Chapter Seventeen
Jake walked down the stairs to Chase’s finished basement, every step a torture. He hadn’t felt this way since the day when he told the priest in confession he’d put a dead fish in Maria’s lunch box because she had put frogs in his shoes the day before. Only now, he was confessing adultery. God help him, he hadn’t wanted it to be true, but at least he could say with a clear conscience Chase had nothing to fear. Jake’s love for Kate was back to second-cousin status, like before she’d died in his arms.
Chase was on the treadmill, bathed in sweat, running like he was possessed. That’s how he always ran, like he was fleeing something or running to something. This time it was definitely flight, because when he saw Jake at the bottom of the stairs, he turned up the speed and ran faster, harder.
He shot Jake a glare that would have made most people turn and leave, but Jake knew him too well. That glare bespoke anger and mistrust, but he was using it to hide the pain and fear. Jake was most afraid of the pain. His control-freak friend didn’t do changes of emotion well. How fucked up was it to be worried about Chase’s mental status when the man was ready to kill him?
“I’m here. You can kill me now,” Jake said over the thunder of Chase’s footsteps. He held his hands up in mock surrender.
Chase turned off the treadmill and stopped, his breathing labored, the mask he usually wore neatly in place, hiding any hint of emotion. “You and Kate, you’ve always been alike,” he managed between pants. “Just because I was a sniper doesn’t mean there weren’t rules about who I killed. There was an objective, and unless I was damned sure and I had witnesses, it didn’t happen. Sometimes, knowing when not to kill is smarter.”
“You know I’m armed,” Jake said softly. He didn’t go anywhere without a gun. Chase knew that. “But you don’t have witnesses.”
“Oh, Kate made sure I have witnesses.” Chase wiped his face with a towel. “She had the tech team come out and wire the house with surveillance equipment after her scare with being tailed. The whole house, inside, outside, the grounds…” He pointed behind him. The camera wasn’t visible, but obviously he knew it was there. “Wave to Kate. Or at least, wave to her tape.”
Jake frowned. Kate didn’t do things like that because she was afraid. He’d have to take her aside later and find out the truth. There was more to this, and it worried him. “That’s not like her.”
Chase cocked a brow. “Yeah, well, it’s not like you to piss in my yard.”
“She’s yours.” Jake raised his hands again. “I don’t love her.”
“Right now, I don’t know who she belongs to, but it’s not me.” Chase tossed the towel onto the treadmill. “And if you expect me to believe you just up and stopped loving her, forget it. Love doesn’t work that way. I just feel bad for Tia, that you’d use her like that. I don’t know her well, but the way she looked at you…” Chase shook his head, and Jake wanted to ask, how? What did he see? What does she feel? “Bad, bad idea, Anderson.”
Jake thought for a moment. Chase had a point. Love didn’t just change. “Okay, you’re right. I do still love Kate. But what I thought was romantic love was something entirely different. She’s still the second cousin I’d like to fuck, and that’s it. If I were to be honest—and I’m trying—then I starting falling for Tia the day after the debriefing only I was too scared to admit it. We had met at the club before Kate’s first mission and got to know each other. But the day after Kate’s debriefing, I spent the entire day with her, and I know you remember what that means.”
“If you found the woman of your dreams, you were going to fuck her for eight hours straight.”
“Yep. Only at that point…I thought I was running from loving Kate.”
Chase glared. “You never said anything. I had thought Kate was with you that day.”
“You never asked me. And honestly, I don’t think I would have shared that I was with Tia in any case. I didn’t understand how I felt about her then. I knew I felt…something. Except for the two ménages with you and Kate, I’ve been exclusive with Tia since the debriefing. You know that’s big for me.”
Chase nodded reluctantly. “It doesn’t change the fact that you want to fuck my wife.”
“Wanted,” Jake corrected. “I won’t deny being attracted to her. Hell, I was your third. You know we have chemistry. Honestly, I don’t know what I felt in Paris. I knew I loved her, but also I knew it didn’t feel like the romantic love I’d felt in the past. I also knew it was wrong only I didn’t know how to tell you. It’s not like I can come up to you and say, ‘Buddy, I think I love your wife, but I’m not sure. Let’s discuss.’” Chase didn’t look any less angry, though. Jake sighed. “How’d you find out?”
