Navy SEALs Complete Series: 3 Books + 3 Novellas (Tempting Navy SEALs) (119 page)

“You’re my weakness.” He acknowledged the reality of it with the words.

“You’re my strength. And I’m yours, Ian. We’ll fight better, stronger, together. Don’t try to send me away.” Somber determination glittered in her eyes. “I won’t leave.”

He hadn’t even realized what he intended to do until she said the words.

“I’ll be distracted.”

“You’ll be distracted even worse when I take a two-by-four to your head after this is over. I won’t be protected. I’m
not a hothouse flower and I’m not a weakness. I know how to defend myself and you know it. Start this again and I’ll make sure you’re limping when you face Diego this morning.”

She was a wildcat. Pride swelled within him as she faced him, more determined, willful, and confident than any woman he had ever known.

“Muriel’s going to die this morning,” he warned her. “I can’t risk him informing Sorrell that we know he’s a plant. I’m killing him.”

He had learned lessons since taking over the reins of the cartel. Never give them time to get a message out. In this world, take an enemy prisoner and it was the same as giving them a knife to cut your throat. He wouldn’t risk it. Not with Kira’s life on the line as well. And taking out Muriel was one less drug-running, innocents-destroying bastard left to breathe precious air.

He knew Muriel’s guilt. Knew the crimes he had committed, just as Ian knew he was taking the task of judge and jury onto his own shoulders.

He nodded. Pulling two washcloths from the small shelf above the shower head he handed her one and kept the other for himself.

“We finished this then. Let’s shower and get to it.”

Kira dressed for battle. She wore soft figure-hugging tan leggings, a matching cotton tank top, and ankle boots made for comfort as well as endurance. She wore a shoulder holster beneath a matching dark brown blazer, but anyone with eyes, or experience, would realize she was armed.

Diego sure as hell didn’t miss it. As they stepped into the small office he used, his head turned from where he sat with his cousin Muriel, the traitorous bastard, his brow lifting as he met Kira’s gaze, then Ian’s.

“She’s armed?” There was an edge of condescension in his voice as he directed the question to Ian.

“She’s not the first woman to go to war with her lover.” Ian’s voice snapped with ire as he strode across the room
and, as Diego’s expression turned to disbelief, used the butt of his pistol against the back of Muriel’s head.

The other man slumped against his chair, his coarse black hair feathering over his swarthy features. He was unconscious before he knew what hit him. Diego was out of his seat, suspicion tightening his features even before he pinned Ian with black, furious eyes.

“What has he done?”

Kira could tell Ian was surprised by the question. It flickered in his gaze for only a second before he motioned Deke over.

“Strip him. Make certain he’s not wearing a skin tag then have him bound and held in the basement. I’ll deal with him later,” Ian ordered Deke.

The bodyguard wrestled the broad Colombian from his chair, hefted him over his shoulder, and left the room. Trevor, Mendez, and Cristo placed themselves in defensive positions around Ian and Kira.

Diego’s gaze tracked their movements before he turned back to Ian.

Suave, dressed in dark slacks and a white silk shirt, his black and gray hair still full and pulled back to his neck and bound with black elastic, the father stared back at the son coolly.

“I believe I asked you a question, Ian,” he stated. “What has he done?”

Ian lifted the file he carried in the other hand and slapped it down on the table between the two chairs Diego and Muriel had occupied.

“He’s been giving Ascarti, and in turn Sorrell, information on the entire network. I told you to keep this son of a bitch out of the loop. Do you remember that, Diego?”

Despair flashed in Diego’s black eyes as he sat down slowly and opened the file. In living color, the pictures were displayed before him.

Kira glanced at Ian’s face and swore she saw a flash of
regret, but it was gone as quickly as it had come, and had been missed by Diego as his attention centered on the photos.

“There was no need for him to betray us,” Diego whispered heavily. “I would have given him whatever he asked for.”

“Now you can give him what he deserves,” Ian snapped. “Or I will.”

Diego’s lips twisted bitterly as he lifted his gaze to Ian. Kira saw the pain, a flash of anger, and a soul-deep sadness she knew the other man had no right to feel.

“I cannot kill a maid who would give this information to our enemies, but I may kill my cousin who was like a brother to me since his birth?”

