Vengeance (SSU Trilogy Book 1) (39 page)

She couldn’t bear having Niko look at her like that again. She’d gotten so used to the warmth of his eyes that his sudden chill frightened her. Was he still angry with her for kicking him into the ravine? Didn’t he know that she’d done it to protect him?

Hadn’t he heard her tell him that she loved him?

She sank down onto the nearest chair and put her head in her hands. At the time, she’d been shocked that the words “I love you” came out of her mouth, but they’d also felt right.

Was it true? Did she love him?

She dug her thumbs into her temples, massaging in slow circles as she stared at a crack in the pale green linoleum floor.

Oh, God. She didn’t know what she felt. Until she’d found Kai, she would have denied being capable of love any more.

But now? What she felt for Kai was familiar, like a favorite sweater slightly too tight from too many washings, but that was sure to stretch back out into a comfortable fit.

What she felt for Niko was new. Fragile as an early spring flower. But was it really love? Or just an infatuation brought on by having Niko treat her like a woman when she’d so long denied that part of herself?

She shook her head. She couldn’t think about her feelings for Niko. Not yet. Her vengeance wasn’t complete. Alvarez still had to die.

Yet she was smart enough to know that if she tried to go after Alvarez on her own, she wouldn’t survive. And she no longer wanted to die. As terrified as she was of living with the memories of the attack, she had Kai to live for now. She wasn’t alone.

And, maybe, if she was very, very lucky, she had Niko, too.

A door banged at the far end of the hallway. She glanced up, but it was a stranger who walked past, not Niko.

She sat up and rolled her shoulders. She eyed the vending machine, trying to decide if she wanted to risk a cup of coffee. After a moment’s deliberation, she decided to test her luck. But as she looked into the deep brown liquid in the Styrofoam cup, it reminded her of Niko’s eyes. Her throat clogged with tears.

Maybe the arctic treatment was Niko’s way of saying good-bye. They’d found Kai. Niko’s mission was over. He had no more use for her.

As he’d said before, he only needed her for bait.

Jenna bit her lip. Had she really meant nothing to him? Her stomach tumbled over and she rubbed it, trying to sooth her sudden queasiness.

To hell with that. If this was really good-bye, he could damn well say it to her face. Until then, she’d keep on hoping for some sort of future with him.

She tossed the untouched coffee into the trash.

Future. Right. Only if you survive your revenge against Alvarez.

#

Kai watched the two men standing by the side of his bed. Their dark, deep-set eyes, coupled with the sharply jutting noses and firmly chiseled mouths identified the men as brothers, even if he hadn’t already heard of Niko and Rafe Andros.

Niko was something of a legend in the undercover world of anti-narcotics. He’d heard whispers that the man had helped out on some counter-terrorism operations too, but apparently the man was now SSU.

On the other hand, rumor had it that Niko’s younger brother, Rafe, was being primed to take over from Ryker when the SSU director retired.

Despite their reputation for being honest, Kai wasn’t sure how much information he wanted to trust them with. Eventually they’d report back to Ryker, and he still didn’t know if Ryker had personally burned his cover and sent assassins after him, or if the SSU had a mole. Until he knew for certain, he had to play this safe.

He couldn’t risk the wrong people getting Nevsky’s data.

“Do you have the chip?” Niko demanded.

Kai took as deep a breath as his broken ribs would allow. “No.” He explained about his two-year search for someone within the ranks of Dr. Nevsky’s lab assistants who knew where the scientist had stashed the microchip. How each of Dr. Nevsky’s assistants claimed they knew the chip existed, but had no idea where it was hidden. Each assistant had given him the name of someone else who might know, filling him with false hope. Kai ended by explaining he’d come to Mexico searching for Dr. Nevsky’s mistress.

“That’s all?” Niko frowned and ran his hand through his hair. Rafe looked equally disappointed.

This was the moment of truth. Could he trust these men? Did he really have any choice? He was in no condition to leave the hospital. Cuts and bruises he could handle. A broken leg was a bit more difficult, but he’d worked with broken bones before.

Having a bruised kidney and some other internal damage that had required repair, well that changed the picture. It would be suicide to go out in his condition. Hell, he wasn’t even peeing on his own. If he didn’t confide in these two, he’d have to find someone else he trusted.

