Kill List (Special Ops #8) (8 page)

“No, because I have altitude sickness and the last time I spent time in a higher altitude it took me six months to get even close to back to normal.”

“Whoa! Why didn’t you tell me this? I would have asked for a different location.”

“It never came up. Besides, you got what works for what you need and I’ll adjust—I always do,” she sighed and he could tell she was thinking about the changes that had happened in her life that had uprooted her and kicked her plans out of her mind. “I’ll sleep a lot. I’m just going to warn you now. Last time I slept almost all day every day. It was crazy trying to study and work at the same time when I couldn’t seem to find the strength to get out of bed and move. But I’ll be okay.”

He didn’t like the sound of the issues she had experienced before combined with the fact that she was expecting to experience them again. He wished he had known because he would have asked for something else, yet he also understood her words because he knew they were in the best location out of what Autumn had had available. The seclusion left room to set up some monitoring devices without having to have neighbors that sat out and watched all day long.

He needed a change of subject right now. His mind was warring between protect his woman from an assassin and protect her from the elements of nature and the altitude of the mountains.

“Have you heard anything about your sister?”

“She who shall not be named,” she snorted. “Nope. I’ve given up looking for her. The money for the PI was just getting to be too much. I mean I work as a maid at that hotel; I didn’t own the hotel or have relationships with men who liked to dole out money. She knows her way back to New York. And I made sure I kept my number listed and address updated so if she wants to get in touch with me she can find me. I can’t be her mother. I can’t be that woman who sacrifices everything for somebody who will never appreciate it, or herself, enough to work for her own betterment. I miss her. She’s my big sister and I remember the good times we had as a family when we were kids, but the reality is, when I push the fairytale memories aside, Keisha and I were never close. We were never what you and Amber had. My mom said it’s because she was jealous of me.” She shook her head and laid it back against the headrest.

“Jealous?”

“Stupid reasons really. She was dark and I’m considered light skinned,” she snorted and gave a sarcastic chuckle. “I have a cousin that’s considered high yellow so I fail to see how I am light skinned, but I suppose light and dark are relative depending on your vantage point. I’m brown, a nice shade of brown and that’s all that comes to mind when I look at me.”

He nodded. She was most definitely a nice, softly caramel meets dark brown sugar color tone blend. She was beautiful inwardly and outwardly.

“I never really got my sister though. She would always call me fat.”

“What the F—hell?” He curtailed his words. Being in the military had him develop a less than gentlemanly verbiage sometimes.

“I was never overweight,” she assured him. “But I was heavier. I was like maybe one ten until college. I hit my undergrad years where I gained the dreaded Freshmen Fifteen, but I was still in my healthy weight. I took some kickboxing classes and dance aerobic classes. I always loved working out so I just made a few of my electives more health inclined since I was in hardcore chem. classes at the time. Between that and the trig courses I needed a frou-frou class and I figured why not take something that would benefit me too. I dropped the fifteen plus some.”

That she had. She was toned, sculpted and hot. “How much is some?”

“Let’s just say I’m a little under a hundred pounds now. But you know what’s hilarious? My sister was like ninety pounds back in the days of her taunting me and last time I saw her she was like nearly forty pounds overweight. And she’s shorter than me,” she laughed. “Karma…it always finds a way doesn’t it.”

He couldn’t help the laugh that escaped him either. “Wow.”

“Yeah, she’s like four-eleven and she most definitely can’t open her mouth to call me fat anymore. I remember how much it hurt when I was younger. I didn’t care what anybody outside of family said about me, but family is family and as a little girl I took it hard. I didn’t show it because I was stubborn like that but I still felt it.”

“So did you lose the weight because of that?”

