Sweet Seduction Surrender (28 page)

My heart fell. If I hadn't have met Richard Tremayne we wouldn't be here. Nick under question, under threat of arrest, due to a crime he didn't commit. Jason beaten, maybe broken enough to tip him over the edge into that dark abyss. Me facing off against a monster of a man who played with people's lives like a game of chess. And Tremayne, dead.

All because Mrs Montgomery-Smith had told her husband's acquaintance about my work and Richard had liked what he'd seen.

"So, you see, my dear," King said, bringing my focus back to the room. "All roads lead to me. And your brother, with his penchant to interfere in my business. He pulled a gun on me, you know. Fired with intent to kill. How am I not to repay him in kind?"

"Didn't you shoot first?" I asked, trying to stall, trying to give Detective Pierce time to arrive and end this before I had to take that fateful step.

"Only after he stole something that was rightfully mine," King spat. If you could call the way he spoke, spitting.

"Abi is not a possession," I pointed out. It had been while rescuing Abi from King's clutches that a gun fight had broken out. Eva had told me. Another reminder of what sort of world Nicholas Anscombe walked in. A world that overlapped into mine.

My eyes flicked to Jason's on the floor. He was watching me. I tried to still my gasp of breath at seeing him conscious. He gave a small shake of his head, as if to say,
look away, don't react.
Even when he demands with just a glance and no words, I obeyed. Immediately.

My eyes returned swiftly to King's and I held his eager, and quite wrong, gaze. King was crazy. Crazier than Tremayne. Crazier than my ex-soldier. His crazy was on a whole other level, making both Richard and Jason seem down right normal.

"What now, if you don't mind me asking?" I said. So casual. So unaffected. Who would have known I could pull off nonchalant while facing my death, and the death of my lover, so easily.

"A message. A gift, if you will, " King said, straightening his suit sleeve cuffs. Preparing to leave, I think.

Nick had once said that a message from Declan King could be fatal. That a gift definitely was.

I blinked slowly. Took in a measured, calm breath of air. Centred myself using a technique my trainer had taught me. Glanced at Jason, who flicked a gaze at the geek looking guy - the closest man to him in the room and his obvious target. Leaving me both King and his goon of a mountain, who had a gun still pointed at my chest.

The odds weren't good. But I am not your average victim. I may look all sweet and refined. Dressed in my tailored trousers. My designer blouse. My made to measure jacket. And my thousand dollar shoes. I may carry myself like I went to finishing school, as though I belong in the social elite of Auckland city.

But I don't. I am my hard-nosed lawyer father's daughter. My private investigator brother's sister. My soldier boyfriend’s woman. I belong in their world, which is a million miles away from the privately educated, socially elite, upper echelons of society that King saw when he looked at me right now.

I smiled. It was slow and calculating and the only warning they would get.

They missed its intention. King taking a step toward the gun toting behemoth beside him, and opening his mouth to issue a command. No doubt something along the lines of,
after you kill her, make sure you dispose of her body well
.

And in a coordinated move, which God alone knows how we achieved it, Jason rolled smoothly to a crouch, while I unleashed two SOG Fusion throwing knives directly at King and mountain-man's chests.

The room squeezed down on us, as though the walls and ceiling began closing in and the air started to freeze. I could still hear. I could still see, although what I saw was no longer normal. I could still feel; the sweat coating my skin, the tremble in my fingers, the sick feeling of inevitability rolling out towards me inside my gut. I swallowed bile, sucked in a choked gulp of air, and reacted.

Despite the fear which gripped me in a claw-like clasp, practice made me move. My training kicked in, even as my mind threatened to rebel at what it was seeing.

Red.

Just a splash, a stripe across pale skin. A drip, suspended in the air as it flew from its origin out towards the ground, gravity pulling it downwards. My knives had found their targets. Clean shots, exacting maximum damage.

But it wasn't enough. A flash of dark clothing told me King was on the move, but his figure was obscured by a mountain of rage. Snarling, spitting fury storming towards me. The glint of artificial lights flashing off the dull black of a weapon.

My heart stalled. My brain faltered. My body took over the fight.

I rolled to the left, out of the responding fire from the huge man's gun, feeling the bullet blast past me in a burst of heated air. The sound momentarily deafened me. The ache of my shoulder slamming into concrete stole all reason. Just for a second of panicked time. I blinked, tried to focus. Tried to get my bearings. Jason was behind the geek, two hands on either side of his head. A short twist, and the body crumpled to the floor.

