Navy SEALs Complete Series: 3 Books + 3 Novellas (Tempting Navy SEALs) (114 page)

As she spoke, her voice thickened with unshed tears, with the horror of the life she had lived. Kira moved from his side and walked to her, her arms going around the younger girl as she stood in the center of that room, her head lifted, her lips trembling, taking on her own slender shoulders responsibility for the lives her father had destroyed.

“She came to Aruba to ask for your help.” Reno stepped forward then. “Macey saw her at Coronado’s several times, watching you, trying to get close to you. Kell caught her trying to slip into the Fuentes estate a week ago. He convinced her to let us cover her until we could form a plan.”

“Why not let her come to me?” Ian snapped.

“Because one of Fuentes’s most trusted soldiers is reporting to Ascarti, Ian. His cousin Muriel. She would have been walking into an ambush if she had entered Diego’s villa.”

Ian froze inside. Muriel was one of the few within the Fuentes organization that Ian had handpicked himself to protect the villa and Diego.

“Do we have proof?” He was aware of Kira’s gaze jerking to him as she slowly released Teyha.

Reno moved to the small table at the side of the room and picked up a file. He handed it to Ian slowly.

In living color the digitally printed photos showed Muriel and Ascarti meeting. The exchange of an envelope
and Muriel handing the other man photos. Photos of the inside of the villa and the grounds as well as photos of Ian with various suppliers and transporters.

“Ian.” Kira stepped back to him.

“He’ll be at the villa in the morning with Diego,” Ian said coldly. “We’ll take him then and have Antoli question him.”

“Antoli’s good at what he does. You know he’s a plant from within Russia’s Federal Security Service, don’t you?”

“I’m aware of that.” Ian continued to stare at the photos as he fought against the knowledge that this betrayal by his cousin would be a shock to Diego. Diego discussed everything with Muriel and Saul. And why the fuck he should care, Ian didn’t know.

Antoli had been a very low-level soldier within the Fuentes organization when Ian came in. Ian had promoted him to security not long after recognizing him. He had known Antoli was a plant from the start. The man had been quietly putting together his escape when Ian waylaid him late one night in Colombia just after reading the file Diego had on him. Which was a hell of a lot different from the truth. Just as it appeared Muriel was different from what he had been perceived as.

He pushed his fingers through his hair as he focused on Tehya once again.

“How will you recognize his voice? If you’ve never seen him, if you’ve been on the run all your life, how could you recognize anything about him?”

A bitter smile twisted her lips. “He left me a phone number once. Unfortunately, it’s untraceable. Reno has the number. Sometimes, when I want to remember how much I hate him, I call him. He always answers. And it’s him, trust me. As bad as he wants me back he would never let anyone else answer that phone. He’s assured me, time and again, that he’s my father and he wants only to protect me. It’s Sorrell, Mr. Richards. I remember that voice from my nightmares. As a child, I heard him rape my mother, his voice so
calm, so reasonable, and demonic. I’m staking my life on the fact that it is him.”

She was indeed betting her life if what she was saying was true. Ian let his gaze connect with Kira’s, saw the concern in it. She knew Tehya, and evidently, she trusted the other girl.

So young. Twenty-three and yet the haunted pain in her eyes made her appear so much older. He’d lived on gut instinct too long to discount her, but that didn’t mean he trusted her.

“And I have an ace, one he’s unaware I possess.” She stared at him intently then, tears glittering in her wild green eyes.

“What ace would that be?” he asked carefully.

“I carry his birthmark. It resembles a scythe. Sorrell’s personal mark, the same birthmark he carries.”

She turned then, lifted the thin T-shirt she wore, and revealed the mark low in the center of her back, below her hips. In the exact center, perhaps two inches above the cleft of her rear, was the small birthmark resembling the scythe Sorrell used as his own personal mark.

Kira moved her gaze from the mark low on Tehya’s back, to Ian. He hadn’t tightened, hadn’t moved, his expression hadn’t altered in the least, but the tension suddenly emanating from him was electric.

