Deadly Game (13 page)

Jack cleared his throat. “You think he wants to see your reaction to her when he’s paired her with other men?”

“He thinks I’ll kill them—or her.”

Mari’s stomach did a somersault. There was quiet truth in Ken’s voice. She moistened her suddenly dry lips. “Someone really needs to fill me in here, because, quite frankly, I don’t like the sound of that. Whitney has a way of manipulating people into doing exactly what he wants them to do and I’m not exactly his favorite person.”

“Ken.” Jack ignored her. “He isn’t reading
you.
He has no idea of your character. You think the old man is lurking around inside of you. Hell, I thought the same thing, but it isn’t true. We were investigated. Whitney has a high security clearance and he read everything in our files.”

“What is everything?” Mari asked, trying desperately to ignore the way Ken’s individual fingertips were bringing points of fire to her ankle.

“Jack, it has nothing to do with that. He probably did read the files, but he knows. He set this up because he wants to see how I’ll react and how Mari will react, and now that you have Briony to protect, he wants to see how you’ll react.” Ken’s fingers dug into Mari’s ankle, and he suddenly turned his glacier-cold gaze on her. “My father was an insanely jealous man. He brutally murdered our mother and tried to kill both of us. Whitney knows it and he set this up. You. Me. Jack. Briony. It’s all one big game to him.”

“Well he’s playing a deadly game then,” Jack said. “Because no one controls us, Ken. We do what we’ve always done; we make our own rules and we stick together.”

“What about her?” Ken’s reply was so low Mari barely caught the words.

Jack sighed. “You know it’s impossible to leave her behind, so we’re going to have to work through it. It wasn’t that easy for me with Briony, but we managed.”

“I’m not you, Jack. I’m telling you, I’m like he was.”

“No, you’re not.” Mari was firm, startling both men into noticing her. “If Whitney saw that information in a file somewhere, yes, he’d use it against you. He’s very good at twisting people into knots, exploring their weaknesses, but if he has psychic abilities and he touched you, he didn’t read that in you.”

“How do you know that?” Ken’s fingers continued that gentle brushing along her toes, his grip as strong as ever, but the touch had lost its warning and had become an involuntary caress.

“Because I touched you.”

Ken blinked. It was his only movement. There was no change of expression on his face, but she knew he’d reacted.

Jack edged closer. “You have that kind of ability? To read people when you touch them?”

“She doesn’t,” Ken denied. “She’s lying to try to ease my mind.”

“You wish. I don’t even like you. Why would I want to ease your mind? The worse you feel, the happier I am.” His eyes had gone to cold steel, but she held his gaze and shrugged with feigned casualness. “I couldn’t care less whether you believe me or not.”

“Do you?” Jack asked.

Mari studied their faces. There were definite chinks in their armor, whether they wanted to admit it or not. “Not strong, but strong enough to know Ken isn’t a flat-out murderer, especially not of women. He would carry out an order, but he wouldn’t just go around killing someone for no real reason.”

“Good to know.” Ken let go of her foot and took away the warmth. “If you’re so good at all of this, why don’t you tell me who this man is and we can let it go?”

She frowned. “You know it was Sean.”

“And he’ll come after you.”

“Whitney will send him, yes, but if you’re right that this is an experiment, why would he do that? Why would he send someone to bring me back to him? Wouldn’t he want to see what happens between us?”

“He’s sending Brett first,” Ken replied. “That’s all part of his happy little plan. And then he’ll send the other one because there’s a bond between you, and Whitney knows it—and he knows I know it and he knows I’ll kill them.”

There was an edge to his voice that alarmed her, his tone low and mean and without mercy. She wanted to say it shouldn’t matter, but she already knew the power of Whitney’s experiments, and she had enhanced scent, just as Ken did, just as Jack did. That made the pheromone response all the more potent. Whitney had created a powerful sexual attraction that transcended common restraint and threatened the discipline of even the strongest soldier—just as the doctor had planned.

If Ken was really like his father, as he evidently feared, she could be in more trouble than she’d ever dreamed. She doubted if she could resist Ken Norton if he made sexual advances toward her, but she would try. What she hadn’t counted on was caring one way or the other about the man. She was drawn to him, not just sexually, but emotionally, and that made no sense to her and almost scared her more than the physical attraction.