“I became suspicious the minute Kate said she hated Paris. I was too busy planning her pregnancy to keep an eye on you. You went under the radar. But she wouldn’t talk to me after she came home, and that’s not like her. That evening, my part blew up when she started throwing up again. When you asked for time off, I started digging around, asking her questions, because you only run away to the house when you’re under stress.” Chase’s gaze became iceberg cold. “And why would my best bud run unless he was afraid of fucking my wife?”
It seemed Chase had connected the dots very concisely. “You could have just called my bluff when I called you.”
“Yes. But I wasn’t sure until right now. It’s hard to be sure when your buddy calls with his exhibitionist tricks. And you went on my errand way too easily. Usually you put up more of a fight.” Chase gave him a frosty smile. “Funny how when I was convinced you were fucking Kate, you weren’t. And the minute I trust you…”
“I never crossed the line. I never touched her.”
“But you would have.”
“I don’t know.” Now he wasn’t so sure what he would have done. “She wouldn’t have allowed it, anyway. What you did was a deal breaker in my book, and she had every right to leave you if she wanted. And yeah, I was afraid if she left you, she’d come to me. I couldn’t do that to you, so I went home. But,” he raised a finger as Chase took a menacing step toward him, “she made it quite clear that she would never leave you for me, so don’t take this out on her. It was all one-sided. As much of an ass as you are, she still loves you.”
“And Tia?”
“Kate told me in Paris I had to find my own woman. Her mission for me was to seek out someone I had slept with and see if I could make a connection. If you hadn’t made her my partner, I would have gone to the farm alone and sought her out when I got back. Tia owed me for what she did in Paris, but it was more than that. I’m not lying when I say, besides those two ménages, I’ve only slept with Tia. And I felt guilty about the birthday ménage afterwards, even though Tia never said we were exclusive.”
Chase closed his eyes for a moment as if counting to ten, then opened them on a glare. “Kate warned me once that threesomes were a bad idea. As usual, she was right.”
“It didn’t start then.”
Chase laughed in a way that was just as deadly as when he folded his hands on his desk. “Sure, buddy. Fucking my wife didn’t make you go weak in the knees?” He snorted and turned away.
Jake swallowed. He’d thought that, too, once. And Chase had to know. This was it. He had to tell him the truth about Kate or lose him forever. How odd that the pain you tried to spare someone had to come around and bite you in the ass later?
“She died, Chase. Kate died. On the helicopter. I never told you, because I knew it would hurt like hell, but that’s when all of this started. The feelings for Kate. I had lost the love of my life to death when I was eighteen, and I couldn’t do that to you, even if yours lived.”
“The fuck she did,” Chase said, his voice low and gravelly as he turned around. It almost would have been kinder for Jake to just sucker punch him, or kill him, or kiss him again, like in Paris. Chase breathed hard now, and it wasn’t residual from running. Anger gave way to fear dressed in panic. It was in his eyes, his stance, the way he turned just a little green around the corners of his mouth.
If he wanted his friendship to survive, though, he had to come clean. So Chase would get it. “It’s easy enough to find out if I’m telling the truth. You know it. I told the medical team and Mac not to tell you. You wouldn’t have handled that well.”
“I’m not handling it well now.” No, he wasn’t. Chase had turned five lighter shades of pale, his jaw clenched. The problem with Chase wasn’t that he was emotionless. It was that he felt way too damned much and had to hide it all. Only hiding it meant he never learned to control it, deal with it. Jake sighed.
“Things changed when she died. I had run an IV and started fluids, I had stopped what bleeding I could, and for the first time in years I was praying hardcore, wanting to scream at Mac to fly faster when he was already at top speed. And then she died, despite everything I did. I just held her for a moment, because I couldn’t believe—I felt helpless again.”
Jake shook his head, clearing the fog that wanted to overtake his mind. Memories were a bad thing. “I was terrified for you, because I knew you hadn’t told her what you needed to say. And she had already told me she loved you. I went numb, and you were screaming you wanted on the chopper over the radio. I snapped back enough to tell Mac to tell you to just go to the hospital, because if we paused, she would have stayed dead. I started CPR and I breathed air into her lungs. It felt like the longest time until the trauma team boarded, but they had the equipment and training to bring her back.”
