Killer Secrets (41 page)

because all she was there to do was watch and make certain
the exchange of information was completed.

God. Damn. Information targeted to Sorrell.

In Afghanistan, Tehya had worked with the Red Cross. The
CIA had suspected the terrorist cells there

to have ties to Sorrell.

Hurricane Katrina. Sorrell had used the devastation and
chaos there to raid several government offices.

Kira had tracked two of his men there and coordinated with
the small team she had gone in with as they

attempted to apprehend them.

Sorrell's men had not only escaped, but had escaped with
classified files regarding several federal

investigations into a terrorist network they had uncovered.

Tehya had been there.

The day she was leaving she had spotted the girl outside
those offices, staring up at them, her eyes

narrowed. As though she had known she was being watched,
her gaze had found Kira's, locked with it,

those haunted eyes shadowed and desperate.

And Kira had misread the desperation.

She lowered herself to the small cushioned chair in the
corner of the opulent bathroom and pressed her

fists into her eyes.

She had just watched that same girl endure being chained to
the wall, dressed in nothing but her T-shirt

and panties . . .

Terror had flashed in her eyes as Antoli Kovalyov chained
her securely before pulling the black mask

over his face. He had jerked her head back roughly by her
long red hair, cupped her neck in his hands,

and stared at the camera.

"We have your daughter, Sorrell." His hand had
left her neck, gripped her hips with enough force to

redden the skin, and jerked her around just enough for the
camera to pan in on the birthmark. "As you

can see, she carries your mark. You want her, you will now
deal with Fuentes."

The camera had panned back to her face. Defiant, her eyes
riotous with fear and fury, Tehya had glared

at the lens with murderous rage.

God. She was nothing more than a kid. A kid that should
have been in college, laughing with her friends,

partying too much maybe. Kira fought the monsters in the
world so kids like that would be safe, and she

hadn't even noticed a child in danger when she had met her.

The bathroom door opened slowly. She heard it. She knew it
was Ian, but she couldn't lift her head,

couldn't take her fists from her eyes or, God help her, she
would cry. And tears wouldn't help anything. It

sure as hell wouldn't relieve the pain and fear Tehya had
experienced.

"It will be over soon and she'll be safe." She
felt Ian kneel in front of her, one hand pushing her hair over

her shoulder as the other cupped her face. "It's not
your fault, Kira. You can't save the world."

She sniffed, feeling like a child, like she had felt the
morning her uncle had awakened her and told her

that her parents were gone. She felt lost. And she felt
responsible.

She shook her head.

"When my mother and I were running from Carmelita
Fuentes all those years ago, I apologized. I told

my mother how sorry I was that she was suffering because of
me. That she should contact Diego. Tell

him about me, and give me up so she would be free."

Kira lowered her fists, the first tear falling from her
eyes as she glared back at him. "That wasn't

acceptable."

A small smile tugged at his lips. Lips she loved to kiss,
loved to feel on her flesh.

"She said pretty much the same thing. She said we
can't save everyone, but we can damned sure as hell

fight to save those we love. And she loved me. She would
die for me. She nearly died." His tobacco gaze

darkened, grew fiery. "But she taught me something,
Kira. She taught me that we can only do our best.

You've done your best. Tehya survived, and God willing,
she'll survive this along with the rest of us. But

you can only do your best, not beat yourself up because you
missed something or someone. It makes

you weak. And you can't afford to be weak right now."

His fingertips stroked down her cheek as he stared back at
her, his rough-hewn face creased into lines

of concern as his lips drew her gaze again.

"I should have known." She shook her head as
another tear fell and pain roughened her voice. "It's in her

eyes, it was in her eyes then, and I didn't pay attention.
She was right there in my face and I didn't see the

child she was, or the desperation in her eyes."

"Did you see it in mine?" he asked her then.
"Every time I saw you—"

"You got horny." She smiled at the thought, her
voice husky.

"Hornier than hell," he agreed. "And
desperate to taste you."

"I saw that." She sniffed. "I felt it."

"I looked forward to seeing you. Every time I knew you
were close, I looked for you."

"You're trying to distract me," she said,
sighing. "You should let me kick myself a while longer."

"No kicking allowed." He cupped her face in his
hands and drew her forward, his lips moving to the

tears that streaked her face, kissing them away, filling
her with a warmth, a need, she had only found in

Ian's arms.

"I was married once," she told him, wondering why
the hell that had fallen from her lips.

Ian drew back and stared at her silently for long minutes
before nodding slowly. "I know."

"He left me." She fought to still the trembling
of her lips. "Did you know he left me?"

She was shaking, which really made no sense. It was so long
ago. A lifetime ago.

"I knew he filed for the divorce." He was so
tender. He pushed her hair back again, leaned forward and

kissed the corner of her trembling lips.

