Killer Secrets (39 page)

He met Clint's anger head-on. No apology. He'd be damned if
he'd apologize for any of it.

Clint's gaze sliced to Kira then. "You're slacking, Agent
Porter. I figured you'd have him in line by now.

Teach him a few manners."

"He's still a work in progress," she drawled, the
hint of a Southern accent causing Ian's balls to twitch in

hunger despite the tension in the room.

When her fingers slid over his arm, and she aligned herself
at his side, something shifted within him.

Others stood either in front of him, or behind him; he'd be
damned if anyone, man or woman, had ever

stood at his side in such a way.

The feeling that swept over him had him fighting to hold
back, to keep his damned hands to himself.

Instead, his arm slid around her, pulling her to his side,
desperate to feel her against him.

Clint's lips quirked. "Keep working on him, he might
have potential. Come on in here, we have some

serious shit going down. We were planning a break into
Ian's room tonight. Thankfully, you saved us the

trouble."

Ian's eyes narrowed as he followed Clint through the villa.
If they had been considering a move that

potentially dangerous, then the situation had gone beyond
serious shit. They knew the operation, that was

evident; moving in on him could have fouled the whole
thing.

"There were ways to make contact," Ian reminded
him.

"Sure there are," Clint growled. "Ways that
information can be leaked too. From what I understand

you're under a total blackout until this mission is
completed. I talked to your stepfather; even he hasn't

heard anything. We weren't about to rock this little boat
by going through channels that could possibly

include another nasty little spy belonging to Sorrell.
Coming straight to the source. I like that angle."

Bitterness filled his voice, the same bitterness that had
filled all their guts when they realized how

effectively the government channels had been infiltrated by
Sorrell's spies.

"I need to get this over with," Ian informed him.
"I have men waiting to grab Ascarti if need be. The

opportunity is now or never."

"Never." Clint led the way into the sitting room
off the more formal living room.

"Ascarti isn't what you want." Reno stepped from
the shadows of the room, cradling an M-16 as he

gazed at Ian quietly. "It's good to see you again,
Ian."

"Reno." Ian nodded, then glanced at the weapon in
his arms questioningly.

"Security." Reno shrugged. "Macey and Kell
are on their way back in; until then, there are things to

protect."

"There are?" Besides their own sorry asses? But
why the hell they thought he was a risk at this point, he

wasn't certain.

"There's a reason we've been busting our asses to
contact you for a week, Ian," Clint snarled. "You have

your head up your ass? Since when did you think we'd
jeopardize an op?"

"Since the general information that went out on it
said I was a deserter and traitor," Ian snapped back,

feeling Kira's hand rub against his back warningly.

Hell, why did that ease the anger beginning to rise inside
him? What the fucking hell kind of hold did she

have on him anyway? Whatever it was, it eased the violent
tension rising inside him and had the other two

men watching him with knowing grins.

"Would you believe I had betrayed my country,
Ian?" Reno asked then. "Better yet, would you have

believed it of Nathan, no matter the evidence?"

"I built the evidence," Ian reminded them.
"It was pretty damning."

"A little too damning," Reno agreed. "I'll
kick your ass for taking me away from my wife and son after

we're finished here. Until then, we have details to attend
to."

Macey and Kell stepped into the room.

"Fucktard," Macey muttered as he passed him.
"Dumb shit. The least you could have done was let us

have some fun too."

Kell chuckled and moved across the room to plop into the
heavily cushioned couch that sat along the

wall.

"All clear. We have monitors in place as well as
motion sensors. We're safe for the time being."

"Jammers are in place," Macey reported. "The
villa seems pretty quiet. Old man Fuentes retired to the

basement from what I could see. He likes his
solitude?" Macey glanced at Ian.

"He likes his playroom down there," Ian snapped.
"And the pretty young woman willing to play with

him."

The others grimaced.

"You're all here, now what the hell is going on? I put
off a grab against Ascarti for what?"

"For me, Lieutenant Richards."

Ian had his weapon out, swinging around to the shadowed
opening that led to another room and the

petite young woman that stepped through it.