Then the scene rapidly sped up again, sound returning, so much it left confusion, not clarity in its wake. The yell of rage from the huge mountain staggering towards me. The vile look of death across his face. My head swam with my trainer's instructions, my mind trying futilely to respond to the stimuli it was receiving. Violent anger. Course words of lethal intent. The cold hard floor beneath my knees. The piercing ache in my shoulder where I'd fallen.

For a split second, which felt like forever, I thought I was dead. That the next bullet had already reached me. But while my head was imploding and the world outside my mind was exploding, my body was still acting on auto-pilot. I threw a third, and then a fourth knife in quick succession, into the advancing shape of the infuriated and wounded mob boss's goon. He stumbled, clutched at his chest with one hand and the side of his neck with the other. Futilely trying to staunch the flow of blood.

He would bleed out, my fracturing mind informed me. But my frantically beating heart told me, he was determined to reach me first.

The fifth and sixth knives entered his femoral artery on his right hand side, and his chest on his left. The feel of the ribbed rubber hilts still ghosts of sensations in my cold, clammy palms. My hands shook, my body quaked. My lips trembled as sounds of distress began to whimper out of me. I'd acted as I'd been trained to do, but nothing prepares you for this. Nothing prepares you for death.

Death is real. Death is loud. Death is gritty. Death is final.

The blood loss associated with my well aimed throws would kill this man eventually. If not within the next few seconds. But the knife in the heart stilled all flow of blood completely. I knew this, as I watched the blade flick through the air between me and my target, slowly rotating tip over hilt in a beautiful arc that defied gravity and embraced my will instead. I knew exactly where it would embed itself before it cleaved through flesh, severed arteries, and pierced the organ. I knew.

And I'd aimed true. My intent...
to kill.

The mountain of a man fell to the ground with a resounding thump. Unmoving.

Shock made the world split apart, adrenaline brought it back into a kind of focus. My trainer's voice a blinding light in amongst the shadows filling my vision.

"It's them or you. Guns kill. But knives can save your life. Use them."

My Kukri was in my hand in the next instant, raised and ready to take on King now that I was an open target. No longer covered by the form of his enormous sidekick.

But was it King who approached me? Softly, carefully, as though I might slice him without even intending to.

"Shhh," someone murmured. "It's OK. It's over, baby. Put down the knife."

My vision warped, colours streaming before my eyes. Shapes coming in and out of focus. I slashed out at the threat, unable to register if the shadowy form before me may be King or not.

"Stay back!" I shouted, just as doors banged open and booted feet pounded across the concrete floor.

My head threatened to split in two, the sound reverberating inside my skull.
Thudda-thudda, thud-thud, thud
. A thousand feet pounding over pavement, tattooing my eardrums, matching the rhythm of my heart.

"Holster your weapons!" someone cried frantically. "I've got this!"

My blood pounded in my ears, beneath my skin, and all I could see were multi-hued shapes. Twisting, turning, creeping forward and pulling back. Nothing made sense, except an overriding need to defend myself. To not die. To not be a victim.

I crab crawled backwards until my back hit a wall, which only escalated the sense of panic and the desire to escape. I made a mewling sound, then strengthened my hold on the knife I wielded before me. Watching distractedly as the lights in the room glinted dimly off the dull blade as it waved back and forth before my eyes.

The leather wrapped hilt felt real. The world around me did not.

"Kate!" a familiar and demanding voice said. "Put the knife down. Now!"

I panted, forcing oxygen into my lungs. Gripping the hilt of the blade as though it was my anchor. If I released it, I would fade into black, slip down the sharp edge I could feel off to the side. The one that seemed so dark.

If the shadow before me stepped closer, I
would
strike. I would not be pushed easily over that verge. I would go down fighting. Just like Nick would. Just like Jason would. I would not give up. I'd die trying.

"I'm going to give you a countdown from three," the voice said, a note of desperation in its tone.

I stopped breathing.

"Three," he said, as though through gritted teeth.

The knife suddenly felt heavy in my grasp. I lowered it slightly, then sucked in a breath of air and straightened my arm.

"Two," the voice murmured, closer.

