

“No, you’re not. Rori, come back here! Rori!” he yelled and hurried after her even as she jumped in the car, spitting gravel up into the air.

He prayed to God, she got to Johnno. Taking a deep breath and making certain he had his extra gun in the small of his back, he turned, and slammed the front door as hard as he could. “Damn it all to hell and back anyway,” he said.

He strode past the living room, as if intent on going upstairs. And as he knew she would, her voice floated out.

“Ian, do join us.”

He halted, stopped in the middle of unbuttoning his top button of his shirt and slowly turned.

“Elianya.” Her hair was jet black, styled shorter, her eyes a dark brown thanks, no doubt to colored contacts. Still, she shouldn’t be here. There was no way she should have gotten past all the damn guards.

He glanced quickly around the room. His parents sat on the couch, Darya between them. Quinlan was tied to a chair, his head hanging. Was his brother alive? Where the hell were Gar and Roth?

To Elianya he said, “You’ve a new hair style and color I see. The spa did a wonderful job.” He nodded. “Not many can carry off that hair color.”

Taking another deep breath, he stepped into the room. How much time did they have?

His heart thundered in his chest. One last mission. This one last job. Please, God, don’t let this be his failure. He had way too much at stake.

213

“Can you call Pete?” Rori asked into the phone, pulling to the side of the road and cutting the lights.

“Yeah, where are you?”

“At the end of the driveway, just off the highway.” She cut the car off and knew they’d be going on foot.

“I’ll be there in just a minute.” John hung up and she waited.

Her hands shook. It had been so long since her hands shook because of a job, she could only stare at them. Hell. Leaning over, she checked the glove box. Empty. Console empty.

Under the seat. Ah. Extra gun. Thank God. She turned it. A SIG Sauer P222. Fit perfectly in her hand.

She got out, locked the car and waited. At least she’d worn black today and boots.

Her fingers thrummed on her thigh.

She listened and heard John coming down the highway before his lights cut across the corner and he barreled to a stop by her car. He too was in black. Some habits were hard to break.

He pulled a bag from the back of the SUV he drove.

“You managed to keep Aiden at home.”

He shrugged. “Didn’t ask. Just took off and told him to stay by the phone and to let no one but Ian or me into the house.”

John opened the case and took out a knife, he shoved it down near his ankle. A gun into the small of his back, another in his waist. A coil of rope and duct tape.

“Cool, tape. Can I help?”

For a moment, he paused, then said. “Where did you get the car?”

“Ian. He took it from the garage this morning.”

He nodded. “Hand me the keys. I can’t take her in an SUV with car seats.”

She didn’t need to ask who, as she handed him the keys. “If she hurts them...”

He paused in shoving the keys into his pocket. “Elianya Helinski is mine. She always has been. I’ve waited for too long for this.”

Instead of arguing with him, she started off towards the house. He quickly passed her and she jogged along side him through the woods back to the house.

“We’ll go in by one of the back doors and try to sneak up on her.”

“That’s your plan?” she asked.

“Got a better one?”

“You take the back door. I’ll take the upstairs. She’ll either come out those French doors or she’ll have to go through the entryway. If I’m anywhere else, she’ll see because of that stupid hall mirror.”

The dead leaves crunched under their boots.

John mumbled something to himself she didn’t catch, then said, “Pete will be here 214

in about half an hour. He said he was flying.”

“Good.”

He stopped, turned to her and put his hand on her arm. “I have to be gone with her by then.”

“Why John?”

With a voice as cold as the winter, he said, “She killed my family. My girls. My wife. I can’t let her go this time. No matter what the cost.”

“The explosion.” Damn. Understanding, Rori nodded. “Let’s rock and roll, mate.”

Nither spoke as they made their way to the house and through the back yard. In one of the windows they could easily see in. The woman in a siren red pants suit held a gun in one hand, a 9mm from the looks of it, and something in her other hand, which she used to motion to Quinlan strapped to the chair. He had something taped to his chest.

“Bloody hell.”

“Fucking bitch.” John took the phone out and she heard him softly telling whoever at the other end to get a bomb squad out here as well, explaining the situation.

Personally she thought the woman was stupid. Had she really thought she’d get away with it? Not that Rori wanted her to even try but from what she’d read and learned of Elianya Hellinski in the last month, the woman should have really thought this one through a bit more.

Where the hell were their bodyguards?

There was no sign of Roth. Or she hadn’t thought so until she saw his jean clad legs near one of the doorways.

John motioned to the darkened French doors on down the side of the house. She nodded and jogged down, climbing the ivy and trellis until she reached Darya’s room.

She kicked the doors in, then made her way through the room and quickly to the top curve of stairs, directly over the entryway.