Killer Secrets (2 page)

room. He placed her there, cushioning her head with a spare
pillow against the back of the cushions and

brushing the blond bangs back from her face with regret.

Wrong place, wrong time, wrong life. Because blood would
tell. And this time, the hated blood that ran

through his veins was telling in ways he had never imagined
possible.

One

Six months later

Palm Beach, Aruba

HE WAS ROGUE.

Could there be any other explanation for the dark, avenging
force that swept through the night?

The Chameleon scrambled through the warehouse, ducking
behind crates and using the heavy support

posts of the building to deflect the bullets raining around
her.

The small team of highly trained Fuentes soldiers tore into
the warehouse where the small cell of

terrorists were waiting for the go-ahead that Ian was
arriving for a scheduled weapons buy. They were

there to kill him. But it was Ian who was killing instead.

She hadn't managed to learn how they had received that
information, or from where the leak had

originated. Her work within the cell had gleaned her
nothing but a certainty that the determination to

assassinate Ian Fuentes was escalating.

The assassins had been on the island less than twenty-four
hours. The final two had arrived just hours

before with the details of the strike they were to make
against the heir to the Fuentes cartel.

None of them had known for certain that they were striking
against Ian until some hours before. Even the

Chameleon hadn't been certain of the plan until the French
assasins in charge had arrived, their eyes cold,

hard, and outlined the operation.

They had no sooner given the final order than death had
swept through the night.

She flinched as a bullet tore across the beam several
inches above her crouched form. Ducking and

rolling, her weapon ready, she pushed herself deeper into
the shadows as she lifted her weapon and

aimed at one of the few remaining lights shining overhead.

The bulb shattered, sparks raining down on the assembled
crates and packages prepared for shipping

the next day.

She moved, sprinting from her hiding place, as bullets tore
into the crates around her. Her gaze swept

around the room and she grimaced as she saw the black-clad
Fuentes soldiers moving through the

shadows with stealthy certainty.

They were trained, disciplined. These weren't the drug
soldiers they had been when Ian Fuentes first

arrived a year ago. This was a highly trained, effective
fighting force. A team of dark, dangerous,

SEAL-trained weapons.

Damn. The director of the Department of Homeland Security
was going to have a cow when she sent in

the report on this one. The rumors that Ian was taking out
drug and terrorist forces alike hadn't been

substantiated. Everyone who could talk somehow ended up
dead.

She was going to have to make certain she didn't end up as
dead as the rest of them.

Dammit, she had worked hard to get herself into position within
the small terrorist cell working out of

Aruba. A year of busting her ass and eating dirt with worms
to get in place here, and now the team the

terrorists had put together was just dead.

Moving quickly, quietly, she skirted the edges of the
crudely built warehouse, working her way to the far

wall where the loose boards there would allow her an easy
exit. She didn't dare attempt to use the door.

"Not so fast."

The Chameleon froze as the barrel of the weapon was laid,
almost casually, at the back of her neck.

She knew that voice. She knew the feel of that heated body
behind her own.

She held her hands out carefully, allowing the Glock to
fall from her gloved fingers to the dusty floor as

she restrained the impulse to release the lever holding the
knife beneath the sleeve of her light jacket.

Her backup was at her ankle; but it was dark, he might not
see it.

Before she could do anything she was jerked upright and
slammed into the wall hard enough to knock

her teeth together. If she hadn't been anticipating it.

Eyes narrowed, her arms kept carefully at her sides, her
head jerked up as powerful fingers locked

around her throat and held her in place.

Icy brandy-colored eyes locked on hers in surprise.

He hadn't known she was here.

The Chameleon smiled and, while surprise held him immobile,
she moved.

Her leg kicked up, almost slamming into his balls but
barely glancing them instead. He went back, his

fingers slackening on her throat as she tore out of his
grip.

His hand gripped her wrist as she turned into the hold, her
ankle twisting around his, almost taking him

down. Once again, she managed to do no more than loosen his
hold on her.

A graceful twist and she had an arm's distance between them
as she crouched and stared back at him,

eyes narrowed, her breathing heavy now.

Adrenaline coursed through her veins, her heart raced but
not from fear.

"Let it go," she hissed back at him. "I'm no
threat to you."

She would never be a threat to him. Not unless she had to
be. She was here for him, and her heart

ached because this wasn't the man she knew, the man she had
fallen in love with in Atlanta.

She watched him, pushing back her anger and her fears of
what he had become as his eyes narrowed

further. His weapon was tucked into the front of his black
mission pants, easily accessible. God only

knew where hers was. He could take her out so easily, they
both knew it. Just as they both knew he

wouldn't. She hoped she knew that.

"Why?" The snarled question was soft, filled with
banked fury. "Why are you here?"

Of course he knew who she was. He had always known who she
was, no matter where he saw her, no

matter her disguise.

"For you."