They needed to move quickly before Alvarez discovered the chip’s location.

“No,” he said slowly. “That’s not all.” He glanced at the door. The guard in the hall was probably far enough away not to be able to overhear their conversation. Still, Kai kept his voice to a whisper. “I want you to promise me that the information I’m about to tell you will not be reported to Ryker. Not until you’ve checked it out personally. Either Ryker wants me dead, or there’s a mole at the SSU.”

Rafe shot Niko a glance. “It’s not Ryker,” Rafe said. “He’s suspected for some time there might be a mole. What made you suspicious?”

“The night of the fire at Nevsky’s lab, I called Ryker from my cell phone to give him an update. Ryker didn’t answer, so I left a message to call me back. I never heard from him, but the next day two men broke into my motel room and nearly killed me. I hadn’t even told Ryker where I was staying, but the assassins called me by name. The only way the men could have found me was by using the SSU’s tracking program to find my cell phone. So I ditched the phone and ran.”

“Ryker thought you’d gone rogue because you disappeared,” Rafe said. “He never said anything about receiving a message from you.”

Kai briefly closed his eyes. “Yeah, I figured that was a possibility. I was in bad shape after the attack at the motel and I spent a couple weeks recuperating at the house of a lady doctor I’d met on a different assignment. By the time I was well enough to leave, there was an APB out on me.” He paused. “And there was an e-mail from Alvarez in the account I’d set up using my undercover name. Only this time he called me Paterson. Told me I had twenty-four hours to turn over the chip or he’d retaliate against my family.” Kai remembered the panic he’d felt when he’d seen that the email had been sent three days earlier.

“I knew I couldn’t make it home fast enough to save them, so I called Ryker and threatened him. Warned him that I would hold him responsible if anything happened to my family, because only the SSU could have slipped my real name to Alvarez.”

Some nights he still woke in a panic after dreams where he raced frantically to reach his family, only to arrive too late. “I got to the house just in time to see a van speed off. I ran inside and found…” His voice broke. Even though he’d known his family was dead, that no one could survive such gaping throat wounds, he’d still tried to revive his parents and the twins, performing CPR until his hands and clothes were stained with blood.

Then the sound of sirens had jerked his self-preservation instincts into motion. He’d slipped out the back door and down the porch steps, where he’d almost stumbled over Jenna’s body. He’d bent down, feeling for her non-existent pulse, when the ambulance braked to a stop at the front of the house. He’d bolted for the neighbor’s yard.

“Shit,” Niko breathed. “I’m sorry, man.”

Kai had to look away from the sympathy in Niko’s eyes. “I couldn’t stop myself from moving toward the front of the neighbor’s yard, keeping to the shadows at the edge of the crowd on the street. I guess…shit…part of me hoped that one of them would be wheeled out on a stretcher instead of inside a body bag.” Kai shook his head. “That’s when I saw Ryker. He was there and he saw me. I’m telling you, there was guilt in his eyes.”

“That doesn’t mean he gave Alvarez your information,” Rafe countered. “I know Ryker. He was torn up over your family’s murder. Your father was his best friend.”

Niko nodded agreement. “He’s very protective of Jenna. Thinks of her as his daughter.”

Yeah, but did he truly care or was it merely atonement for letting Kai’s real name slip? “I can’t take your word for it,” Kai said. “Not yet. I need your promise that you won’t repeat what I’m about to tell you to anyone at the SSU.”

The brothers exchanged a long, serious look. Then Rafe nodded. “You have our word.”

“I need to hear Niko say it as well.”

“I promise,” Niko said.

“Okay. Dr. Nevsky had a mistress in Acapulco, Doña Serafina. She told me that Dr. Nevsky’s personal assistant, Eduard Percone survived the fire at the lab and is living in Puerto Vallarta under the name Juan Duarte.” Kai gave a rueful half smile. “I was only questioning the men I knew survived the fire and I thought Percone was dead. I’d seen Percone rushing toward Nevsky’s office after the self-destruct was triggered. I tried to warn him of the danger, but he was desperate to get to Nevsky and ignored me. I don’t see how he survived.” He shook his head. God, if only he’d stuck around. Maybe he would have seen Percone leave and saved himself two years of chasing the chip. But the explosion had thrown Kai out of the building and knocked him unconscious. When he’d come to, he’d seen the entire building engulfed in flames and figured there’d been no survivors.

