Beside him, Tehya flinched.
“I have to agree,” Micah spoke up. “We’ve all been over the past reports, Jordan. How can you assume there’s something personal involved, now that Sorrel and his son are both dead?”
“Sorrel’s associates, friends, and even his enemies wouldn’t play with her,” he explained. “She’s being toyed with, for whatever reason. Watched. Pushed to certain reactions. It’s more a trademark of Sorrel’s pattern when targeting a victim to kidnap rather than an attempt to extract vengeance for his death. The plan changed when the attack at the house didn’t leave her on the run, vulnerable and frightened, because I was there.” He glanced at the closed door to the suite where the two mercenaries were being held. “They were ordered to get rid of me.”
Tehya sat silent, staring at the closed door, listening as he laid out, step by step, the actions that had taken place since he had arrived at her home.
And he was right. Even before he arrived, she had felt pushed, led, dragged into a situation she was helpless to avoid.
It was indeed a Sorrel trademark. Even as a child, Tehya had recognized the game that was played with her mother and the men who attempted to protect her.
No one could protect her. That was the lesson Sorrel had tried to teach her. He had been amused the few times he had managed to contact her. Once, he had even left a cell phone along with his number. And Tehya had called. She listened with a sense of unreality to the charming, caring voice of a monster so evil it had sent chills racing up her spine.
“How do you propose handling this?” Noah brought her attention back to the conversation going on around the table.
Noah’s voice was deeper, darker for the fury burning inside him.
“I propose we let them escape,” Jordan suggested, his lips curling in a smile. “Let them run back home to whoever Daddy is, while we follow and see who they’re reporting to. Meanwhile, Tehya will be rushed from the hotel to Senator Stanton’s estate, where we’ll carefully arrange the rumor that our two erstwhile assassins actually managed to succeed in their attempt to kill me, but the bodyguards I had hired arrived in time to save Tehya.” He turned to Noah. “John, Travis, and Noah will drag out my wrapped body and put it in the Conquest while Nik and Micah rush Tehya to the senator’s estate. We’ll drop Noah off to watch the two men as they “escape” while we collect the backup vehicles and follow them once they’re on the move.”
“Stage it first,” Bailey suggested quietly. “Let them hear the argument when they awaken concerning the torture you’re going to exact once you return from taking care of his body. Convince them Jordan is dead.”
“And remember, I wasn’t shot until the end, as I knocked Frackle out. They aren’t aware where I was hit. It could have been a fatal shot.”
Tehya sat silently and listened. The plan was simple and effective. A typical “Jordan” plan, while at the same time being in-depth enough to be completely convincing.
It was the reason why he had been so effective as a commander.
He left nothing to chance. Even the smallest details were taken care of, and each opportunity to put it to its best use considered.
“I can’t believe you’re totally dropping out of the game.” Micah’s gaze gleamed with amusement. “You realize we just laid in a plan that requires no backup support and eliminates ninety percent of the chances of failure, right?”
Jordan’s expression was still tightly controlled. “It’s that ten percent that worries me. Let’s see if we can’t get a little closer there.”
Tehya got slowly to her feet. She felt stiff, old. As though the years she had spent running, plotting, searching for just a moment’s haven to find some rest had prematurely aged her.
After the morning she had just spent, she definitely expected to find gray hairs.
“Tehya, are you okay?” Quiet, concerned, Jordan continued to stare up at her, the blue of his eyes darker than normal.
“I’m fine,” she whispered as she extricated her arm from his grip and gave him what she hoped was a natural smile. “I do need to use the restroom though, if you’ll excuse me.”
Turning her back on them, she left the room quickly.
Her stomach was churning, and no amount of concentrating on others or distracting her thoughts was going to save her this time.
At the very thought of Jordan’s life being taken so easily, the dinner she’d had last night was about to make a reappearance.
CHAPTER 16
Jordan was waiting on her as she left the bathroom, leaning against the wall, his arms crossed over his chest, his blue eyes narrowed as he stared back at her silently.
It would be impossible to miss the fact that she had been sick.
She’d washed her face, but she knew what it looked like. It was incredibly pale, her eyes appeared too large, her lips too stressed.
And he was taking in every inch of her face, her expression, whatever he saw in her eyes.
“You’re not okay.”
Duh. She’d just finished puking her guts up while escaping.
Thank God he had changed shirts and cleaned his blood up, but there was still a smear of red at his hairline. The sight of it had her stomach turning, as memories raped her mind.
“I’m fine now,” she assured him, giving a brief shrug as she moved to pass him.
He caught her again. His fingers curled around her upper arm as her breath caught in her chest, and tears clogged her throat. The past was too close. There had been too many times that she had seen the results of Sorrel’s horror. The pictures he had sent her. See what you caused, baby girl? Come home to Daddy so he doesn’t have to hurt anyone else.
Sorrel had played with her. Just as someone was trying to play with her now. Who? He’d had no partners other than her brother.