How did he get closer?

"Come on, baby. Come back to me."

I blinked my eyes, trying to get the hazy images before me to come into focus. But my mind was misfiring, and all I could see were threatening black shadows on the edges of my vision.

"One."

I shook my head to clear the fog, to shake the memory of what had just happened. The vision of blood splattered chests. A jugular vein severed by a knife. A gun firing no less than ten feet away. The sound of the bullet ricocheting off a wall at my back.

My head spun to check the wall I was pressed against. A jagged and broken hole where a bullet had landed was no less than a foot away. I gulped in more air.

"You know what happens at zero, Kate?" the voice asked softly. Almost an intimate whisper.

I shook my head. Zero. I liked zero, didn't I?

"I remind you what you mean to me," the voice whispered, by my ear. "Understand?"

Understand.

Understand
.

A shattering, heartbreaking, soul mending breath left me.

Understand.

The knife clattered to the floor and my arms wrapped around Jason, a sobbing, hitched sound escaping my lips.

"Kate," he whispered, burying his face in my neck. "Welcome back, baby."

Welcome back.

I'd been to hell and now I was back. And Jason, my darling, broken, imperfect, perfect man, knew exactly what hell I'd just visited. He'd lived there once too. And just like now, he'd returned to the land of the living. Just like me. He'd used an anchor to bring him back.

I'm Jason Cain's anchor. And he is mine.

Understand?

"You ready for this?"

I glanced up at the face before me. A face I'd come to know so well, so intimately, so completely.

For three weeks Jason had not left my side. Conscious that a flashback could happen at any time, determined to be there for me when I needed anchoring. When I needed to be pulled from the torrent of dark images that threatened to suck me down.

I'd had one undeniably life altering and entirely too horrific experience, which had created an untold number of images in my head. Images that were quite happy to run on repeat. When I didn't expect it, I'd see Jason in a bundle of what appeared to be broken bones on the concrete floor. He hadn't been broken, merely ruffled - his words, not mine. He was playing possum, aware that King and his men had spotted me, hoping to give me time to escape.

I hadn't. Therefore the images that popped up uninvited reminding me of that one experience, in technicoloured, surround sound.

Tremayne dead.

King cocky and deranged.

The mountain goon, who I later found out was nicknamed, Truro. Blood. Blood. And more blood. Because of me.

It was all because of me. My design at the Montgomery-Smith's. Tremayne's immediate connection to what I had created, and his consequent attraction and infatuation with me. It all led to Declan King's decision to use his business acquaintance's connection to an Anscombe, to send a message to my brother, Nick.

The message would have been clear. Interfere in my business again, and I'll a find a way to bury you. Whether through a framed crime, or the death of a loved one. Declan King's messages were always severe.

And he wasn't even dead. Or arrested. He'd escaped. Like a phantom, he had returned to Tremayne's warehouse, and then left it again after the events, and somehow managed it all under the scrutiny of Horse in the SAS.

But 'radar' had come up blank. Whoever was hiding Declan King, was doing it well. The Police were on his trail, but it was a trail that seemed to lead nowhere. No one was certain if Declan King would return and exact revenge. He had simply vanished. But we all knew; Nick, ASI, Jason and me, all of us associated to this moment, we
knew
we hadn't seen the last of Declan King.

And still I had flashbacks. Little things would set them off. Inconsequential things. The motorway on ramp at Newmarket. In particular the South bound lanes. The entrance to ASI. My mirror in my walk-in-wardrobe. Any knife, be it a steak knife, a butter knife, or a SOG Fusion throwing knife. Red. But only the shade of red that mimics blood. Loud bangs, sharp retorts. The smell of wet paint.

I have no idea where that last one comes from. Maybe it reminds my subconscious of the decoration at Tremayne Arts. I don't know. But I don't think I would manage to stay long in a room with my builders. But as yet, I've not had to test that theory. I've taken a break from work.

And throughout all of these inconvenient, yet paralysing memories and triggers, I have to remind myself that I only experienced hell once. Jason has multiple experiences to draw on, and yet somehow he handles it so well. Somehow he finds a way out of the memory, into the sunshine. His way back home.

I reached up and cupped his cheek. There was a week's worth of stubble there. He didn't normally let his facial hair become so unruly, but Jason was enjoying life, despite his obvious concern for my mental wellbeing. He was celebrating being alive. Being present. Being with me.