Chase’s Adam’s apple bobbed, his hands shaking ever so slightly. Jake swallowed, too, because it hurt like hell all over again.
Jake took a deep breath and caught Chase’s scent, his cologne, and shuddered with another memory. “You know, I can still smell her blood. I was soaked with it. I know you saw my shirt, but they had cleaned me up some. My hands were covered, my arms. My face. I’d picked her up and fireman carried her to the helicopter, and I had practically bathed in her blood.
“She had made me wear your cologne that day, so I also smelled you, mingled with her blood. Sometimes when I’m in your office, I’ll get a whiff of you and flashback to the chopper, and see her lifeless form in front of me, and I feel that panic.”
“Stop.”
Jake shook his head. “The only other time I held someone I loved like that was when Maria died. I never told you about her, because in my mind, it was over. She was as far from my life as I could get, and I didn’t see the need to open old wounds. But when Kate died… I remembered Maria again, for a moment, and how it felt to lose a wife. We weren’t married—only engaged—but to me, I was married. I thought I was sparing you that pain.”
“Kate became your Maria.”
“As weird as that sounds, I think so. Yes.” Jake was glad he didn’t have to beg Chase to get it. “I couldn’t save Maria, but I could save Kate. And that, teamed with how good she is for you, how much you’ve changed, how happy you’ve been since she’s come into your life…” Jake shrugged, unsure. “I don’t love Kate, not like you do. I know this now. I’ll do whatever you need me to do to make this right. I’ll quit. I’ll move. I’ll…I’ll submit on my knees, like I did for you in that fucking hole of an apartment because that asshole had his gun to your head. I will do whatever it takes. Just don’t hate me.”
Chase stared for a long time, the air so thick between them. Jake stood but wondered if he should kneel. Or offer something else. Or—
“Will you tell me about Maria? I’ve heard her name, because you talk in your sleep. One night you talked about her and you woke me up with a hard-on in my ass. I couldn’t beat the shit out of you because we had guests.”
Jake remembered that night in Paris well, though not the hard-on part. Their targets had partied with them and crashed on the pullout couch. They’d had no choice but to follow through with their cover story of being lovers.
They’d had a great time faking the sex. Chase slammed the headboard against the wall and moaned. Jake tried to get a few smacks in on Chase’s ass, but Chase had threatened in a hushed whisper that he’d snipe Jake. However, they’d been forced to sleep naked together, because someone might have peeked in. Poor Chase had been mortified, but had done it. Jake hadn’t cared. Chase was hot, and Jake could sleep through a war if he wanted.
Chase swallowed hard on the same memories, ones they had never discussed. “So I had no choice but to lay there and suffer your dick in my crack. Then you begged me not to go, and you sounded like a freaking soap opera star, near tears. So I forgave the stiffy and decided to let you live.”
“Thanks for sparing me.” That cover had been horrible for Chase, yet he’d done it for them to live. Jake admired his strength.
“So tell me about Maria, so I can replace the memory of you spooning me with something more meaningful.”
“Deal.” So Jake told him about Maria, and how beautiful she’d been, even in death, and found the second time was much easier. Chase listened patiently, and when he was done talking, his friend came to his side and did the unthinkable—he pulled Jake into a one-armed grasp and hugged him. It wasn’t long. Chase wasn’t a hugger. But it was long enough to let him know that Chase felt his pain. Was still his friend.
Maybe it wasn’t unthinkable. Maybe Paris did that to a person, made them do the unthinkable.
When they broke apart, Jake ran a hand through his hair and swallowed his pride. “I don’t love Kate. Not like you do, Chase.”
“I believe you.” Chase seemed to finally find his voice. “What about Tia?”
“That’s its own mess, but beneath the confusion of Kate, she worked her own magic. I do love her.”
Chase hesitated, unsettled despite the return of his emotional mask. “Did she—Tia—tell you? About me, and her?”