“Nope. I just realized I loved to workout. It really was part stress reliever too. There is something about getting the heart rate up, pushing myself beyond what I thought was my limit, holding a plank until my arms are feeling like they’re going to give and then holding it longer, having sweat dripping off my body…oh yeah, that is empowering on so many levels. Plus with the classes I realized that I ate healthy at home for the most part and being away for college was no excuse to eat crap food. It was harder when I was on campus, but once my dad helped me get into a small apartment during my final undergrad years eating healthy got easier. It was like I didn’t have to work so hard to try to find healthy food, and I got to cut out all the Weight Watchers and Lean Cuisine frozen dinners too.” She turned her head to look at him. “What about you? Were you always this hot?”

He laughed. Hot? Yeah, he had heard that before but coming from her it was revving up his ego in ways he didn’t think a woman could at this stage in his life.

“I was always in shape. I liked working out too. I lifted some weights, but boot camp really upped my fitness more than I already had. Years of special ops has a way of having a man stay fit. Plus there are weight requirements in the military.”

“Somehow I doubt you ever had a problem falling in line.”

He laughed a little at her statement. “Nope, never did,” he winked at her. “Here we are,” he pulled up the long drive and could see the small rustic house as he got closer. He heard the shivering sigh come from her as they saw the snow covered steps. This was higher up in the mountains and while the temperatures might be edging toward spring in New York they most certainly weren’t doing that here—or maybe this was their definition of springtime weather.

“On the bright side,” he said. “The snow is trying to melt, and the thermometer reading,” he tapped the screen center console, “has it listed at forty-four degrees out there.”

She gave him a side eye look. “Yeah, and tonight it’ll be like eighteen degrees out there.”

“We’ll be inside and you’ll be in my bed. I can assure you I’ll keep you warm. I’ll contact Autumn to see what we can do about clothes for you okay? I should have thought of this.” He should have because as a Marine he was used to having to do threat assessment, surveying the situation, the enemy, all of the possible ups, downs and complicated arising of danger issues and yet he had dropped the ball on this.

“Can you imagine this place in the fall? I bet it’s gorgeous. All these trees and the fall foliage must be breathtakingly beautiful.”

“Maybe we can get up here next fall and see it.”

She gave him a soft smile, one that told him she was wishing for legitimacy to that statement but still planning for her future demise. He didn’t like that look at all. She had to trust him. She had to know he wouldn’t let her get killed. The fact that she didn’t seem to have complete faith in that made him angry, made him feel the need to prove to her that he was a man who would fight for her, kill for her, protect her no matter the cost. He was a warrior. He was a Marine. He was a man who would not abandon his woman, and sure as hell wouldn’t let her get killed. She had to know that. She had to believe that.

Olivia could tell from the moment Chogan parked the car that something was amidst. No, it was from the moment they were discussing a possible future traveling back to this beautiful place. It hit her now that her doubt that she would be alive was kind of a slap in the face to him as a protector, as a Marine. But this wasn’t some desert hostile ground. This was America. This was a different enemy—in her mind anyway. But maybe she just saw it differently and saw it wrong.

Chogan was trained to fight those who, to her, were less than human for raping women, selling girls into unwanted unions, and chopping off people’s heads. That wasn’t human. That was pure evil. But this here, this was a business looking man—normal white guy meets something darker. And this here was America with two women just working their job in an upscale hotel. And what he did was just…fathomless. She couldn’t explain it. He just shot Amber in the back of her head. There was no warning, no chance for defense, no real reason for his actions Amber wasn’t a threat to him. She wasn’t stealing from him. There was absolutely no reason, that she could see, for that beast to murder her best friend. It was evil. It wasn’t gangs killing gangs, the typical drive by shootings she read about in those less than stellar neighborhoods across the country, it was just murder and she didn’t understand why. She didn’t understand why he killed her and maybe that’s what she needed to bring some sense of hope into her heart. She needed to know the why. She already knew the how and the where, but the why was nearly tearing her apart. Did he just not like that Amber had spilled his paperwork, his pictures? Did he just not like the way they cleaned the room? Did he just like shooting people, women, in the back of their head?

