Midnight Rescue: A Killer Instincts Novel (18 page)

Yanking his cell phone from his duffel, he marched toward the window, focusing his gaze on the residential street two stories down. It took a few minutes to gather his composure. When a sense of calm finally filled his body, he scrolled through his contact list until he reached Felix Esposito’s name. Last time he’d spoken to the guy, Esposito had taken an enforcer job for a drug runner in Bogotá. Hopefully he was still in town, but the private jet Trevor owned in Julian’s name could easily take him and
Isabel to wherever Esposito was holed up. Though he hadn’t used this cover in more than a year, Morgan made sure the jet continued to travel the world in order to keep Julian’s passport nicely stamped. The jet now waited in a private airfield outside the city, where the filthy rich parked their expensive Lears and Gulfstreams when they came to town.

To Trevor’s surprise, Esposito answered on the first ring. He’d obviously kept Julian Martin’s number in his phone, because he answered with an elated, “Hello, Mr. Julian.”

“Felix, it’s been a long time,” he replied in the faint Boston accent belonging to Julian. He was supposed to be an East Coast native, but Julian’s frequent travels, in the States and abroad, had slowly eroded the thick Boston inflection.

“Too long,” Esposito agreed.

“I’ve been busy. Got myself good and married, in fact,” he added with a chuckle.

“
Felicitaciones!
And who is the lucky señorita?”

“Find out for yourself. My bride and I would like to take you to dinner. Are you still living in Bogotá? We just flew in this afternoon.”

“
Sí
, still here. Business is very good.”

“Glad to hear it.” He turned away from the window. “So, tonight? Eight o’clock?”

“I would be honored. We will meet at my favorite establishment. La Mexicana. It is in Perdoma. You know it?”

“No, but my wife and I will find our way there.” Another chuckle. “Looking forward to seeing you again, Felix. Like you said, it’s been too long.”

Esposito, proving he was as sharp as Trevor remembered,
said, “And will this be business, or pleasure, Mr. Julian?”

“A little bit of both, actually.”

“Interesting. I am looking forward to it, then.”

“As am I.”

Trevor hung up the phone and tossed it on the bed. Perfect. Phase one was in motion. Meet Esposito, chat over enchiladas and that god-awful watery Aquila Light beer Esposito preferred. Isabel would charm the pants off the man, Trevor would bring up Samir Bahar’s name, and hopefully Esposito would set up a meeting with Blanco’s solicitor.

He left the bedroom, squaring his shoulders in resolve and breathing deeply in preparation for seeing Isabel again. She was sitting on the living room couch, flipping through a fashion magazine. She must have brought it with her, because no way would big, bad Morgan stock his safe house with fashion magazines. Camo pants and muscle shirts made up the extent of his wardrobe.

“It’s on,” Trevor said stiffly, avoiding her eyes.

“Esposito’s meeting with us?”

He gave a brisk nod. “Yeah. Eight o’clock.”

Before she could say anything more, he spun on his heel and stalked back to the hallway, releasing a hoarse breath. There, he’d done it. Had a conversation with the woman without once looking in her direction. Gina would be proud of him.

And Esposito will only be suspicious,
a little voice taunted.

Trevor faltered. Fuck. The voice was right. No way could he avoid looking at Isabel tonight when they met with Felix. She was supposed to be his wife. His brand-new, smoking-hot Brazilian bride. Felix would instantly
know something was up if Trevor didn’t have his hands all over her curvy body tonight.

He drew in a steadying breath. Fine. He could do this. Pretend he wanted to jump Isabel’s bones. He could touch her, and kiss the soft-looking flesh of her delicate neck. Maybe he’d even squeeze that firm ass of hers.

It didn’t mean he’d like it.

Kane found Luke, D, and Ethan in the small clearing a few hundred yards from the main house, where the team liked to do target practice and sometimes went just to chill out. Luke and Ethan were sitting on a couple of plastic lawn chairs, an open cooler filled with beer bottles wedged between them. No sign of Luke’s mutt, which meant Bear was probably prowling in the bushes searching for something to attack.

D stood a few feet away from the other two, a beer in his hand and a rifle slung over his shoulder. Kane was surprised to see him. D had stayed out of sight since the arrival of Isabel and Trevor, and even now that they’d left for Bogotá, he’d barely shown his face. Kane would’ve taken it personally, if not for the fact that D had always been an ill-tempered loner.

Besides, it was Luke he had a beef with at the moment.

“Why the hell did you let her talk to him?” he demanded as he neared the three men.

Luke rolled his eyes, then took a deep drag on his cigarette. “She grabbed the phone out of my hands. What did you want me to do, knock her unconscious?”

“You shouldn’t have picked up in the first place.”

“Well, I did. And Abby seemed to handle the conversation pretty well.” Luke shrugged, blowing out a careless
cloud of smoke. “Wasn’t like she burst into tears or anything.”

But she’d been crying on the inside. Kane knew without a doubt that Devlin had shaken her to the core. Whatever that bastard said to Abby, it had gotten to her. She’d gone up to her room to take a nap, and he hadn’t seen her since. It grated a little, that she didn’t seem inclined to confide in him.

Bugged him even more that he wanted her to. He didn’t do heart-to-hearts. Didn’t like those mushy, annoying moments women tried to force on him.
Tell me how you feel.
Fuck, he didn’t want to talk about how he felt, and he usually didn’t give a damn how the women in his bed felt either. As long as he rocked their world and put a blissful post-orgasmic smile on their faces, he was perfectly content to get dressed and walk out the door.

So why did he care how Abby was feeling right now?

“Devlin spoke to Abby?” Ethan piped up, looking curious.

It took Kane a moment to remember that Ethan had been running errands in town all morning. “Yeah, earlier.”

