Killer Secrets (10 page)

"I have to fly out day after tomorrow," he told
her softly. "I'll take one of the guest rooms and set up the

security while you go let yourself be seen tomorrow. I'd be
interested to know which players we have

gathering here."

"Too many if those I saw in the clubs last night were
any indication." She sighed, watching as the

bedroom light in the other villa flipped on then seconds
later was dark again. "Ian has a bull's-eye on his

back, Jase, and if I'm not mistaken several of the players
based here believe America would give them a

quiet nod of approval if they took him out."

"Ian made the decision himself," Jason pointed
out, apparently satisfied that there was nothing

compromising in the room, then moved to where she stood by
the balcony doors.

"You're fascinated with him," he stated, stopping
behind her to grip her shoulders and pull her back

against him. She felt his lips at the top of her head and
his steady affection surrounding her.

They were each other's rocks, and had been for twenty years
now. Their shared past had shaped their

shared present and all the choices that had brought him
there.

"What would Daddy have thought of him?" she
suddenly asked. She hadn't wondered in years what her

parents would have thought of anything.

"He would have respected his strength," Jason
answered simply. "But he would have worried about it as

well. Your man isn't known for his tender ways where women
are concerned, sweetie."

No, Ian was known for tying them down, torturing them with
demanding caresses and warm spankings.

He was known for his sexual demands and his determined
lusts. He wasn't known for roses and

champagne or poet's verses.

"I'm not exactly known for my tender ways where men
are concerned either," she pointed out teasingly.

"No. You're not." There was an edge of sorrow in
his voice. "Your father would have gutted me for

drawing you into this life and your mother would have never
forgiven me."

Kira leaned her head back against his chest and clasped his
hands at her shoulders.

"Momma told me once that you were destined to do great
things," she told him, remembering how much

her tiny mother had adored her overgrown brother. "She
loved you as fiercely as she loved me."

And her momma had been taken away from them both. Her
momma, her daddy, and the woman her

uncle had been engaged to. A terrorist's bomb had killed
them while they were on vacation in Greece,

though it had been speculated that the bomb had been meant
for them. Her father had been as immersed

in the covert life as she and Jason were.

"She would have been proud of us," she finally
whispered, surprising herself with her introspection.

She had been doing that a lot these past months.
Reflecting, thinking, considering the choices she had

made, and her life in general.

She was thirty years old. She had a failed marriage behind
her and no children. Her marriage to Kane

Austin had been the first casualty of her secret life and
covert activities.

She had no family but Jason, and so few true friends that
at times the loneliness bore down on her.

And lovers? They didn't last long even when she did find
time to get involved with a man. She was too

intent on partying and playing. They didn't really know
her, so they had no idea why the parties, the trips,

and the shopping were so damned important.

No one really knew her. Except Jason. And Ian. That part of
her that she hadn't even known herself,

had only begun learning in the past year, ached with
loneliness. Ached for the man who held himself just

out of reach.

Ian knew her. Ian had done what no one else had, he had
made it a point to learn about her. He knew

about her parents, about Jason, but more importantly, he
knew who and what she was. He had informed

her, his voice filled with amusement the night he slipped
into her condo, that he knew her as no one else

ever would. And he was right. He knew how to touch her, how
to make her heart and her body come

alive. And he knew the woman she hid from the world.

Which could be a liability if she thought there were so
much as a chance of his turning against the friend

who lay so helpless in that damned clinic.

"Where do you go from here?" Jason kissed the top
of her head before moving slowly away.

"For now, I wait a bit." She shrugged, turning
back to him. "He'll show up."

"You seem certain." His gaze was piercing in the
dark.

Kira hid her smile. "I am certain." He was
growing as desperate for her as she was for him. She

dreamed of nothing else, and sometimes, she thought of
nothing else.

"I have a few contacts here," he told her.
"Let me know if you need invitations."

"Dozens have already poured into the hotel," she
reported. "The flies are converging like a plague."

Jason grimaced. "I was hoping to eat dinner
tonight."

Kira widened her eyes innocently. "What did I
say?"

"Trouble," he muttered. "That's all you
are."

Kira rolled her eyes. She was growing tired of that
accusation.

Six

IAN STOOD AT HIS BEDROOMwindow, the technologically
advanced night-vision goggles sitting

securely over his eyes as he stared at the bedroom window
in the villa across from him.

He should have been ashamed of himself. Hell, he was using
a set of military hardware that even soldiers

in the field didn't have yet, to spy on a woman. He watched
as Kira leaned her head back against Jason

McClane's chest and lifted her hands to clasp the ones at
her shoulders. The pose was entirely too

intimate, too close. He felt anger twitch the muscle in his
cheek as McClane kissed the top of her head

and rubbed his cheek against her hair. He knew he wasn't
the least impartial when it came to Kira, and

possessive instincts he didn't know lived within him were
now tightening at his gut.