He recognized her. A regular at some of the clubs in the
past few months. Red hair, haunted green eyes,

and wariness.

"Tehya?" Surprise colored Kira's voice as she
touched Ian's arm, indicating that he could holster his

weapon.

The others sat and stood comfortably, obviously well aware
of her presence before she stepped into the

room.

"You know her?" Ian questioned tightly.

"Tehya Talamosi," she stated. "I'm just not
certain why she's here."

"It's good to see you again, Kira." Tehya nodded
almost regally in Kira's direction. "It's been a few

years."

"Tehya."

Ian could feel the tension in Kira's voice now; she was as
off balance as he felt.

"Why is she here?" Ian lowered his weapon
carefully. "And it better be good, Reno, because I'm ready

to kick all your asses for jeopardizing this mission in
this way."

Tehya's lips curved with an edge of bitterness. "It
wasn't their fault, Lieutenant Richards. Once they

learned why I was here, they really had no other choice. We
have a mutual goal, and I can help."

She couldn't be more than twenty-two, twenty-three at the
most. She was so damned delicate it was

hard to picture her as an adult.

"And how can you help?" Ian growled. "Unless
you can identify Sorrell for us."

"I can do better than that. I can bring Sorrell to
you. I'm his daughter, you see. There is no better bait on

the face of this earth."

Ian couldn't believe it. It couldn't be this simple.

"You can identify him?"

Her lips turned down. "Unfortunately, not his face. If
it were that simple I would have made the

information available to your terrorist enforcement
agencies years ago. I don't know his face, but I know

his voice and I know the single identifying mark he carries.
I can give you that much, and you can kill him

for me."

Anticipation rippled through Ian. He felt Kira tense beside
him, saw the satisfaction reflected in the other

men's eyes.

This was what they had been waiting for. Years of
investigations, of planning. They had heard about the

wife and daughter who had escaped Sorrell years before. The
wife had turned up dead in Nicaragua, but

the daughter was rumored to be a figment of the
imagination. An urban legend created by the agents

desperate to identify Sorrell.

Sorrell's twenty-year rise within the underground terrorist
community had been subtle. The power shifts

had been carried by men working directly beneath him, yet
never seeing him. Somehow, Sorrell had

managed to finance and build an empire within the white
slave market before sliding into terrorism, and he

had done it all without ever being identified. There hadn't
even been a strong suspect in the years since his

name had popped up. He was an anomaly, a shadow.

"I know Tehya, Ian," Kira murmured. "I knew
she was running from something, I just didn't know what."

Tehya's pert little nose wrinkled as her lips tightened.

"When my mother escaped Sorrell, I was only three. She
had me placed in a convent while she

continued to run. The good sisters there knew I was in
danger. They protected me. It took Sorrell only

months to find her and kill her. One of the nuns awakened
me one night and we slipped from the convent.

It was burned to the ground at dawn that morning with six
nuns inside. The coroner's report stated that at

least one of the bodies had been tortured before the
convent was burned. I've been on the run ever since.

Always just a few steps ahead of him, always fighting for
survival."

"So why move against him now?" Ian wasn't the
trusting sort and he didn't believe in a gift horse.

Teyha sighed before glancing behind her at Reno. "When
you deserted and took the reins on the cartel in

time to keep Sorrell from taking over I knew it was time.
He's been gaining on me, tracking me. He

found the nun who raised me about ten years ago. She had
known Sorrell was close to finding us. She

put me in the care of a priest that she knew well and did
the same thing Mother had done. She kept

running. I have no doubt she gave them a reliable
description of me before his men murdered her because

within months the priest and I were on the run as well. We
ran for years before he found someone he

thought could protect me better than he. My life has been
filled with blood, Lieutenant. After the priest

was killed, I ran away from the retired marine he had
placed me with. Within months the marine was

dead, and I was alone. I've been alone since I was
seventeen, fighting to stay out of Sorrell's hands,

always aware of the future that awaits me if he catches me.
The only way I'll be safe is if he's dead."

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