“No one knows about the birthmark,” Ian murmured. There had been no rumors, not so much as a whiff of information regarding it, Kira knew.

“No one knew about this except myself and my mother. She warned me, before she left me with the nun, to never reveal it. To never let anyone know of it. And I never have.”

“Does Sorrell carry the mark in the same area?” Ian asked, moving closer as she stared over her shoulder at him.

Kira watched Ian. He was no longer suspicious; it was as though something had fallen in to place for him, some source of information that only he knew.

Ian bent to sit on his heels, staring at the mark closely.

“We have a chance to get him here, Ian.” Reno spoke
softly from the other side of the girl. “She’s willing to help us and we have enough to identify him.”

“He dies,” Ian said, his eyes locked on the mark. “I don’t care how much information he could have.” He rose slowly, straightening to stare at Reno over Tehya’s shoulder. “He doesn’t leave alive.”

“You’ll have to set up protection for her. Something away from the villa,” Kira stated as Tehya pulled the hem of her shirt back into place. “You’ll have to give him visual proof that you have her. You’ll have to threaten to mark her, scar her. If she’s scarred, then her value to him is diminished. Sorrell doesn’t deal in damaged goods. And his daughter would be an asset. An extension of his ability to create perfection.”

“Antoli.” Ian nodded slowly. “We’ll set up a vid, an interrogation of her, make it look good. Give her the appearance of bruising . . .”

“It will only work if you actually bruise her.” Kira shook her head. “Bruising does more than discolor the flesh. To convince Sorrell, you’re going to have to go further.”

“She’s right.” Tehya held Kira’s hand as several male heads shook instinctively. “It won’t be the first time I’ve been bruised. And if your Antoli is as good with interrogation techniques as I’ve heard, then he’ll know how to do it right.”

Courage. The woman had more courage than she should have at her age. To even consider allowing a man as brutal as Antoli to touch her.

Ian let his gaze drift to Kira then. He saw the pain in her eyes, the shadows, and knew she was reliving the loss of her own family to the murderous bastard. She had been ten, but she had escaped the horror Tehya had lived through. Thank God.

“We don’t need to beat her up to convince Sorrell.” Ian shook his head as he turned his gaze back to the small redhead with the wild green eyes. Eyes that saw too much, that knew too much. Eyes that broke Kira’s heart with the pain
and rage inside them. “All we need is the visual proof that we have her. He’s chased her this long. Make her accessible and he’ll mess up. He won’t be able to help it. He’ll be desperate to secure her.”

Kira was watching Tehya’s eyes as he said it, saw the terror that flashed inside them. She had courage, but she was smart enough to know what she was getting herself into.

“I’ll do the vid,” he continued. “We’ll take her to a secured safe house, record it, and send it to Ascarti via Colombia,” he mused. “We’ll give him a short timeline. Make him react quickly.”

“He’s not far from Ascarti,” Tehya said then. “Wherever Ascarti is, you’ll find Sorrell close. But if you snatched Ascarti he wouldn’t come running.”

Ian nodded slowly as he turned back to Reno, his eyes narrowed, the air around him pulsing with danger. “What kind of probables have you run?”

“We checked out the names she gave us of those who tried to help her. They were dead. Deaths were by torture. They died hard and likely gave Sorrell everything they knew. It fits with his particular MO. Evidence we’ve gathered about his network suggests it was his personal handiwork. No one knows torture in his organization as well as he does. We know he’s indeed French, Tehya’s mother was of French descent. Reports on her death suggest that she hadn’t been in Nicaragua more than a few weeks when she was snatched from the street. There were a few witness reports, but you know how sketchy local law enforcement is there. It was dropped within hours; only the notification and questioning of witnesses was kept until her body was found.”