“Tey?” His voice was a dark croon as his head lowered, his hand smoothing to her hip, fingers burning through the thin material of the short T-shirt dress she had changed into.
Her eyes closed as his lips pressed to the bared curve of her shoulder and he pulled the material to her side. When he placed her head against his opposite shoulder, she felt her breath hitch in her throat.
She could feel the warmth of him against her, his hand stroking up her back, then returning to her hips. The sheer gentleness, the tension of banked hunger, the need she could feel, unspoken and louder than words, surrounded her.
“Take me with you.”
The plea escaped her lips before she could pull them back. She was terrified to let him out of her sight now. The panic building inside her threatened to send her running back to the bathroom.
She had spent so many years knowing each time she was separated from whoever attempted to protect her, they died. They were tortured, left lifeless after hours of pain.
“Tey,” he whispered her name again, his fingers tightening on her hips once again. “Play your part, sweetheart. John, Travis, Bailey, and Lilly are going to rush you to the senator’s as the others carry me out. I’ll be there soon.”
He moved to pull back.
“No, not yet.” Her hands tightened on his shoulders, the need to hold him in place overwhelming now. “Listen to me, Jordan. Every time. Every time they left me and thought I was protected, they were killed.” A sob escaped her lips. “You know they were. They were tortured.…”
It was all she could see. Jordan, his expression twisted in agony because he hadn’t talked. Jordan wouldn’t talk. He’d never tell anyone where she was if she were hidden. And they would ensure he died in agony.
“I’ve got this, baby.” As he lifted his head, his hand rose and cupped her cheek, his gaze locked with hers.
This wasn’t the man she had worked with. If she had dared express concern or fear for his life then, the ice that was so much a part of him would have kicked in.
It didn’t this time.
His gaze actually softened, his lips quirked in tender amusement, but in his expression she saw his refusal to do as she asked.
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“I’ve got this,” he repeated, his lips touching hers, brushing against them. “When we’re finished here, it’s going to be over, and you’re going to be safe. I won’t have it any other way.”
She had to clench her teeth against the urge to beg. This expression she knew. There was no changing his mind, and John, Travis, and their wives would ensure she was where she was supposed to be.
“Noah has my back,” he promised her. “Nik and Micah have his. I’ll slip into the senator’s estate tonight, as soon as we’re finished.”
She tried to shake her head, tried to speak. His hand tightened on her jaw, his lips covered hers, and the kiss he gave her rocked her to the soles of her feet.
His lips rubbed against hers, stroked, and sent heat flushing through her system in a slow burn that, at first, seemed harmless enough.
The heat rose slowly, enveloping her, flowing into her blood and spiking it with a hunger she couldn’t deny, or hide.
Her arms curled around his neck, her fingers feathering into the back of his hair as a moan whispered past her lips, and the need to hold on to him began to grow inside her.
She felt the hunger beginning to infuse both of them, his body tensing, his cock pressing more firmly against the juncture of her thighs as his hand slid up her leg.
His fingers played with the hem of the short dress, feathering against her thighs with a rasp of heat. She wanted to feel them moving beneath the dress. Her thighs parted further, a desperate moan in her throat as she arched against him.
One second she was in his arms, the next he was pushing away from her, his lips pulling away reluctantly.
“No.” She fought to hold on to him, only to be left staring up at him, trembling with fear and need.
“John, Travis, and their wives are waiting on the other side of the suite. Once we’re clear of the hotel and in position, they’ll get you to the limo waiting outside.”
She gave a hard nod.
“Our friends in the other suite are awake,” he told her. “Once you’re out, staff will come in and release them, aware of only the fact that we’ve checked out. We’ll follow them from there.”
She nodded again.
It was bad enough her nerves were back enough that she had begun throwing up again. She hadn’t done that since the night before the operation to reveal the identity of Sorrel. The night before she had killed him.
“Come on, baby.” Catching her fingers, he moved for the door. “Let’s get this done.”
* * *
Letting her go was the hardest thing he had ever done in his life. Jordan watched as the team surrounded Tehya and rushed her from the back entrance of the hotel to the limo the senator had sent to collect her.
He couldn’t forget the look in her eyes. The fear had been so deep, so dark, he’d wanted nothing but to give her exactly what she wanted. To find a way to bring her with him.
Bringing her with him would have compromised the entire plan. They needed her safe, but they also needed her escape witnessed by the man Jordan was currently watching as well.
He’d figured the men that had come inside weren’t alone.
“Lilly called as they were hitting the doors,” Noah said as they watched the black Suburban from the cargo van they’d driven to the surveillance position. “She said Tehya was crying.”
“Enough.” The order was short, but not as icy as it could have been, because the thought of her crying affected him in ways he didn’t want to look too deeply into.
“She’s a friend,” Micah spoke from behind him. “Having her safe and secure is all well and good, but leaving her without a future because her heart was ripped out wasn’t in the plan when you told us what was going on.”
Jordan could feel his teeth gritting as he turned to Nik where he sat in the driver’s seat. “Where’s your two cents?”