More water to move under the bridge. That was one busy bridge, spanning all of this. “Yes. That was after the divorce, and honestly, as Kate says, we’d be hard-pressed to find a woman one of us hasn’t slept with.”
Chase nodded. “I hurt her. Hell, I almost killed her.”
“She told me, and I wish it hadn’t happened for either of you.” Jake thought for a moment, adding time in his mind. “But think about the good that came from it. If Tia hadn’t scared you shitless, you would never have asked to go on that mission. You would have never met Kate.” Jake shoved his hands in the pockets of his jogging pants, not knowing what else to say. “I’m sorry, Chase.”
“You don’t love her? Kate?” Chase was never unsettled. Never anything but secure, unless it was about Kate.
Jake shook his head. “Back to second cousin status, but I’ll be honest—the sharing has to stop. I have too many feelings that are easily confused. I can’t do that again. And if I get Tia to come back to me, I don’t think she’d go for me joining you, and she’s not going to want a foursome.”
Chase nodded, and they exchanged a glance. Never again, and Jake knew a moment of sweet sadness. He’d miss that part of his buddy.
“Charlotte’s home,” Chase informed him. Charlotte was the one thing they would still share no matter what, and it comforted Jake to know Chase was still behind him, supporting the burden. Unlike Kate, Charlotte had a harder time settling into the spy life after her world had been destroyed during a failed mission. They still kept close tabs on their little sister even after four and a half years. “I asked her to come over. I need to tell her about the baby.”
Jake groaned internally. Charlotte adored Chase, which pissed Jake off since he’d risked his life to save her ass when her life imploded. Chase had been across England, following a different lead in the case. “The shit is going to hit the fan when she finds out.”
“I know. But what am I supposed to do? She can’t have kids, and I feel her pain. But I can’t not live my life because it will hurt her.” Chase shook his head. “I’m just making friends left and right with this fuck-up. Kate hates me, Charlotte will hate me…”
“It will work out,” Jake promised. It all had to work out, for both of them.
Silence ensued. They stared at each other for a moment and then Chase gestured to his gun room. “Want to shoot until she shows up? I have a new rifle—well, new to me.”
With that, their friendship was somewhat restored. Chase didn’t offer his guns to just anyone. Just the people he loved, and Jake found comfort in that. They may not be on best terms yet, but Jake wasn’t shut out. “Sounds good.”
****
“You want coffee? Water? Something?” Kate asked as she led Tia into the huge, immaculate kitchen. She waved to the breakfast bar. “Have a seat.”
Tia sat on a stool as far from Blondie as she could get, wishing she were somewhere else, other than Blondie’s kitchen. As Jake would say, she would rather have the measles than to sit here. But as Chase had said, the three were close-knit, and even if she were just Jake’s partner, she’d have to deal with all of them. Kate couldn’t be a hard or soft limit. God help her for giving in and not just running the other way, because it was all she could do to stay here and face this woman.
“Water, thanks.”
Kate got a glass and extracted ice, then water from the fridge dispenser. She set it in front of Tia and then sat on a stool across from her. She brushed a blonde lock from her perfect face and said, “So. We might as well get the tough stuff out of the way. I propose this. I ask an awkward question, you follow up with whatever you want. We clear the air, and maybe we can do something other than hate each other.”
“I don’t hate you.”
“Of course you do. Probably more than I hate you, which is fair.” Kate leaned onto her elbows. “I want to know how many times you’ve fucked my husband and if you plan to continue.”
“Don’t beat around the bush, do you?” Jake had never warned her that his Blondie was this direct. “We had sex once, at the club, long before he met you. And no, I don’t plan to start anything again. For some reason, he loves you. I don’t do married.”
“Thanks for confirming that.” Kate leaned back, satisfied.
“You didn’t know?”
Kate snorted. “You think Chase is going to tell me that? Or Jake? They’re afraid of me.”
“Because you’re TNT.” Blondie could wire them all to hell. They should be afraid.
Blondie shook her head. “Because they love me, and they don’t want me to be upset with them. Do you want Jake upset with you?” she asked softly. “Your question.”
Tia knew exactly what to ask. “Do you love him?”