I think I could do the same. With a little more time.

"I'm ready," I said resolutely.

I received a raised eyebrow at that.

"Baby," he started.

"Yes, yes. I know. I'm a terrible liar," I shot back with a smirk. "Only to you, you know."

"I was aware of the effect I have over you, Kate," Jason said smugly. His hands running down both my sides, settling on my waist and then hauling me tight against his groin. He rolled his hips, making me fight a moan at the intimate movement.

Too intimate for the front pathway of Gen and Dom's house.

I went to push away and he grasped my hands, linking our fingers together.

"Do you want to know something?" he asked.

"What?" I replied, unable to hide my smile. He was playing, planning something. I could tell. I'd got very used to Jason's games.

He leaned forward and breathed hot air across my lips, then murmured, "I love you in this dress."

I couldn't stop the moan from slipping out when his lips pressed against mine. I tried to lift my hands to his hair, the first thing I do when Jason kisses me. It's imperative to anchor myself to his body, or I lose all sense of myself. But he gripped my fingers, pulled my hands up between us, and then crushed them between our bodies as he delved his tongue inside my mouth.

It was several delicious, sanity stealing minutes later, that the door opened at the front of Dom's house.

"You two are making a scene. My neighbours might call the cops."

Dominic.

"The cops are already here, my man. No need to dial 111."

Pierce.

"Leave them alone. You'd be no better if you felt in the mood for a kiss."

Genevieve.

"Sweetheart. I'm always in the mood to kiss you."

Dom again.

"Well, I'm in the mood for food. Can't we haul their arses inside so we can serve up dinner."

And that rounds out my siblings. Nick.

"Cowboy! Don't rush a perfect moment. Kisses like that need to be respected."

Eva.

"I'd sure as hell respect anyone who kissed me the way Jase is kissing Katie."

And that would be Kelly. I sighed. Jason chuckled.

"Jealousy will get you nowhere, Kels," he said, dancing chocolate eyes still on me.

I sank willingly into those pools of delicious brown. Blocked out everything else around us. Whether our audience continued to pass comment, I didn't know. I didn't care. All that mattered was Jason and the way he looked at me. As though I was his air. His world.

His anchor.

But Sunday barbecue ritual at Dom and Gen's was not to be delayed. The mouth watering smells of grilled meet wafting out of the open door, making my stomach rumble and Jason laugh even louder.

"My girl needs feeding. Gotta keep your energy levels up," he said with a wicked smirk. Then leaned closer to whisper, "That dress is screaming for attention. My kind of attention. What do you say I squirrel you away down one of Dom's countless hallways and have my delicious way with you?"

My eyes flicked up to his and I offered a wicked smile of my own.

"Just say the word, baby. And I'm there."

He let a breath of air out that sounded pained. He shook his head, and said instead, "Food. Inside. Now."

I chuckled to myself as I walked up the steps, relieved to see our audience had retreated inside. We found them in the dining room, helping themselves to overflowing plates of good Kiwi tucker. Barbecued steaks and sausages, fried onion rings, and pasta and loose leaf green salads, Watties tomato sauce, and freshly buttered bread. A feast for friends. For family.

Papa wrapped an arm around my shoulder as I approached the table, giving me a kiss on the head. And then turned to shake Jason's hand. I don't why I had expected him to behave otherwise. Jacob Anscombe was a man who saw what he wanted and set out to take it, claim it and make her his. He recognised the same conviction in Jason. He respected it.

Even after everything my brothers had put my soldier man through, he had still kept coming back for more, just to be with me. And in the end, he proved himself. He had hunted down Tremayne, uncovered King's complicity, and cleared Nick and ASI's names.

Even Nick and Dom couldn't find fault in that.

"So, are you going to come back to work, or what?" Nick suddenly asked, making the whole room hush. All eyes flicked between my brother and Jason.

Jason finished piling a good serving of pasta salad onto his plate. It was my pasta salad. I'd dropped it off earlier in the day, when I swung by to check on Gen. Morning sickness was taking its toll. Once he'd placed the right amount of salad on his plate, Jason lifted his head to offer a steely gaze at Nick.

"I thought I'd take a month off. Take Kate a on holiday. Get away for a bit." I wasn't aware he wanted to take me on holiday, but the thought of sunning it up somewhere, just Jason and me, appealed. I returned his smile when his eyes met mine.