Nik’s expression didn’t change as he continued to watch the other vehicle and the driver in it. “Inflation sucks,” he drawled. “The price is a buck fifty now.”
Trust Nik to be the smart-ass in the group.
Propping his arm on the side of the door, Jordan rubbed the skin above his upper lip thoughtfully.
“Have you managed to ID him yet?” he finally asked the others. It was better to change the subject rather than continuing the course of the subject of Tehya.
“I have him,” Noah said. “Another of those damned Sorrel soldiers turned mercenaries after his death. Wayne Trevits, former MI-6 agent discharged for theft and attempted sale of military weapons. He was sentenced to life in prison, but escaped after a year. He was with Sorrel for ten years before the op that took Sorrel out. It looks like Sorrel’s boys have decided to go after a little vengeance.”
That was definitely what it looked like, Jordan admitted.
It had all the signs of a group of Sorrel’s former employees banding together to make Tehya pay for his death. Everything they had found led them in that direction.
“Maid’s in the room,” Micah announced, obviously watching the laptop displaying the room. “Ahh, there she is. Little old lady with gray hair and big brown eyes,” he grunted. “And she’s not moving to let them go.”
Jordan waited.
“Ah, there she goes. She just pulled the radio from her pocket. She’s calling security.”
Jordan was prepared for that. He’d checked the staff out while they were there and reread the files once the plan was in place, to see who would be walking in on the little party Jordan had arranged.
He hadn’t wanted anyone to get hurt, but he’d been certain this maid would choose the option of calling security versus releasing them on their own.
“And we now have two little weak-kneed security guards entering. They’ll make mincemeat out of them.”
It took only minutes.
“Yep, they’re both down,” Micah sighed. “They’re alive, though.”
“They’re aware of the cameras in the hall outside the room,” Jordan stated. “There’s too great a chance of being identified.”
“They’re headed downstairs.”
Jordan and his men moved.
Exiting the back of the van, covert mode intact, Jordan, Nik, Micah, and Noah moved to the appropriate, nondescript vehicles waiting in the parking lot.
Sliding into the Ford sedan, Jordan watched from above the rim of his dark sunglasses as the two men slipped from the same exit Tehya had used and moved quickly to the waiting SUV.
The assassins looked a little worse for wear, but satisfied. They thought they had achieved their objective. His would-be killers believed he was dead, and Tehya defended only by his men.
Evidently they weren’t convinced of the danger posed by the men they would be facing. To this point, Jordan and his men had been playing, sitting back and letting Tehya’s enemies hang themselves. Now, he thought he might help them just a bit with the rope.
The bastards had terrified her, and they had been aware of it. They had known what it would do to her. The plan would have been to take her while she was shell-shocked, while the realization of Jordan’s death was still fresh in her mind.
She would have been more controllable and much easier to intimidate.
That would have been the plan. Unfortunately for them, it wouldn’t have worked so easily for them. He knew Tehya; and even more, he knew Tehya under pressure. His death would have destroyed her, but later. That shock they wanted so desperately would have been what had saved her life, and would have ended theirs.
As the SUV pulled from the parking lot, Jordan turned the receiver on in the sedan and smiled at the movement of the little dot indicating the tracker they had activated. The other assassin’s bug hadn’t yet been activated. He was the backup. The safeguard. Just in case.
There was a reason he had plans A, B, C, and D, with E, F, and G just in case. Sometimes, there were just too many bases to cover. And Jordan liked having all the angles worked out.
Work out the angles and you don’t just protect yourself
and your men, but you also protect the woman you had never been able to get out of your head and your heart.
He’d met Tehya eight years before, the night she had killed her father. From the moment he’d looked into those shattered, emerald green eyes, he’d wanted nothing more than to pull her into his arms and protect her from the world.
Unfortunately, it was too late to protect her by then. The world had already scarred her. Sorrel had already taught her to react first and grieve later.
And she would have grieved for him, he knew.
His men would have surrounded her long enough to attempt to convince her to hide, because it was what he wanted. She wouldn’t have hid.
As he and Micah traded positions and the other men moved in behind the SUV in another vehicle, Jordan concentrated on the area around them. He made certain no one was following them as they followed their attempted assassins.
They traded places several more times before Jordan pulled into a parking lot across from a storage rental facility housed in an old factory. The units, Jordan knew, were temperature controlled, roomy, and free of those pesky surveillance cameras that turned most criminals off.
Slipping from the car, he joined Micah and Nik, and Noah gave them a quick nod toward the warehouse. Using the available delivery vans, trucks, and occasional stacks of varied covered prepared shipments for cover, they moved into the warehouse following the beacon the tracker was giving off.
Minutes later, they eased in as close as possible, coming in together, weapons drawn as they moved in to watch the meeting.
The three men were waiting outside one of the rental rooms, heads down, leaning against the wall as shadows moved in the well-lit unit they were guarding.
They were talking, their voices too low to hear, and the satisfied demeanors of earlier had been dropped. They looked nervous and if he wasn’t mistaken, quite possibly scared as well.