“My leg hurts and this conversation is making me feel sick. I shouldn’t be giving out information to you. We’re enemies.”

Jack shook his head. “I don’t think we are. If you were really ordered to protect the senator, as we were, then we’re on the same side. You have the GhostWalker crest tattooed on your upper back.” He shoved up his sleeve. “We’re a member of an elite unit of the Special Forces and we all work for the United States. We’re on the same side, Mari. I don’t know how the wires are getting crossed, but I suspect Whitney has something to do with it.”

“You think Whitney has gone rogue.”

“We all thought he was dead—murdered,” Jack replied. “He disappeared about eighteen months ago, and his daughter ‘saw’ his death, saw him murdered.”

“I can assure you, he’s very much alive.”

“No one has seen or heard from him. Only recently, we began to suspect he faked his own death.”

Mari frowned, shifting slightly to ease the soreness in her hips. Nothing could stop the pain in her leg, so she ignored it, the way she’d been taught. It bothered her that Jack was doing all the talking, as if Ken was still dwelling on other things—things she didn’t want him to be thinking about. “It’s possible he faked his own death so he wouldn’t be killed. If the government, or his friends, decided he was a liability, or a lunatic, they might have decided to get rid of him, or at the least have him locked up in an institution.” She risked a quick glance at Ken, but he was looking at her leg.

“What friends?” Jack asked.

“He has a couple of people visit every now and then. The compound is under heavy guard when they come, and they’re surrounded by bodyguards. Most of the time we’re moved to the back of the compound and only catch glimpses of them. Sean works with Whitney now, so a few times he’s told us about the arguments between them.”

Ken stepped away from her, folding his arms across his chest and regarding her with cold eyes. “It didn’t occur to you that killing a woman because someone didn’t return might be a little out of the ordinary?”

Mari noticed his body was still slightly between hers and his brother. Something about his deceptively casual stance and his tone sent a chill down her spine. “What’s ordinary? I was raised in the barracks with other girls. We were soldiers, trained as soldiers, ran missions even as young as twelve. None of us have ever been away except on a mission or training exercise. Normal was whatever Whitney told us it was.”

“And now?” Jack prompted, shooting his twin a warning glance.

Mari shrugged. “Whitney is getting worse. When I was a child, he just seemed mean, and remote, but over the years, he’s really deteriorated, especially the last year or two. For a while, he seemed like he had a human side. I thought maybe his daughter, Lily, was keeping him grounded, but—”

“You know about Lily?” Jack interrupted.

Mari nodded, trying not to flinch as Ken cleaned her leg. More blood had seeped out. “He talked about her often, and it seemed like he really might love her, although, to be honest, I couldn’t imagine that he was capable of real love. He didn’t see any of us as human beings. Over the last two years he’s become fanatical. Even his friends seem to be having trouble holding him in check.”

“Tell us about his friends,” Jack encouraged, taking another step forward.

Mari tried to keep her gaze from straying to the gun at his waist, or the two other weapons in the twin harnesses beneath his arms. He was close enough that she might be able to snag one of the guns if she was fast—very fast.

“Is there something about my brother’s face you find fascinating?” Ken asked.

The low tone made her shiver. He could sound so utterly menacing at times. “Actually, no,” she brazened, determined not to be intimidated. “I was wondering if he was deliberately tempting me to make a try for his guns or whether he was so into the conversation he forgot I was his prisoner.”

“Do you really think you’re that fast?” Jack asked.

“Ordinarily, but I’m hurting a little bit right now, so my timing might be off. In any case, you’re double-teaming me. Ken is waiting for me to jump you, and frankly, it’s a really uninspiring trap. Neither of you put much thought into it.”

“Sorry, it was spur of the moment, just to see where we stood,” Jack said. “You thought about going for a gun.”

“I have to escape. I don’t have a choice. As much as I’m enjoying your company, I really, really have to get back—everyone’s waiting for me.”

“And all this time I thought we were getting to be friends. Didn’t we agree we were on the same side?”