Nick flexed his jaw. The room remained silent, observant, breath-holdingly quiet.

"OK. After that," he said, through gritted teeth. Clearly my brother hadn't quite reached the same level of acceptance that my father had with Jason. That angered me. I took a step closer to Jason, who placed his plate down on the table with care and wrapped an arm around my shoulder.

"Yeah. Maybe after that," Jason replied, levelly.

The room breathed a sigh of relief, which was sucked back in when Nick said, "You moved in with Katie?"

Several shocked gasps and harshly spoken warnings of "Nick!" sounded out around the room. He ignored them, even though the loudest had been from my mother and Eva.

"Son," Papa tried to intervene. Nick just raised his hand to stall him.

"Have you, Cain?"

"Yeah," Jason said slowly, dragging the word out.

"Are you gonna make a decent woman of her?"

Oh good God. My mouth hung open, matched by several others present who were all unable to look away from this disastrous scene unfolding.

Jason crossed his arms over his chest, stood up taller and glared back at Nick.

"You mean, am I going to marry her?"

"Yes, that's exactly what I mean," Nick shot back.

"I think you've said enough, Nicholas," my father announced, in his lawyerly voice.

"Come on, Nick," Dominic murmured, from off to the side, his arm wrapped protectively around a stunned and teary eyed Genevieve. "Just let it go."

"I will not let it go!" Nick almost shouted back. "We all know what he's like. I'd just like to be proven wrong. And a little confirmation that this fucking head case is committed to our sister, wouldn't go astray."

More shouted and disgusted, "Nicks!" sounded out.

Followed by a "Bad call." And a "Not cool." And I think a "Whoa,
e hoa
. Chill."

"Why don't you ask Kate," Jason announced into the uneasy silence that followed that round of reactions.

My hand flew up to my hair and I smoothed my ponytail down. Jason and I had not discussed marriage. Too much had happened, we were still recovering from the warehouse to think long term. I knew I wanted him in my life forever. I was sure he wanted the same with me. But we hadn't addressed it. Did he want me to be the one to take that next step? Was he unable to for some reason? That dark abyss too threatening to consider drawing me permanently into his life?

I'd already decided I would fight for Jason. I would lay down my life to call him back from that bleak edge, if need be. But he'd shown me a strength in himself, in me, I hadn't known had existed. An ability to survive, to overcome experiences, to concentrate on the good that surrounds us, rather than the bad that shadows our minds sometimes.

He'd proven that to me, again and again. I'd willingly accepted who he was, and he'd willingly surrendered to what he felt for me.

So, marriage wasn't out of the realms of possibilities, was it?

"What’s on your finger, Katie?" Gen suddenly asked.

I pulled my right arm down and glanced at my naked hand.

"No the other one," Kelly said excitedly.

My left hand met my right in front of me and I gasped.

There, sitting proud and pretty, was a diamond ring. Glinting in the lights of the room, sparkling brightly, dazzlingly, incredibly. And totally unexpectedly. I hadn't had a ring on my finger when I left home. I'm sure there wasn't one on my hand when I got out of Jason's car.

I stared at the obvious engagement ring and didn't say a word.

"Baby?" Jason asked, sounding a little hesitant. "You gonna answer your brother?"

Nick started chuckling, taking a large sip from his bottle of beer, as though this was all perfectly normal. My eyes flicked up to his.

"You knew about this?" I asked. He shrugged his shoulders and then saluted Jason with his bottle of beer.

The whole room started to break into amused and enthusiastic laughter. A few rounds of applause and the odd shout of, "Congratulations!" rang out.

I turned and glared at Jason. He smirked.

"Well?" he whispered, moving closer, his arms wrapping around my waist, but leaving enough space between us so I could still stare at the engagement ring on my finger. "You going to do what you're told, Kate?"

I arched my brow at that.

"Baby," he purred. "Do you need a countdown from three?"

Oh, he would love that wouldn't he?

I sucked in a breath of excited air and glanced back down at the ring. It was beautiful, but not a traditional shaped stone. This one was unique. Elongated with a pointed tip, rounded at the base. Pear shaped I think. Not the precise princess or emerald cut favoured so much these days. But something unusual, something a little less perfect.