“Jake? Absolutely. Like a second cousin I have slept with, but it’s way more than that. He was my only friend for a very long time. I would die for him. I almost did.” She hesitated and met Tia’s gaze head on. “But I would die for Chase first, as bad as I hate him right now. That’s the difference. And Jake knows that.”
Tia knew how she felt. She’d die for Jake, if he’d let her. She just didn’t know if she could trust him. Or Blondie. “It’s very hard to like someone who holds the man you love’s heart in her hands.”
Blondie snorted. “I gave Jake his heart and told him to find someone else. He spent the weekend with you because I told him he had to move on. Which didn’t help, because the minute he asked to leave, Chase knew.”
Great, so Jake slept with her because Blondie dictated it. He probably said he loved her for the same reasons. And Blondie’s left hand was bare. “You’re not wearing his ring. I saw you in Paris with Jake, in the hotel lobby, sporting a ring that would make most women drool. Not wearing it says a lot about where you stand.”
“Just because I took it off, doesn’t mean I can change my heart.” Kate sighed and looked at her hands, so bony and pale. “I don’t have to stay and take whatever Chase deems is right for me. To Chase, that ring is ownership.” Her hands fluttered to her neck and held out a beautiful gold locket that hung between her breasts. “This was a gift he gave me Friday night, as part of his quest to win me back. I wear it because I do love him. But those rings are a sign of ownership to him. He has forfeited his right to own me.”
See, Blondie felt the same way about her ring as Tia did about Jake’s. “Doesn’t mean you won’t run to Jake.”
“Jake isn’t fair game in my book. My issue with Chase is something separate. I don’t love Jake that way, and I don’t plan to hurt my husband by leaving him for his best friend, a best friend I don’t love with my whole soul.”
“It’s nice to know you won’t leave me for him,” Chase said as he walked into the kitchen, carrying a rifle. “It’s also nice to know you have a soul. I’ve been debating that lately.”
“I have a soul. I just don’t share it with you.” Kate glanced at the rifle, and then behind her husband. “Where’s Jake?”
“Downstairs.”
“Why?” Panic made it sound more like a squeak, and Tia wanted to echo that. Kate stared down the hallway. Tia stared at Chase and prayed he hadn’t killed Jake, despite spending a whole day wishing just that.
“I came up for a body bag so he doesn’t stain the rug.” Chase winked at Tia and with that, the alliance had begun. A pang of regret pinged in the pit of her stomach at the beginning of an alliance she couldn’t keep full time.
Chase then went to the fridge and filled a glass of water. “I regret cream carpets downstairs now. We’ll have to change that when the baby comes. Easier to keep clean.”
Kate swung around in the chair to glower at him.
He arched a brow and faked innocence. “What?”
“You’re a jerk.”
A ghost of a smile played at Chase’s lips as he toasted his wife with his water glass. “Your fault for assuming I would kill him. He’s choosing something to shoot. That’s how men handle problems. They put lots of holes in tin cans and paper targets.”
Kate smacked him on the shoulder, and Chase grinned and drank down his glass. Maybe he didn’t see how much Kate still loved him, but it was very evident. Even her glare held a note of possessiveness, one that warned Tia to stay away from her man. She was fine with that.
Chase cocked his head at Tia. “You two haven’t killed each other yet?”
Kate huffed. “Women are civil creatures, unlike men.”
Chase shrugged. “Let me know if you two are going to have a cat fight. Girls that fight are hot. I bet Tia is a hair puller. I already know what kind of a fighter you are, Kate. But I bet Tia fights dirty.”
Tia snorted but loved seeing a different side of him. “I don’t need to pull Blondie’s hair to make a point.”
Kate bristled. “Seeing I can’t stand you, maybe I’ll take her to my bed instead of killing her. Maybe we can be lovers and not need either you or Jake.”
“Call me if it comes to that, too. I’d love to watch.” Chase grinned and sidestepped to avoid another blow.
“Jerk.” Kate looked up, over Tia’s shoulder, and at the same time, a hand slipped around Tia’s waist and warm lips dropped to her shoulder. Jake. She hadn’t heard him come up.
“I’ll watch, too,” Jake whispered in her ear. Kate moved to Chase and they talked quietly for a moment. Blondie was probably trying to find out how things went.
