Kill Shot (6 page)

“What the hell is going on, Gabe?”

“Isn’t it obvious?”

“The part about you having the hots for your
wife is
real
obvious. At least to me. I’ve never had a
meeting before where my commanding officer sported a boner the
whole time.”

“Fuck you.”

“I’ll pass. Besides, your sex life isn’t
what I’m referring to, though it’s damned entertaining. There’s
something else going on, and I want to know what it is. You two are
planning something.”

“Shit.” Gabe closed his eyes and massaged
his neck. “Have I ever told you having you for a friend is a pain
in the ass?”

“Daily,” Jack said.

“I don’t know what the hell I’m doing. Some
ideas are better in theory than reality. I need to get out of here.
Let’s go get a beer.”

Jack unfolded his long body from the chair
and followed his friend outside. The night was warm and the
humidity thick. Fog rolled low across the London streets and crept
into alleyways. The steady drizzle of the afternoon fell faster in
darkness, and the wet soaked right through to the skin. The black
lampposts that lined Chapel Street glowed a soft yellow, and
umbrellas of red and black covered the heads of those walking home
from work along the dismal grey streets.

Neither of them noticed as passersby veered
far out of their way. They looked exactly like what they
were—dangerous.

The Lamp and Light was dimly lit and
sparsely populated. It wasn’t one of the nicer establishments in
Westminster, so the tourist crowd was always small. If you wanted
booze and privacy, then The Lamp and Light was the place to go.

Jack noticed the blonde working the bar
right away. He looked her over slowly from head to toe,
appreciating what the leather halter top did for her breasts. He
caught her eye, winked, and held up two fingers. He followed Gabe
to a round corner booth and sat across from his friend.

The bartender brought the drinks
herself—hips swaying in tight black jeans and the edge of a tattoo
peaking from her midriff. Yum, he loved tattoos. She set the
bottles on the table and laid a folded napkin in front of Jack with
a number written on it in black marker.

“Christ, can’t you go anywhere without
attracting women?” Gabe asked. “It’s damned embarrassing the way
they throw themselves at you.”

“I’m just sowing my oats till the right
woman comes along. They’d throw themselves at you too if you didn’t
look so damned scary all the time. Haven’t you ever heard of a
razor? Maybe getting a haircut?”

“I don’t want them to throw themselves at
me. I’m not interested.”

“Are you telling me you haven’t had sex
since Grace left you?”

“Excuse me for not being a man-whore like
you. I happen to think marriage means something.”

“You might oughta tell your wife that, you
know, since she divorced you and all. Speaking of Grace—”

“Were we?”

“Tell me what’s going on. Why’d you bring
her in?”

Gabe took a long drink of beer, his gaze
constantly moving, looking for threats that weren’t there. “Because
I was afraid the rumors might be true. I thought bringing her back
into a legitimate game might—I don’t know—make her not so hell-bent
on the path of self-destruction. She’s not that person. I have to
at least try.”

Love was a ridiculous thing, Jack thought.
For something that, in his mind, didn’t even exist to have the
power to make a man like Gabe Brennan vulnerable when the worst
terrorists in the world had been trying and failing for the last
sixteen years.

“You can’t choose the timetable for a person
to heal after trauma. Have you stopped thinking with your dick long
enough to consider she might not be ready for this?”

“Yeah, I have. We can’t do this job without
her. There’s not a marine sniper or an agent anywhere in the world
who’s as good at the long shots as she is.”

“I agree with you. But you’re leaving
something out.” Jack signaled for another beer and waited Gabe out
patiently.

“She only agreed to come with me if I
promised to help her take out Kamir Tussad.”

Jack took an unfortunate swallow of beer
just before Gabe dropped that bombshell, and the bitter liquid
lodged in his throat. He coughed until he caught his breath and
then said, “You’ve got to be fucking kidding me. Are you both so
desperate to die?”