“You demanded the right to seek retribution.” Ian shrugged. “You can take it, or as I said, I will. I have no problems killing the bastard. Liss was another story, Diego, and you don’t want to remind me of that one.”

“Then you may have the pleasure.” Diego shook his head wearily.

“Growing soft, pop?” Ian snapped. “Maybe it will help you to know that Muriel was behind the attempt to blow my limo to hell last week. If that doesn’t faze you, try the meeting with the Misserns and the fucking assassin waiting for me there. He’s going to die, and he’s going to die before he can contact his good friend Ascarti again and warn him that we’re on to him.”

Diego’s eyes narrowed. “You have proof of Ascarti’s involvement with Sorrell?”

“I have something a hell of a lot better than that,” Ian growled. “I need you ready to move at a moment’s notice. When the call comes in we’ll be meeting with Sorrell himself, and we’ll end this war once and for all.”

Ian was frighteningly cold. Kira watched him warily, seeing the fury he had kept under control for so long edging to the surface now.

Diego, Jansen Clay, and Sorrell had taken great delight
in torturing Nathan Malone, the SEAL they had held for more than a year and half. Ian knew Diego had been involved in the torture, knew he condoned it and added to it even after Sorrell had believed the SEAL had been killed.

Regret might be a fragile light buried somewhere deep within him, but she knew in that moment that Diego was a dead man walking.

“And you have arranged this how?” Diego moved from his chair to the bar across the room, his hand shaking, Kira noticed, as he poured himself a drink and brought it to his lips.

It was tossed back quickly and another poured before he turned back to Ian, his brow lifting in question. “I believe I asked you for details, son.”

Kira saw the slight tension that tightened Ian’s shoulders, the natural defensive block against the flinch that nearly betrayed his disgust at that word.

She could feel his pain. She couldn’t see it, but she ached for him. Ached because this man was his father, this monster that shed blood, filled children with drugs and destroyed lives without a thought to the tragedies that resulted from his actions.

Ian faced this man daily. Faced the horror and the agonizing realization that he had come from this man’s seed. Kira wondered if she could have borne that pressure without breaking, and knew she couldn’t have. Something inside her would have died had she been forced to play the game Ian was playing.

“I don’t have details for you, pop.” Ian’s voice was savage. “I have something he wants now, and he’ll come for it.”

Brutal fire flickered in Ian’s gaze then. “I’ll take care of your cousin, you get ready to move, we may have to leave at a moment’s notice.”

“You are allowing me to play now?” Sarcasm filled Diego’s voice. “What? Hell has frozen over? To what do I owe this glorious surge of allegiance that you would finally involve me in my own business?”

Pain. Kira watched the pain that burned in Diego’s eyes as Ian mentioned killing Muriel.

“Give it up, pop. I promised you, when the time came we’d do this together, and that’s what we’re doing,” Ian snapped, the disrespect in the title nearly causing Kira to flinch now. If she didn’t know Ian as well as she did she might believe he was enjoying this. But she saw the subtle shifts of color in his eyes, saw the tension that tightened his body.

Diego stared at him silently, his face creased with sorrow, before he nodded wearily and turned back to the bar. The room was thick with tension, with the powerful opposing force of the two men and the connections that bound them, as well as set them on opposite courses.

For Kira, it was heartbreaking, though she knew to Ian it was finally the beginning of the end of this mission, the end of the lifestyle he had been forced to live and the blood that was shed daily.

Ian fought the knowledge that Diego was hurting, fought the memories, the pain of regret as he relived the times he too had been betrayed by those he had trusted. Not that it had happened often; Ian had never been a particularly trusting sort. But he knew the pain, the shame, he knew how it cringed inside the soul and left a lasting scar.

How Diego Fuentes could feel such shame because of a betrayal, Ian wasn’t certain. The man should have burst into flames and died a thousand deaths from the horrors he had perpetuated over the years.

Hope lit a fragile light in Diego’s eyes though as Ian told him they would be working together. Like a child that had been kicked one time too many, the older man quickly hid the emotion.

What the fuck was he doing? Ian asked himself. He should have never taken this mission, should have never put it into action in the first place. He should have just put a rifle scope on his ass and pulled the trigger despite orders.