Ken ignored both of them and once more took up a position by her head. He wiped her face with a cool cloth. “Put off trying to escape just a little longer. Your leg isn’t up to it yet.”

“I wish I could, but even if we were on the same side, they’re going to come looking for me and someone will end up hurt. I may be able to sneak back into the compound before Whitney realizes I’ve ever been gone. My people are going to try to make that happen.”

“Just give us the location of the compound, and we’ll be happy to escort you home,” Jack suggested.

“And you’d bring a few of your friends just to make it fun,” Mari said. She waved him away. “I’m tired. You can interrogate me later, okay?”

“Take another drink of water.” Ken slipped his arm behind her back again. “We can’t risk you getting dehydrated.”

“Did she do much damage to her leg?” Jack asked.

Mari closed her eyes and turned her face away from them. She liked them. She even understood them. They were soldiers. She respected that. They were doing their job and they very well could be on the same side—she was fairly certain they were—but she couldn’t chance risking everyone’s life to find out.

She inhaled, dragging Ken’s masculine scent into her lungs. She’d been more stimulated, more humiliated, and more exhilarated than she’d ever been in her life. She
had
to escape. Nothing she said or did was going to convince them to let her go.

“Mari, drink the water.”

The steel in Ken’s voice set her teeth on edge. She knew the ripple of anger going through her body tipped him off. She had a stubborn streak a mile wide, and it was the one thing that had gotten her through her separation from Briony—through her unusual childhood—and through the degradation of Whitney’s insane breeding program.

Ken tightened his arm around her and lowered his face until his warm breath fanned her cheek—until she was enveloped in his scent and her body began to respond. She tried desperately to focus on the pain in her leg, on her dire situation, on anything but the feel of the muscles in his arm, the heat of his skin so close to hers.

Are you doing this on purpose? Because it’s low.

Don’t defy me just to prove some silly point. You need the water to keep you healthy. Drink it.

She turned her head to glare at him, her lips inches from his, her gaze locked with his. It was a good thing she was telepathic, because she had no air left in her lungs to breathe—or talk.
Has anyone ever mentioned to you that you’re a complete ass?

I believe my brother has done so on many occasions.

She nodded her head.
Well. Okay then. As long as someone has.

She took a small sip of the water and let it trickle down her throat, surprised at how parched she was. The drugs were beginning to leave her system, and things were much more sharply in focus. Time had passed. She understood why they had kept her knocked out as they moved her from place to place, probably one step ahead of her unit, but she had no idea if it had been hours or days.

Panic gripped her for a moment and she fought it down. The five women left in the compound were her only real family. Well, there was Sean and a couple of the other men who had not been caught in Whitney’s web of deceit. But she’d been raised with the other women. They were all close, sisters. They had no parents, no other friends, so the bond between them was strong. In the end it didn’t matter if she was on the same side with Ken and Jack, because she had to go back. She couldn’t leave the others to face possible death at Whitney’s hands.

She was absolutely convinced Whitney had begun a descent into madness. He might have started out a brilliant scientist, but somewhere along the way he had become convinced he was far smarter than anyone else and his ends justified his means. Rules weren’t for him. He had too much power and too little accountability.

Mari drank more water. She had to regain her strength. “How long did you keep me out?”

“A couple of days,” Jack answered. “We can’t have you calling in your unit, and they’ve been hard on our heels.”

She flashed him a brief smile, deliberately leaning back against Ken’s arm, determined to show him—and herself—that she could be in control of her physical feelings. “They’re good.”

“Not that good,” Jack disagreed. “They don’t have you and we do. Had we been looking for you, we would have found you.”

“You’re so arrogant.”

Jack’s eyebrow shot up. “That isn’t being arrogant. It’s a fact.”

“I’m tired and my head hurts.” She glared up at Ken. “Probably from where you slammed your elbow into me.”

“I remember. And you didn’t even thank me for saving your life.”

“I would have preferred you being a lot gentler about it.” She was joking, trying to lighten the situation—or stall for time, she wasn’t certain which—but a shadow crossed Ken’s face. Up so close to him, she caught that fleeting reaction to her words.