Tia spun on the stool to see him better.
“You’re okay here for a bit?” Jake asked. “Chase wants to shoot his new gun before he runs out of light. Then he said he’d feed us. I’d ask you to come along, but there’s more we need to discuss. Man stuff.”
“Everything’s okay?”
Jake nodded, and the tense lines around the corners of his mouth had faded. Chase not killing him must have released a hell of a lot of stress. “As good as it can get for now. I can’t expect miracles overnight, but he understands.”
“I’m glad.” And she was. Losing Chase’s friendship would rip Jake apart. She offered Jake a small bone, since his afternoon had sucked. “Blondie isn’t so bad.”
“Give her a chance, Tia. Even though you don’t want anything else to do with me, we’re still partners for now. She is a better friend than she is an enemy.”
Friends? With Blondie? Tia looked over her shoulder at Kate, staring up into her boss’s eyes, looking like Chase was the best thing since sliced cheese. “Will there be a better chance that she won’t wire my car with explosives if she’s my friend?”
“No one is safe from her. Just hope you don’t piss her off.” Jake grinned and looked as if he wanted to kiss her, here, in front of his friends. Her heart leapt in her chest, and a delicious tremor of fear laced with pleasure ran over her skin. She should remind him they were just partners, but his lips touched hers, briefly, and she wanted to sigh, even at that small contact. Stupid, stupid her, for falling for her partner.
Jake tapped her on the nose. “I’ll see you in a bit, then.” Then he went around the kitchen island and slapped Chase on the arm. “Let’s go, Lord of the Spies. I’m sure you have a target with my face on it.”
“I have targets with Chase’s face on them. You want one?” Kate pointed to the living room as Chase kissed her cheek. “They’re in there.”
“I’m good.” Jake smiled at Tia one last time, and she wished she could capture that smile, because it said so many things. Happiness. Excitement. Love. All things she couldn’t keep. “See you in a bit.”
The men left, and Tia was left alone, again, with Blondie. Tia stared for a moment, and then asked, “What now?”
Kate shrugged but looked a hell of a lot livelier than she had earlier, more like she had when she greeted Jake. Perhaps she was usually bubbly, and just not for Jake’s sake? “Well, the guys are hoping we end up in bed, but I guess we can come up with something else. We could mess with Chase’s dinner plans. That would piss him off. If you want to shoot, Chase has plenty of guns in the basement. I’m more than happy to get you one.”
“Don’t you shoot?”
“Hell, no. Not with them. Shooting with a former sniper and his best friend, the pain in the ass, is not fun.”
They heard the beginnings of gunfire in the distance. The door to the mudroom opened and Kate’s gaze snapped over Tia’s shoulder. “Charlotte.”
Tia swiveled on her stool, her gaze clashing with a cooler, violet one. So this was Ginger, up close and personal. She was just as svelte as Tia remembered her from the Parisian bar when she had plastered herself against Tia’s man. Tia bristled a bit at that memory. Charlotte in a flowing purple shirt and tight jeans was just as attractive as Ginger in a blue gown.
“Crashing a party, am I?” Ginger purred as she shut the door behind her. Tia blinked, not expecting her to be English. Charlotte cast a calculating glance over Tia, making her feel like produce that had been assessed and then discarded as spoiled. “You must be Jake’s new…partner.”
Kate grinned, looking even a little more bubbly than she had. “That’s Tia, and yes, she’s Jake’s, so you have to be nice to her.”
Charlotte drew in a breath and forced a smile, looking as if she’d rather eat dirt than be nice. “Good to meet you, love.” Before Tia could respond, Charlotte directed her intense gaze back to Kate. “The boys?”
“Out back. Shooting.” Kate looked as if she was mulling something over. “They’re not getting along.”
“Oh? And you let them go out, with guns? Chase is a much better shot.” This smile was genuine and full of fondness as she glanced at Tia. “Short partnership for you.”
Tia bristled. “Jake can hold his own.”
Charlotte snorted, but her eyes gleamed. “I suppose I should mediate, then.”
“Yes,” Kate agreed. “You can clean up the blood.”
“I’ll see myself out. Enjoy your visit.” Charlotte nodded and went back out through the mudroom to wherever the shooting range was.