“Her name was Francine Taite. She was the daughter of a French industrialist driven to bankruptcy after her kidnapping. They died before my birth. She was kidnapped and sold, according to the information she gave the nuns, though she never gave his name. Thirteen years after her disappearance as a child, she was dumped out of a dark
sedan on a dirty street in Nicuragua. She had been raped. Her fingers shattered, the soles of her feet had been burned. She died slowly,” Tehya recited, a frown marring her brow as she seemed to stare off into nothing. “She was tiny, delicate. I remember her crying. I never remember her laughter.”

She seemed to shudder as Kira moved to Ian’s side. His arm went around her naturally, pulling her to his side, feeling the pain that worked through her as Tehya turned to Reno. “I’ll require a weapon. I won’t let him take me, Reno. It stops here. Either he dies, or I do.”

Reno nodded slowly.

“We need to get this together and get moving on it, before Sorrell figures out what’s going on,” Ian said. “If he’s never more than a step or two behind her, then he knows she’s been here watching me. It could be the reason he fired a missile at me rather than a gun on the last attack. Do you have a safe house in mind?”

“Right here.” Reno grinned. “She’s been here since the night Kira moved out. All we need to do is get this vid made and shipped out and wait for the response. We have everything set up. We were just waiting for you.”

“Fucktard,” Macey muttered as an aside.

Kira watched the grin that tugged at Ian’s lips. Evidently tonight wasn’t the first time Ian had heard that particular insult. He stared around at the other men. “First chance I have, I’m telling your women you left them to play on the beaches in Aruba. Fitting punishment, I think, for driving me crazy with that sniper rifle you’ve had trained on me for the last two weeks.”

“Best telescope I own.” Macey snickered. “Felt it, did you?”

“Every time you stroked the trigger, I felt it, Macey,” he growled.

“Should have shot you,” Macey grumbled. “Dumb fuck. You should have let us in on the fun. You’re just plain selfish, Ian. I’ve always said that about you.”

Ian pulled Kira against his side. She felt the warmth of his body, the strength, the steady confidence. “You have no idea. Remember, the next time you train that telescope on Kira, I’ll shove it up your ass.”

Macey winced, but the tension that had filled the room began to dissipate.

For the first time in eight months, Ian felt the camaraderie, the sense of teamwork that he had relied on for so many years.

And in his arms, close to his side, he felt the center of his soul. He had avoided the acknowledgment, tried to deny it, fought to push it away. But as he stared at Tehya Talamosi, and saw a woman alone, fighting to live in the face of a monster, he realized how very similar he had once been to her.

Kira had filled that part of his soul. The part that had been empty and alone. The part that had fought to live even though the danger of the monster had passed. And he prayed that Tehya would find it as well.

S
HE HAD NEVER IMAGINED WHAT
kind of life Tehya had endured.

Kira slipped into Ian’s room from the balcony, barely glancing at Deke as he rose from the chair by the bed as she escaped to the bathroom.

She felt sick inside. She knew Tehya, she had met her in France nearly six years before. They had had coffee as Kira watched a French diplomat sell classified documents to a Russian agent. They had spent the weekend shopping, laughing, and being girls. Two strangers in a strange land, and Kira had never guessed the danger Tehya had been in.

She had suspected her to be a rival agent. For a while Kira had wondered if she were an assassin or part of a kidnapping team. But the other girl, though distant, her eyes often shadowed with pain, had never mentioned anything that Kira could have used to fuel her suspicions.

She had met her again in Afghanistan working with the Red Cross. Again in America, once again working with the Red Cross, just after Hurricane Katrina. She’d had no idea the hell the girl was living through. Damn, she’d had no idea how young she was or what she was searching for.

Safety. Protection from a monster. The identity of the monster. Why hadn’t she put it together?

Kira slammed the bathroom door closed. Why hadn’t she figured out that the kid was in trouble? Hell, she hadn’t even known she was a kid. It was those eyes. Those wild, shattered, haunted eyes. She couldn’t have been more than seventeen the first time Kira had met with her in France. Kira had assumed she was another agent. She had played the game when the girl had sat down at her table, leaned back and smiled and asked if the chair was taken. A very inexperienced agent. But Kira had played the game 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.