The DEA wanted him alive. DHS wanted him alive.
Everyone wanted him alive and Ian had sworn to kill him. He would kill him. God as his witness; no matter how despicable the action would be, there was no other way. He couldn’t allow another SEAL, another friend, to suffer because he had betrayed Diego as well.

“When do you expect this meeting to take place?” Diego’s voice was oddly weary, resigned.

“I’m hoping soon.” Ian crossed his arms over his chest and stared back at him. “We have something he wants, badly.”

“And that is?” He seemed uninterested, more concerned with the amount of liquor he could consume now than he was about the imminent end of his worst enemy.

“We have his daughter.”

He stared back at Ian in shock, then in glee.

“I thought she was mere wishful thinking.” He blinked back at Ian in disbelief. “You have her? She is here? In the villa?” His eyes widened as satisfaction began to gleam in them. “Is she in the basement?”

Ian felt his teeth snap together in fury.

The son of a bitch, even now, nothing could touch him but the scent of death or the dirty little games he played in that fucking basement. Or the death of a friend who played those games with him as Muriel had done.

“She’s not in the basement,” he snapped, the anger leaking into his voice. “I have her and she’s safe, that’s all you need to be concerned with.”

Diego grimaced. “You have never understood the value of the little games I play, have you, Ian?”

“No I don’t and we’re not going to discuss them now.” Sometimes he felt as though he were dealing with a particularly willful child when it came to Diego.

He missed Diego’s subtle smile, but Kira caught the shift of the other man’s lips and the playful curl of fondness in Diego’s black eyes.

H
E WAS PUSHING IAN’S BUTTONS
. He wasn’t serious about taking Tehya to the playroom forcefully, from what she understood, Diego liked his playmates willing. But he was serious gauging Ian’s temper or his mood. Like a teenager poking at his father’s authority. Kira imagined Diego saw it as a game, a prick against Ian for the autocratic way he had taken over the cartel rather than sharing the business as Diego had dreamed.

Diego had wanted a son to share the finer things in life with, and Ian wasn’t sharing. They didn’t kill together, because Ian became angry whenever Diego shed blood. They didn’t plot together and they didn’t plan together, so Diego poked at him, prodded, and found what amusement he could. A small amount of gratitude, a measure of confidence that his son felt some small emotion for him, because Ian didn’t slice into him. Because he didn’t blow up and he didn’t threaten to kill or leave. Diego believed there was hope.

Guilt sliced at Kira once again. How hard would it be to watch him die if she couldn’t stop Ian from killing him? To know that, monster though he was, he was a monster who craved his son’s attention, and even more, his love.

Kira felt a wave of pity so sharp, so intense, she had to
turn her head away from Diego; unfortunately, she found herself staring straight into Ian’s eyes instead. Eyes that saw too much, that arrowed in on that pity and narrowed warningly.

Back off.

He didn’t have to say the words, she could feel the demand. He didn’t want to see it, he didn’t want to hear it. And he didn’t want to regret it. But she could see the regret in his eyes, regret and determination.

“Games are the spice of life, Ian.” Diego’s comment dragged Ian’s attention from her and back to him. Where he wanted it. His attention was better off there, off her and the guilt raging through her.

“Games are a pain in the ass.” Ian shrugged. “I want you to get your men in place, have them converge on and assume protective parameters around the warehouse we have outside Oranjestad. Sorrell will assume we’re hiding her there. We’ll see if he intends to attack or negotiate.”

“But the girl is not there,” Diego murmured as he moved to his desk and the open laptop on it.

As he took his chair, a frown flitted over his brow. His fingers began to move on the keypad quickly.

“The warehouse wasn’t purchased under a known cartel enterprise,” he informed Ian. “We’ve actually been using it for a few legal purposes rather than illegal.” There was a measure of surprise in his tone as he reached for the phone and pulled the receiver toward him.

Ian caught Diego’s hand as he began to dial the numbers. Kira watched, as surprised as Diego was when Ian hung the phone up carefully.

He pulled the small electronic device from a holder on the waistband of his jeans. It had Kira sighing; she still hadn’t been allowed to play with the jamming device. Ian flipped it on, set it close to the phone then indicated that Diego could make the call.