"Because he didn't know me." She could barely
force the words out. "Because I didn't let him know me.

Didn't let him know that every time I left town on business
for Uncle Jason that I was facing more danger

than he could imagine. He couldn't have handled it. He
would have demanded that I stop, and I couldn't

stop."

He tilted his head and stared at her curiously, waiting,
watching, his gaze understanding. She wanted to

scream at him, wanted him to understand that she was
flawed, that she didn't always see the things that

she should, that she didn't always do the things she
should.

She wanted to warn him that she was betraying him, but if
she did, God help her, if she did, he would

make certain she didn't have the chance.

"And you couldn't handle telling him the truth."
His hands stroked over her shoulders, her upper arms.

"He would have felt betrayed," she whispered.

He nodded again. "You were his wife, it was his job to
stand beside you, Kira. It wasn't your job to

protect him from the truth."

That was such a male point of view, and one guaranteed to
piss her off. She opened her lips to argue

when she found his fingers pressed against them.

"It's instinct," he said then. "For
centuries, it's been our job to protect our home, our women, and our

children. We're emotional cowards. We don't talk about our
feelings, we're not comfortable putting our

soul into words. So we give of ourselves the only way we
know how. We protect. We smother those we

love in protection, fight for ways to keep them always
safe, even from what we deem as a threat from

themselves. It's in our genes, Kira. Right or wrong.
Emotions are harder for a man to voice, strength is

much easier for us to show. It's not an insult, it's the
way men show their emotions for those they love.

You can't change it."

"I can protect myself."

"And you shouldn't have to, no more than Tehya should
have had to. She should have been protected,

cosseted from the evil of the world, and sheltered from a
father's madness. Instead, she learned to fight,

and she learned to survive. Just as you learned from
different circumstances. I don't want to steal your

strength. And accepting that you can walk beside me, rather
than allowing me to clear your path, isn't

always easy. Men don't ask their women to walk behind them
because they think they're inferior. They

do it because they want to shelter them."

"Because they love," she whispered painfully.

Fear slammed inside her now. She jumped to her feet,
stumbling to get around him, staring back at him

in overwhelming panic as he slowly straightened.

"You don't love me." He couldn't love her. She
couldn't allow it, not yet. It was okay to love him, to

know he would walk away from her when this was over because
of what she had been sent to do. But

not like this. She couldn't betray
his
love. Oh God, don't let him love her.

"I don't?" he questioned her, his raspy voice
stroking over her nerve endings, surging through her with

equal parts pleasure and fear.

"No. You don't." She pushed her fingers through her
hair, clenched the strands at the nape and felt the

tension tightening in her body until she wondered if she
would break. "You can't love me. Loving me is

stupid, Ian. Just ask my ex-husband. Hell, I'll even give
you his number."

Because she would have to betray him. Just as she had
betrayed her husband by not allowing him to

know her alternate life. Now she was betraying Ian by not
allowing him to know the agenda DHS had

contracted her to see through.

She reached behind her, gripped the doorknob, and pushed
the door open as he stepped toward her.

"Just ask him. He'll tell you. Loving me is the worst
mistake you could make."

She watched his expression, watched the glimmer of
amusement that lightened his whisky eyes and the

emotions that softened the savage features of his face.

He wasn't drop-dead gorgeous, he was rough, dangerous. The
features of his face were too sharp and

well defined for handsome. And now, they were even more
rugged as he stared back at her, obviously

holding back, watching her curiously.

"It's hard to find a woman who can walk beside a man
like me," he told her softly, stalking her as she

backed out of the bathroom. "I'm a prick on a good
day, and I have all those male faults that keep telling

me I should push you behind me, cover you, shelter you.
We'll never bore each other, Kira."

She shook her head, her heart lodging in her throat as she
fought any idea that what he could feel for her

went beyond lust and a need to find solace amid the life he
had been living.

Love was for later, she told herself. It wasn't for now.
Not until he knew the truth of her, the truth of

what she had been sent to do, and she couldn't tell him
that now.

For the first time in her adult life the woman was
overshadowing the Chameleon and she was regretting.

Regretting the mission, regretting the woman she had become
and the deceit she had learned too well.

She was regretting the years she had held back, forcing
herself back from Ian, forcing distance between

them.

She was learning parts of herself she hadn't imagined
existed. The sensual woman. The hunger and the

needs Ian called forth from her. The tenderness. The
insight the woman had into the man she had claimed

for her own.

She could excuse herself by saying that she was protecting
him until hell froze over, but in the end, she

knew he would never believe it. A man should never have to
face killing his own father, no matter what a

monster he might be. And the honor that was so much a part
of him would never be able to accept that

his own government had held information back from him.

She retreated further, aware that she was shaking her head
repeatedly, that some part of her brain was

rejecting the thing she wanted the most, that she had
dreamed about for so damned long.