Betrayal (27 page)

Her dark hair, loosened from her braid by his fingers, flowed across her shoulder, onto her breast. Those hot cocoa eyes that usually sparkled with energy were closed, showcasing long, thick lashes.

Her hands crossed over the soft mound of her belly. God, he loved the feminine grace of her hands. Sensual despite their grime and numerous cuts.

Her long, perfect legs were crossed at the ankles. His pulse quickened as he remembered having those legs locked around his hips as he moved inside her.

Jesus, but she fit him perfectly. And her aggression had been arousing as hell.

His blood began to burn. Dammit, he’d promised himself he wasn’t going to touch her again. They’d already made love three times.

Yet he still wanted her.

Forget it. She needed sleep and he needed distance. Because as soon as the chip was removed, he had to say good-bye.

The hell I do
, his primitive side snarled.
She’s mine
.

Kai flinched. For a moment he allowed himself to hope there was a way to keep Susana in his life. But there wasn’t. Not now.

The fact that he’d killed without remorse upset her. Made her wary. But violence was integral to his job. Kai still struggled with the satisfaction he felt when he permanently rid the world of a bad guy. How could he expect Susana to feel differently?

He dropped down from his perch to prowl the perimeter.

But the cold truth was that even if he managed to get his violent tendencies under control, his work was dangerous. Being associated with him put people at risk. The next time his cover got blown, it could be Susana lying dead in a pool of blood.

He shook his head as a wave of panic flooded him. No. He wouldn’t allow it.

Which meant he shouldn’t touch her again. The smart move would be to piss her off so badly, she’d never want to talk to him again. But that could wait until the chip had been removed. He wanted these last few precious hours to stockpile her smiles and kisses.

Thinking about the chip, his fingers curled into his palms. What if he took her to Moscow and this Dr. Ivanov wasn’t where he was supposed to be? What if he was dead?

Until they reached civilization, he had no way of giving the SSU the man’s name so they could locate him before Susana boarded a plane to Moscow. Why take her all that way if the man had died?

Yet without knowing what poison the vial contained, Kai didn’t dare try to circumvent the booby-trap. He wouldn’t even know what antidotes to have ready.

Knowing Nevsky, the poison could be of his own making with no antidote.

Kai leaned his head back against the trunk of the tree.
Face it, you know that’s not the alternative to taking her to Moscow.

Yeah, he did. But he couldn’t do it. Couldn’t send Susana into the hands of a doctor at the SSU with instructions to cut out as much of the flesh surrounding the vial as possible to keep the vial stable.

Such an operation could have serious repercussions for Susana, depending on just where the vial was embedded. And on how many layers of booby-traps her father had set.

He rolled his skull back and forth against the rough bark at the back of his head. The only acceptable outcome of this mission was for Susana to get to Dr. Ivanov and have the chip removed safely.

So Moscow it was.

Four days and counting.

S
usana awoke alone. She shivered, partly because of the loss of Kai’s body heat. But more because he’d left her alone. Not a good sign.

And with him gone, the darkness pressed down on her, reminding her that if they didn’t get out of here soon, she would die.

“Kai?”

From across the camp she heard a faint rustling of leaves. “Here.”

She closed her eyes at his voice.
Safety.

But he didn’t move any closer and she couldn’t bear being alone. “Could you please come over here and sit near me?”

She sensed his hesitation and her relief dried up. He was distancing himself from her.

No, dammit. How could he do this to her after what they’d just shared? “Please, Kai. You don’t have to touch me. I just…need to know you’re near.” Her voice broke and she cursed silently. This wasn’t at all how she’d expected the rest of the night to go. They’d made love twice more after that initial frenzy, but she still ached to have him inside her.

He made no sound crossing the clearing, but when he spoke again, his voice was right next to her. The hammock tilted as his hand reached for hers. “What’s wrong, sweetheart?”

Her fingers latched onto him. Nothing had ever felt so good as his calloused, dry skin.

The words that tumbled out of her weren’t the teasing, seductive words she’d planned. “I’m scared.”

Kai squeezed her hand.

“I don’t want to die,” she whispered.