“It was only a matter of time. If I could
have gotten to him before now, I would have taken him out, but the
man knows how to disappear. I have contacts who still keep me
informed of his movements.”

“Gabe,” Jack said, shaking his head.

“You don’t understand.”

“I do, my friend. There’s never a more
powerful motivator than revenge. But sometimes it’s hard to see the
outcome from the red haze clouding your vision.”

“He ripped my life to shreds with one
bullet, Jack. I lost my daughter and my wife because of him. I lost
everything. Grace has just given me the excuse to do what I’ve been
dreaming about. And I can do it easier with her than without
her.”

Jack closed his eyes and damned all
friendships to hell. That’s what happened when people started
mattering. The checks and balances system never got even.

“Count me in,” he said. “You’re going to
need me. I’ve been across damned near every square mile of Iran
with my SEALs.”

“Thanks. I’ll owe you.”

“They don’t take paybacks in hell.” Jack
scooted out of the booth. “You want some advice?”

“Not particularly.”

“Go make love to your wife. Watching the two
of you makes me feel like a voyeur.”

“Yeah, except that my wife hates my guts and
blames me for the death of our child. And she has every right.”

“To borrow one of your favorite sayings,
fuck that. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go get laid before
you send me to my death. I suggest you do the same.”

Sleep eluded Grace.

It had been a long time since she’d slept a
full night through. Her mind never seemed to be able to rest. If it
wasn’t nightmares, it was memories. And she’d take the nightmares
any day. She hadn’t been that lucky tonight.

She woke up in her bed, her flesh clammy and
her mind disoriented. The weight of Maddie’s limp body against her
own and the stickiness of blood as it soaked both of them was vivid
in her mind—as if she were truly reliving the event.

She rubbed her hands over her dry, cold
face. She wasn’t able to cry anymore. She wasn’t sure she’d really
cried for two years. But it wasn’t the lack of tears that worried
her. It was her hands. They shook violently. And she was useless
without the steadiness of her hands.

This was all Gabe’s fault. It had to be.
There had to be someone to blame, and he was the only person
available. He was the only one who could make her face a past she
so desperately needed to bury.

How could she have been so stupid as to end
up with someone like him? Frank Bennett had introduced them her
first year on the job. She’d been so young—barely twenty-one—and
Gabe had been her first lover. And her first commander on an
assignment, which was never a good combination. But it had been
fireworks from the first moment they’d touched, and somehow, they’d
managed to keep their relationship a secret from everyone except
Frank. That man never missed anything.

They’d lived on adrenaline and sex—one
feeding the other until she was sure they’d burn each other out.
But they hadn’t. They’d lasted seven years and had a daughter
before she realized living on adrenaline and risking your life for
your country on a daily basis wasn’t a good foundation for a
family.

They’d never planned to have children,
knowing the risks of what they did and how they lived were too
dangerous, but fate had stepped in, and Maddie had been conceived
on their fourth wedding anniversary while they’d been under
lockdown after finishing a mission that hadn’t turned out exactly
as they’d wanted. They’d both been in shock after finding out she
was pregnant, but there’d never been any question of not keeping
the baby. They’d just promised each other that adjustments would
have to be made.

They’d built a home in the country that no
one knew about, and they’d raised their daughter there. And they’d
been happy. For a time. Gabe would go undercover for weeks, and
she’d go on her own jobs all over the world, and Maddie hardly ever
got to spend time with both of them together. They never talked
about their work. But they always came back to each other and loved
each other fiercely until they were called away again.

And then Gabe had started to change. It
wasn’t a little change, but all at once. He closed in on himself,
spending a lot of time alone and rarely speaking at all. He rolled
away from her touch at night, and it was then she knew something
was really wrong.

It wasn’t until after Maddie died that she’d
found out Gabe had spent twelve years building different covers and
infiltrating some of the biggest terrorist organizations in the
world. She thought he’d been in charge of the missions, handling
other operatives and sending them out on assignments. She’d never
known he
was
the mission.