Well, that was freaking weird. Tia turned back to Kate and demanded, “Okay, who is she.”
“Jake didn’t explain Charlotte?”
“Just that she’s collateral damage and like a sister.”
Kate nodded in agreement. “She’s hell in sneakers, but she’ll like you a lot better than me, I think. She’s not as fond of Jake as she is Chase. Chase walks on water. But I feel sorry for her, and I’ve tried to make friends. She’s really had the crappy end of the spy stick handed to her.”
“And she’s here because…”
The bubbly left Kate’s demeanor. “Chase is probably going to tell her about the zygote.”
Tia sensed this was not a good thing. “And that’s not happy news?”
“For her, no.” Kate shrugged. “Charlotte…she’s complicated. I can’t wait for Jake to have to explain her because he took great pleasure in Chase’s discomfort when they had to explain her to me.”
The mudroom door opened and closed again. Kate sucked in a breath, her eyes wide and afraid as she stared over Tia’s shoulder.
Before Tia could process Blondie’s change something cold and metallic pressed against Tia’s neck. A hand gripped the back of her ponytail and pulled. It wasn’t Jake’s hand, and from the look on Blondie’s face, the metal she felt at her throat wasn’t a butter knife.
“Don’t move. Either of you,” the man whispered loud enough for both Tia and Kate to hear, his accent Middle Eastern. “Especially you, pretty girl. Do you remember me? I’ve waited to see you again.”
“I should have killed you,” Kate said as she stared at him with growing recognition, her left hand at her neck, playing with her gold locket. “You’ve been following me, haven’t you?”
“I saw you in the airport, coming out of European customs. Hand in hand with your asshole boyfriend. I didn’t think spies hooked up.”
That must have been on the return trip from Paris. He knew Jake, too. Tia swallowed. “Who is he, Blondie?”
The man laughed. “Blondie. I love that. Go ahead, tell her. It won’t matter once I kill you both.”
Kate still stared at Tia’s captor. “He was a guard from my first assignment. I knocked him out. I killed his friend, though.”
“Yes, you did, bad girl. But lucky for me, I was patrolling when the bomb you set went off. Usually, I was stationed in his room to watch over him as he slept. Who knew you were such a deadly, beautiful girl? And now, you’re mine.”
“Why were you in the airport?” Kate looked thoughtful. “No, you were looking for me, weren’t you? Spies have to fly eventually.” She gave a sharp laugh. “You’re not as good as you think you are. I knew you were following me. I knew.”
“Yes, but I got in by watching everyone use your key code, and now I have you both. Your men will be sad when they can’t find you. Even sadder when they do find you.”
Tia shivered at the cold promise in his words.
Kate swallowed, nervous. “Mad as hell is more like it.”
He ignored that. “I plan on fucking you for a long time, Blondie. That’s what you promised me. Your friend, she’ll be just as sweet.”
“Leave her here. I’ll go,” Kate offered, her blue eyes transfixed. Anxious. “She didn’t do anything to you. Just me. Take me.”
“Oh, no. I saw her jogging in on the asshole’s arm. I want you both.”
His lips touched Tia’s ear in a wet promise of a kiss. Tia shuddered. She’d never been captured before, except for Jake’s pretend intruder game. She wasn’t enjoying this one bit.
Kate looked resigned to their fate, and that pissed Tia off. What the hell? Why didn’t she run? Yeah, he’d slit Tia’s throat, but Kate and her unborn child would live. Isn’t that all any of them cared about, anyway? Jake might be sad if Tia died, but Kate and her baby…that would crush him. Chase, too.
She mouthed, “Run,” to Blondie.
Kate blinked long lashes over her baby blues and shook her head slightly. Tia widened her eyes, trying to tell her to get a move on. Blondie would make it to wherever they were shooting before this asshole could kill her. But Kate still shook her head.
“I’m sorry, pretty friend of Blondie, but I can’t transport you awake. And Blondie, if you don’t cooperate, I kill her, now. It will be her blood on your kitchen floor.” He covered Tia’s nose with a cloth damp with chloroform. She struggled, trying not to breathe in, the knife biting into her throat right before the world went black.