With a gentle tug, Kai tipped her out of the hammock and into his arms. “I’m not going to let you die.” His words were fierce, but his hands as they lay her back on the survival blanket under the hammock were gentle. He stripped away her clothing with near reverence and moved over her.

She welcomed him into her body with a long sigh of completion.

“No one is going to hurt you.” The words were low, almost indistinguishable, as if his throat was full of rocks and the words had snaked their way through the blockage.

She found his face in the darkness, traced his features from memory. “Thank you,” she told him. Even though she knew it was a promise he wouldn’t be able to keep, she loved the fact that he wanted to protect her.

She brought his mouth to hers for a kiss that held both promise and loss. Joy and sorrow.

Kai kissed her back, building her pleasure slowly. Breaking her heart. Because she suspected this was the last time they’d be together like this.

After their sighs of completion faded, she asked, “Please don’t leave me alone tonight. Just hold me.”

Kai’s answer was to tuck her close against his side and wrap his arms around her.

Surrounded by his strength, she slept.

Chapter 22

Tuesday, Mid-morning

Amazon Jungle

P
ain split Rafe’s head in two. He put his hands to his forehead, surprised to find his skull intact. But at least, for the moment and for the first time in hours, his mind was fully his own.

Christ, he couldn’t take much more of this. He had to leave Niko another sign. And pray that his brother found him quickly.

He inhaled deeply. Cursed when breathing only increased the pain. His vision wavered. The moment of clarity, of being in control, faded.

The animal came back. The part that was controlled by the men in the white coats. Men who had programmed him to hunt and kill.

He glanced around him.

There. Leaves trampled.

He stepped out, anticipation of the kill driving away the remnants of his sanity.

“S
top,” Kai ordered. “Quiet.”

Susana froze, her left foot hovering inches above the jungle floor. Dear God, that look was back on Kai’s face. Cold. Concentrated.

Lethal.

His head was cocked to the side, listening.

She didn’t hear anything unusual, but he obviously did. In one fluid movement he straightened, grabbed her arm and shoved her in the direction of a large tree. “Up there. Hurry!”

His urgency sent a shiver of alarm down her spine and she didn’t question him. She leapt toward the lowest branch several feet above her head. But sweat made her hands slick so her palms merely slipped down the bark. Damn it. She wiped her palms on her pants, then bent her knees and jumped again.

This time, her grip held. But the weight of her backpack almost pulled her down. She tightened her fingers and pulled with every muscle in her arms and shoulder. For a terrifying second she sank, but then she rose the few precious inches closer to the branch, so that when she swung her legs up, they wrapped around the branch.

She quickly shimmied around so she was sitting on the thick branch.

“Take this!”

Kai held up his backpack. It was so much heavier than hers, it almost dragged her off the branch. But she gritted her teeth, braced her body, and heaved it to a spot next to her.

“Lift both packs into that notch to your right.”

As she pushed and heaved to get the backpacks hidden, she cursed softly, so that whatever threat Kai had heard wouldn’t overhear her.

“That’s good enough,” Kai said. She could still see the top of one of the packs, but snatched her hand back from trying to push it farther into the leaves when Kai said, “Forget that. Climb! Get as high as you can. Now.”

“What about—?”

“Just do it, Susana!” His voice cracked, sharp as lightning splitting a tree. “No matter what happens, stay out of sight and stay silent. If I go down, you have to get to Boa Vista on your own. Use the compass on this.” He tossed her his watch. “Move!”

His harsh, impatient tone shocked her into obeying. She scrambled further up the tree until the thick leaves almost completely obscured her view of Kai.

Who wasn’t moving to climb the tree.

Of course. Had she really been so foolish as to expect him to follow her?

What he thought he could do in a fight against the type of men who’d burned her camp, she didn’t know. Dammit, she should have knocked him out and dragged him into the bushes instead of letting him send her scurrying up this tree.

She lay down on the branch she’d been sitting on, trying to get a better view. There was one group of leaves in the way, but she wasn’t inching all the way out there to rip them off and risk the branch breaking under her. She wouldn’t do Kai any good if she fell on him.