Her child had died because Gabe had been one
of the top men in Ahmad Sayad’s organization—a man that made Osama
Bin Laden look like an altar boy. Gabe and Kamir Tussad took care
of Sayad’s nefarious businesses while Sayad stayed hidden. Sayad
was more of a figurehead than anything. It was really Tussad who
called the shots. And it was Tussad who had found out Gabe was a
plant. He’d destroyed them all as payment—Gabe, because his cover
had been blown and he could no longer do his job with any
organization—Grace, because he’d taken the one thing that had given
her light.

Without Maddie, the darkness in her life
crept in at her around the edges, eating at her soul. She could
blame it on the CIA for making her kill. She believed in what she
did. But after Maddie’s death, the kills stopped having meaning.
They were just targets, not life. And she knew it was only a matter
of time before the darkness overtook her completely. She could no
longer function as she had been. She was empty inside, and seeing
Gabe had only made her remember what she’d lost and could never
have again. It didn’t matter that she’d loved him. The husk of her
body was no longer capable of such things.

Grace’s hands finally stopped shaking, and
she threw the thick down quilt that covered her aside. She tossed
the T-shirt she’d slept in on the bed and pulled on a black sports
bra and a pair of matching cotton shorts. She laced up her shoes,
grabbed her key card and her Sig, and she escaped.

The clock in her kitchen said it was just
shy of four, and she unlocked and opened her door that led into the
hallway she and Gabe shared.

Silence
.

She crept down the hall and rode the
elevator to the fifth floor. Gabe hadn’t been kidding when he’d
said there was a full gym. She ran her fingers over the free
weights, picked one up and tested it with slow curls. There were
machines of every variety, and an entire wall of mirrors. But it
was the large sparring ring and punching bags that caught her
attention.

Perfect. She needed to beat the hell out of
something.

She wrapped her hands with tape and found a
pair of gloves that fit. The first punch of her fist against the
bag sent vibrations up her arm and down to her toes. Her body came
alive from the pain, and the punches came faster and the hits
harder.

***

Gabe didn’t know how long he stood at the
edge of the room and watched her. She was like a fury—all hands and
fists and feet. She looked like she was fighting for her life.
Maybe she was.

She’d forgotten to braid her hair. It was
pulled back in a loose tail and curled riotously down her spine.
Sweat gleamed on her skin, and energy vibrated out of every pore.
Her body was a beautiful machine, and toned muscles flexed and
bunched with every hit to the bag.

Gabe felt the tightening in his lower body
and anticipation coiled in his gut. He’d always wanted her, but
seeing her again after so long turned the want into need. He knew
as well as she did it would only be a matter of time before they
had each other again.

He thought back to Jack’s surprise that Gabe
hadn’t been with another woman since Grace left. He’d had women
before Grace. Hell, he’d been no better than Jack. Having a
different name in every country was exciting in more ways than one.
He could be anybody, and there was a certain amount of excitement
in sleeping with a woman who didn’t know your real name or that
you’d killed someone the hour before.

But everything changed after Grace. He knew
there was no point being with another woman ever again. No one
would ever feel as good wrapped around him while he thrust into her
wet heat. No one else would come close to fulfilling him as she
did.

Only she had that power over him.

Grace hit the bag hard enough that Gabe
winced in sympathy. The band around her hair fell to the ground,
and a waterfall of red spiraled down her back. There was no point
in fighting it. He was already lost.

***

Grace stopped punching and pulled off her
gloves, putting them back in the slot she’d gotten them from. She
unwrapped the tape and tossed it into the trash bin before reaching
down to grab her hair band. Her fingers tightened around the
elastic and she realized she was no longer alone.

She turned and saw Gabe watching her out of
hooded eyes. The bulge in his shorts made it impossible not to
notice that he liked what he saw. Her body jumped in
reaction—wanting to answer his call like a cat in heat. The
electricity between them made the hair on her arms stand on end,
and her nipples puckered under the black spandex of her sports
bra.