“I didn’t entirely trust Doña Serafina’s information,” Kai continued. “Even though she claimed she was tired of being used by Alvarez and didn’t see the harm in telling me the truth. But as I was leaving her house the maid took me aside and told me that the man in Puerto Vallarta is a decoy hired by Percone. The real Percone is in Cozumel.”

“How recent is this information?” Niko demanded.

“Recent. Alvarez’s men grabbed me after I left Doña Serafina’s house that night. The maid’s sister is living with Percone and she’d spoken with the woman just that afternoon.” Kai leaned back against the pillows, all his energy having abandoned him. “If this man doesn’t have the information we need, then I don’t know where else to turn. I’m out of names to check.” Percone
had
to have the chip. Kai was so damn tired of the search. He wanted to return to what remained of his previous life.

“You got any pictures of Percone?” Rafe asked.

“Yeah, they’re in the cottage I was renting.” Kai gave them the address. “My stuff should still be there unless Alvarez’s men found it. I paid in advance for a week.”

“Damn,” Niko said. “I still can’t believe you’ve been searching for the chip for two years. Dr. Nevsky must have been a wily old bastard.”

Kai gave a rueful shake of his head. “Try brilliant and secretive. He did an excellent job of appearing the absent-minded professor, when he was really sharp as a tack. Did I mention paranoid? Each section of the lab knew only their mission objective, not the big picture. He was terrified of someone stealing his data.”

Kai coughed, his whole body shaking with the effort. “Hell, for all I know, it was my assignment to the team that pushed him over the edge and had him encoding and hiding the data.”

“We’ll let you rest now. You’ll hear from us once we’ve got Percone,” Rafe said.

Niko held up a glass of water and Kai sipped eagerly through the straw.

“Jenna—” he croaked. He coughed, then tried again. “Keep Jenna away from Alvarez. It’s too dangerous.”

Niko’s expression tightened. “Yeah, now that you’re found, she’s done,” he promised.

“Thank God.” The thought of Alvarez doing any more damage to his baby sister made him want to cry.

The men walked over to the door, then Niko paused and looked back over his shoulder. “You hear about what happened to five of the six assassins that killed your family?”

“That they died in the same manner? Seems I might have heard that somewhere.” Kai knew his smile was feral despite his torn lips. “No less than they deserved, gentlemen.”

Niko nodded, a hint of respect crossing his eyes. “Just so you know, an inside source claims Alvarez threw the sixth assassin to the dogs a few days ago.”

“Good to know.” He’d wanted to be responsible for the deaths of all six of them, but he wasn’t going to complain. Having personally experienced Alvarez’s displeasure, he knew the man had suffered. And despite the savage satisfaction he’d gotten from exacting vengeance personally on the other five assassins, he didn’t need more blood on his hands.

Niko followed Rafe out the door and Kai closed his eyes. He wasn’t the same man Jenna had once looked up to with love in her eyes. The attack on their family had unleashed a primitive anger he still couldn’t fully control.

But from what he’d seen in Jenna’s eyes back at the fortress, his sister had changed, too.

He would gladly give up his life if he could change her back.

Chapter 30

Saturday, Morning

San Diego, California

Jenna walked down the corridor toward Kai’s hospital room. She couldn’t stop herself from wincing as she remembered how last night as he’d left Kai’s room Niko had brushed past her like she didn’t exist. Even Rafe’s smile had been cool.

What had she done to piss them off? And why did their anger hurt so much?

She forced herself to smile at the guard and knocked on Kai’s door. At Kai’s voice telling her to come in, the guard opened the door, then followed her inside.

She went over to the bed and picked up Kai’s good hand. “How are you feeling?”

“More human with every minute.” He glanced at the guard. “Did you need something?”

“No, sir.”

“Then would you mind giving us some privacy?”

The guard shook his head. “Sorry, sir. My orders are to make sure you’re not left alone with your sister.”

“What?” Kai demanded.

Oh, God. Who had figured it out? Niko? Ryker? She felt her cheeks heat.

Kai, of course, noticed her guilty expression. His eyes narrowed. “Jenna? What’s going on?”

“Umm…” She shot a quick look at the guard. “Do you need to frisk me or is it okay if I sit next to him? I promise I’m not going to hurt him.”