She wasn’t like Chogan. She wasn’t trained to look out for every threat or to know how to deal with it. She was just another human living in a senseless world and lost, so undeniably lost, right now. As much as she wanted to hope for the best outcome she still felt, in some corner of her mind, that her fate would be the same as Amber’s had been. She had seen his face. She could testify against him if the right authorities ever caught him. The fact that cops were involved too told her making it into court to testify just got a thousand times more unlikely for her. If the man didn’t kill her he could get one of his on the take cop acquaintances to do it for him.

She wanted to just go hide somewhere. Someplace tropical and secluded would be a nice hiding ground. But she couldn’t do that. Hiding wouldn’t be fair to Amber, to her family, or to the man she loved so much—Chogan. He, just like his parents, deserved justice. Amber deserved justice.

She clutched the blanket to her chest and she cried, sobbing loudly and so hard she thought she might shatter into pieces from the force of her tears. Chogan had been out making sure the property was set up to his standards. He had picked up monitoring and surveillance equipment at their car switch and of course he had his own stash of stuff he brought with him too. She was so lost in her own pain that she hadn’t realized how long she had been huddled on the floor crying. She hadn’t realized that Chogan had come back in. And she hadn’t realized that he was standing over her until he scooped her up in his arms and held her like she was a sick child in need of love and compassion.

“I’m sorry,” she tried to make herself stop crying but she couldn’t. The more she tried to stop the harder she cried.

“Shh,” his breath softly warmed her forehead before his lips placed a gentle kiss on her cooled skin. He had switched the heat on so she knew the room would warm up soon, but right now being in his arms was providing her warmth both inwardly and outwardly.

“I talked with Autumn Kitsap. She’s the lead in the Special Conditions Witness Protection program.”

“Are you sending me away?” She heard the almost whining tone in her voice. She didn’t want to be away from him. She felt safe with him.

“No. I arranged to get you some clothes. Since my teammate, Skip Lowery, is coming in through D.C. she’s arranged to have a tag, that’s what she calls the people who handle handoffs when the situation is so tight they can’t use somebody anybody knows is with the unit to make needed deliveries. Anyway, that tag is going to make sure Skip brings some clothes that fit you. I saw the size of your bra when I was cleaning up the damaged clothing from the floor. I told Autumn how small you are and your approximate weight and she says she can get something that’s good for you, even warm for you. You’ll have something in a few days because Skip won’t take as long to get here as Trace.”

“Trace?”

“Yeah, his name is really Tracer—don’t ask,” he chuckled. “His father was Navy born bred raised and died so all the boys have a name related to something their father did in the Navy. In my opinion Trace got the lighter sentence here.”

She laughed softly thinking of what names the other boys might have.

“He’s good at doing the job of tracing people too, so the name does fit him. He finds what needs to be found and I’m going to use him to locate this guy.”

“We don’t have much.”

“Nope, but from what I hacked out of the police files on my sister’s case, and what description you gave me along with the security footage I’ve been watching and trying to piece together from the lobby…well, we’ll get him.”

“The hotel gave you the footage?”

“Nope. I hacked that too.” And he had no qualms about admitting that fact. “Skip has different skills. He’s…let’s just say if you want things erased he knows how to do that.”

“Erased as in dead?”

“Erased as in erased,” he evaded a direct answer. “We’re all trained to kill, Liv. But this guy is mine.”

The harsh growl in his tone told her he meant every word of what he said. This wasn’t so much about making sure the cops did the right job, arrested this guy and tried him in a court of law; this was about justice, vengeance, whatever people would call it this was a man who had raised the war flag and was in full battle mode. There was no live and let live in prison to him. This was about life for a life type biblical justice. This was a warrior ready to put a man under for killing his sister. She couldn’t blame him. She wouldn’t dissuade him. Somehow she knew even if Chogan had wanted to do this on every letter of the law it wouldn’t be possible. Somehow she knew that this man would kill before surrendering and that meant trying to take him in alive wasn’t likely to happen.