He wanted to kill McClane for touching her, and that was a
bad thing. As the two moved back from the

balcony doors, Ian pulled the goggles free of his face and
tucked them once again into the wall safe.

The villa the Eventeses had leased for the season had every
amenity, right down to personal safes in

each bedroom.

Pushing his fingers through his hair, he paced his darkened
bedroom, feeling lust edging into desperation

as he thought of her, possibly allowing another man to
touch her.

He shook his head. He'd watched Kira and her uncle together
before, and though there was a surfeit of

affection, there seemed to be no sexual tension. But that
assurance wasn't easing the tightening in his gut,

or in his cock. He knew it wasn't even possible that she
would do something like sleep with the bastard.

He
knew
that in his head, but
logic could never apply to how he reacted over Kira, especially when

another man was around, no matter who that man might be. He
wanted to be the only one who touched

her.

He didn't even bother to jack off again. Masturbation
wasn't helping. He knew this mood, or at least a

weak facsimile of it. The tension invading him wouldn't
ease until he fucked her. Until he fucked her until

neither of them could breathe for the pleasure tearing
through them.

So why was he waiting? She was over there, accessible to
him, and it was more than apparent that she

wasn't going anywhere.

But she was a woman.

Ian snorted at that thought. Oh yeah, she was a woman. She
was all woman. And Ian couldn't push

back the thought that it was his responsibility to protect
her, to shelter her. He didn't want her involved in

this mess, and yet she seemed determined to immerse herself
in it.

So determined that no more than a few months after her own
brush with death during that Atlanta

assignment, she had been in Nathan's hospital bathroom,
lying in wait, eavesdropping on their

conversation.

A mocking grin shaped his lips. She had known his visit to
Nathan had been arranged. She had said as

much. She had guessed all along that this was an operation.
But how much of that operation had she

guessed?

And now, here she was, poking her nose into the most
dangerous assignment he had ever undertaken,

for whatever reason.

He needed to know that reason, he realized. He needed to
know why she was here and what she

wanted. And he needed one more taste of her. Just to see if
she was as hot, as sweet, as mind-numbing

as he remembered.

He needed his head examined was what he needed.

Ian grimaced as he threw himself into the cushioned chair
in the sitting area of his room and stared

broodingly at the window that looked out over her villa.

Propping his hand on the arm of the chair, he rubbed at his
lips with his finger and glared at the window.

That damned woman was nothing but trouble. She was going to
make him crazy.

Going to? Hell, she already had made him crazy. He should
be in his study going over the supply routes

the cartel soldiers used to transport the drugs from the
warehouses to the transport ships and cargo

planes flying them out.

He had a million different details to see to. If Diego
Fuentes had been decent enough to apply his genius

to a legitimate business then he could have enjoyed a far
healthier lifestyle. And perhaps Ian could have

respected the man whose blood he shared.

And though he hated admitting it, Ian knew they were
possibly too much alike. They were just on wrong

sides of a war and the fine line between decency and
immorality.

He had to deal with Fuentes and Sorrell, Ian told himself,
he couldn't afford to worry about Kira in the

mix. Pushing himself out of the chair, he stalked to the
door of his bedroom suite and jerked it open,

intent on doing the job he had set for himself that night.

The supply lines had to be changed and the product insured.
Until he caught Sorrell, he had to show the

bastard that the Fuentes cartel had the best supply lines,
the best underground network, and most

efficient men in the business. That was the reason Sorrell
had pinpointed Fuentes to begin with. Because

the cartel moved its drugs with the least amount of
difficulty or interference.

Ian had caught on quickly after entering the business to
how Diego and his father before him had set up

the cartel's vast network. They didn't just have drugs
going into every nation of the world, but they

transported weapons, information, and a vast array of other
illegal products. Pirated software and music,

clothing and accessories. Even, at odd times, criminal figures
looking for escape.

The cartel had it all, except terrorism. Diego Fuentes had
never allowed himself to be infected with the

fanatical beliefs that drove such men. He'd supply them
with arms; after all, according to Diego, that was

business. But he would not allow the network he had worked
a lifetime to build to be threatened by the

infiltration of terrorism.

At least he had a line in the sand, Ian thought mockingly.
He could infect babies with drugs, murder his

own people, make whores out of runaways, and kidnap
helpless young women, but he wasn't a terrorist.

Breathing out roughly at the thought, he flicked his
fingers at his bodyguards—Deke, Mendez, Cristo,

and Trevor—and headed to the study.

The four men had been working on suggestions for the new supply
routes as well as security for the

warehouses and transportation.

He stood in the middle of the study as the others entered.
Cristo, shorter than the others but no less