"To kill me?" He sneered. "DHS decide they
couldn't handle the shame of having one of their own defeat

them?"

She shook her head. "I'm leaving now."

"The hell you are." His lips lifted in a warning
growl, his savagely honed features reflecting his fury now.

"The hell I am." She smiled back as his hand
gripped the butt of his gun. "Will you shoot me, Ian?"

She backed away from him. Her exit was only a few feet
away, the boards loosened just in case of such

an emergency, prepared for her esape.

She closed the distance as she watched his face, his eyes.
A second later it was her only warning. The

gun was jerked from the band of his pants, he aimed for her
and fired.

Kira threw herself back, knowing, certain, she was staring
death in the face until she stumbled over the

body behind her.

Whirling, she had only a moment to glimpse the fallen
terrorist before she shoved the loosened board

aside and slipped from the warehouse to the inky darkness
beyond.

Just that easily he had killed one of his own men. For her.

She ran through the night, careful to stay down, to keep as
many obstacles as possible between her and

any bullets that might come her way.

The Chameleon had been bested by a Navy SEAL gone rogue. Or
had she been rescued by a

deep-cover agent now so immersed in the mission that he was
no longer the man he had been a year

before?

Something inside her ached at the thought of either answer.
Over the years, Ian Richards had managed

to see through every disguise she had used in the various
operations where they had met up. She had

been on the inside, he had always been part of the force
sweeping in to clean up the mess her information

had helped locate. Once again, he had seen through another
disguise, but this time, they might not be on

the same side. And the very scary part of that was the fact
that she knew she wouldn't let it stop her. She

had come to Aruba to claim what was hers before his father,
Diego Fuentes, could steal his soul.

But she was there for another reason as well. If he hadn't
gone rogue, then she was there to make

certain that the SEAL didn't murder either the terrorist
Sorrell that he had vowed to identify and capture

for his father, or his father, the drug lord Diego Fuentes.

The Chameleon had no answers to the questions she had
confronted the director of Homeland Security

with. Was Ian operating under mission parameters of DHS?
She had asked that question twice. Each

time the same answer: DHS doesn't contract rogue SEAL
operatives.

There were no straight answers, there was only supposition
and her orders. Reestablish a relationship

with Ian and ensure Homeland Security acquired Sorrell
should Ian identify him, as they suspected he

would. And keep Diego Fuentes alive.

Diego Fuentes was an asset. He was a DHS-contracted
informant. And Ian had no idea the lengths the

Department of Homeland Security was willing to go to keep
him alive.

IAN SWEPT HIS GAZE ACROSSthe floor of the warehouse as the
team of trained soldiers moved in

slowly, dragging the bodies of the assassins to the cleared
center of the warehouse.

There were a dozen. Their faces were known to him, several
had a price on their heads. Too bad he

couldn't collect.

"There's one missing." One of his elite
bodyguards spoke at his side. "The blonde. We haven't found her

body."

And they wouldn't either.

Ian glanced to his head bodyguard, Deke. Deep cover, a
ten-year veteran of the Fuentes cartel, his dark

eyes reflected the same chill Ian knew his own did.

This world did that to a man. Planted in ice where a heart
should be and diluted the guilt over the

bloodshed. The bastards now lying in the center of the
warehouse were murderers, kidnappers, rapists.

They were terrorists who didn't care who lived or died as
long as their fanatical agenda was observed.

He kicked at one lying on its side, knocking the body over
until the dead eyes stared up at the heavily

beamed ceiling.

"The girl that got away is Algeria Winters," Deke
reported. "There's no sign of her, boss."

She didn't get away. He'd let her go.

Ian stared at the terrorist's body. He remembered this one
from a mission in Russia several years before.

Algeria Winters had been there as well. A Russian-born
informant who often worked with Antoni

Ruissard, the dead terrorist at his feet.

Anger tightened his jaw as his fingers clenched on the
Glock he held carefully by his side.

"We have a team in place in Oranjestad as well as Palm
Beach," Trevor stated. "We can get her

description out, have her picked up."

Ian nodded slowly. "Go ahead."

They wouldn't find her. The persona Algeria Winters would
be discarded before anyone else had a

chance to see her. The higher cheekbones would be altered,
that sharp chin would disappear, hazel eyes

would change, and blond hair would become another color.
Her next disguise would be as natural, as

smooth as birth, and no one would ever know she was Kira
Porter, except him.

He stared down at the dead assassin Antoni, the dark blond
hair matted with blood, the head shot

having taken off half his face. He wasn't nearly as
handsome, as debonair, as he had been when Ian's

men had raided the warehouse.

"Have the Misserns arrived yet?"

Josef and Martin Missern were the weapons dealers Ian was
to have met at this warehouse. In less than

ten minutes.

"Their limo just pulled in minutes ago," Deke
reported. "They're being held outside."

Ian's jaw clenched. Would the twins, certain Sorrell
contacts, have arrived if they had known about this