Down on the ground, Kai moved into the bushes. Susana shifted a little further out on the branch, so she could still see him. The branch groaned, warning her that she was pushing her luck and it wouldn’t be able to hold her weight if she moved much farther.

Kai settled into a hunter’s crouch, his automatic weapon raised, just as Susana finally heard heavy footsteps approaching from the direction they’d just come. She bit her lip and prayed that Kai wouldn’t be hurt.

K
ai held his breath and listened intently for several heartbeats. It didn’t sound like a group heading toward him. Not enough sound variation. More like one man, two max if the second one walked in sync with the first.

He’d chosen this clump of bushes to hide behind because it was in shadow, while the thin beams of light poking through the canopy acted like stage spotlights to highlight the place where he and Susana had come through the trees.

He raised his weapon, his finger on the trigger. A man-shaped shadow coalesced in the trees. Stepped forward into the light.

Kai’s brain recognized the man prowling forward in time to stop his finger from tightening on the trigger. My God, what the hell was he doing here?

The man’s nose was slightly up, his head moving side to side as if sniffing the air. He held his M-4 at waist level as he moved silently through the underbrush.

“Rafe!” Kai called. “Buddy, don’t shoot. It’s Kai.”

Kai ducked and rolled anyway, just in case his friend was wound too tightly to recognize his voice and understand his words.

The roll saved his life. A round of fire from the M-4 shredded his former hiding place.

Kai came to rest behind a fallen tree. He snuck a glance around the side and saw Rafe slowly quartering the area, trying to get a bead on him. “Rafe, come on man, don’t shoot. It’s Kai Paterson.”

Rafe fired again.

Shit. He almost hadn’t rolled away fast enough. What the hell was Rafe thinking?

Kai had his back pressed against a tree several yards away from Susana’s hiding place. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Set his weapon on the ground where he could retrieve it later.

He waited until he heard Rafe’s footsteps draw near, then dove out of hiding and rolled past Rafe.

Kai stopped his roll several feet away, turned, and knelt facing Rafe’s back, his hands up. “Don’t shoot, Rafe. I’m unarmed.”

Rafe pivoted, weapon up. For one tense moment, Kai stared down the muzzle of the M-4.

Something dark flared in Rafe’s eyes.

Shit. He’d made a mistake coming into the open. Rafe should have recognized him by now. Instead, his friend was a hairsbreadth away from killing him.

“Rafe, buddy, I know it’s been over two months since we last shared a beer. But come on, you remember me. Kai Paterson. We went through physical therapy together. The SSU medical team called us the dynamic duo because of our fast recovery rate and the number of nurses we had hanging around.” Damn, he might as well be talking to himself. Rafe continued to scowl at him.

He tried another tack. “My sister Jenna is married to your brother Niko.”

Okay, Niko’s name brought a slight softening of Rafe’s expression. But it vanished almost immediately, replaced by a feral curl of Rafe’s lip.

Ah, damn he did not want to die here. But if Rafe was a dog, he’d be whining to attack right now. He had the same intense, I’m-going-to-rip-your-throat-out look in his eyes.

The same look Kai had seen in the eyes of Dr. Nevsky’s subjects.

Shit, shit,
shit
. Rafe had disappeared leading a team into Kaufmann’s lab, and Kaufmann had been using some of Nevsky’s formulas. If Rafe was on some superhuman drug combination, then Kai had no chance of winning against him hand-to-hand. And no matter how fast he retrieved his weapon and fired, Rafe would get a few rounds off.

And if Kai died, who’d protect Susana?

“So, Rafe, are you going to lower the weapon? Because Jenna will be pissed if you shoot me.” Kai felt sick at the idea of having to shoot Rafe. “And you know if Jenna’s angry, Niko will be mad, too.”

“Jen…na…Ni…ko” Rafe’s voice was thick, his words doled out with a drunk’s care. He shook his head as if trying to clear a fog. By inches, the muzzle of his weapon tilted toward the ground.

But there was still no recognition in his eyes as he looked at Kai.

“Rafe, I’m gonna stand up now. No threat, just friends, okay?” He didn’t wait for Rafe to answer. As he pushed to his feet, he palmed the knife he kept up his sleeve.