“What did he say?”

“I have no idea. She wouldn’t tell me.” With a sigh, he gestured to the cooler. “Toss me one of those.”

Luke reached in and a beer bottle sailed in Kane’s direction a second later. He caught it easily, then dropped into an empty chair. They used to have a poker table out here, but it had been smashed to smithereens by Sullivan Port, their Australian team member who hated to lose. The thought of Sullivan brought a frown to Kane’s lips. Morgan had the annoying habit of forcing unwanted vacations on his men, so there were always a few faces
missing on most jobs, taken off the rotation to avoid burning out. But Sullivan had been gone for a couple of months now, which was unlike him.

“Anyone heard from Sully lately?” he asked.

“I spoke to him a couple of weeks ago,” Luke answered. He grinned. “He’s on his yacht in the Caribbean. Said he’s fallen in love.”

Kane snorted. Right. Sullivan fell in love every other day. So far, he hadn’t felt inclined to actually
stay
with any of the supposed loves of his life. Maybe it was an Australian thing.

“Ethan’s in love too,” Luke added, the grin widening.

“I’m not in love with her,” Ethan protested, his preppy-handsome face flushing. “Maggie’s just a friend.”

“Sure,” Luke mocked. “Because I go to a shitty bar every night, sit in the same corner booth, and gawk at my
friends
all night.”

The younger guy’s face turned a darker shade of red. “I don’t gawk. I only go there to talk to her.”

Kane wrinkled his forehead. “Really?”

“Yeah.”

“What do you talk about?”

Ethan shrugged. “You know, stuff. I tell her funny stories about my hometown. She tells me about herself, how she hates working for her father and how she’s saving up money to go to college in the States. She’s a really nice girl,” he said, sounding defensive. “She wants to be a doctor.”

The kid’s speech had Kane and Luke going silent. Seriously? That’s the kind of shit he talked to women about? Kane couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a real conversation with a female. His chats with women consisted of sentences like “Do you like that, babe?” or
“Roll over, I want to screw you from behind.” He couldn’t recall ever asking a woman what she wanted to be when she grew up.

“Wow, a doctor,” Kane finally said, still at a loss for words.

Ethan drained his beer bottle, then tossed it into the milk crate they used for empties. “What do you talk with Abby about? You’ve been spending a lot of time with her since we rescued her from the prison.”

He grew distinctly uncomfortable. Fortunately, he was spared from answering when D angrily grumbled something under his breath.

Kane glanced over. “What was that?”

Joining the conversation for the first time, D strode over, his rifle swinging against his hip. “I said, I think it’s time we sent her packing.”

Kane bristled. “That’s kind of harsh, don’t you think?”

“No, I don’t think.” D scowled. “I don’t like her, and I sure as hell don’t trust her.”

Kane smothered a groan. “We’ve already been through this. I told you why this rescue is important to me. That hasn’t changed.”

“And neither has Abby. Do you honestly think she’s just going to sit on the sidelines while we do the extraction?”

“She might not like it, but she’s agreed to sit it out,” Kane said grudgingly.

“And you fucking believed that? She’s not planning on sitting out, man. She’ll do everything she can to be part of that rescue, and it’s going to get us all killed.”

The vehemence in D’s voice startled everyone. D wasn’t afraid to vocalize his objections, but he’d never done so with such passion. Kane narrowed his eyes,
studying the other man, but D’s obsidian gaze revealed nothing.

“What the hell do you have against her?” Kane asked in a low voice.

“Nothing,” D muttered. “Nothing at all.”

There was another long silence, broken by the awkward clearing of Luke’s throat. “So, your girl wants to be a doctor,” he said to Ethan, his voice unnaturally cheerful.

“Her name was Emily.”

Abby stirred, her eyelids fluttering open to find Kane perched on the edge of her bed. She sat up abruptly, annoyance swirling inside her. She hadn’t even heard him come in, which pissed her off, since she’d always prided herself on possessing extremely sharp instincts. She could normally sense danger from miles away, the back of her neck tingling the moment she registered a threat. She’d once snapped out of a deep sleep at the sound of footsteps on the deserted street outside her New Orleans hotel.

She sank her teeth into her bottom lip. How had he been able to stroll right into her bedroom without so much as alerting her? Was it because deep down she didn’t believe he posed any danger to her?

The troubling thought reminded her of the way he’d stood up to D, and she had to wonder if maybe that was the reason for her lowered guard. Kane’s voice had been so fierce when he’d vowed to rescue those girls. Could a man who cared so deeply about a dozen innocent strangers really be a threat to her?

“Why are you here?” she murmured, her eyes quickly adjusting to the darkness. “Who’s Emily?”

“She was my girlfriend in high school,” he said hoarsely.

Abby slid up so she was leaning against the headboard. She wasn’t quite sure what was going on here, but Kane looked incredibly uncomfortable. His chest was bare again, his defined pecs heaving as he sucked in a deep breath. And his hair looked tousled as hell, as if he’d been repeatedly running his fingers through it.

“It’s late,” she said when he didn’t continue speaking. “Maybe we should talk about this in the morning.”

“No.” He cleared his throat. “I need to tell you this now.”

“Why?”

“I… I guess I figured I should talk to you. Ethan has this girl he talks to all the time, and he knows all this stuff about her—” He stopped abruptly, something that looked like embarrassment reddening his cheeks. “Fuck, forget it. I don’t know why I came in here. Just go back to sleep.”

Abby blinked in surprise. Was he actually blushing? She’d gotten so used to his self-assured manner, his take-charge attitude, that she had trouble adapting to this sudden change in his behavior.

With visible discomfort, Kane made a move to get up, but she placed her hand on his shoulder. The heat of his skin instantly seared her palm, making her pulse race. She quickly dropped her hand back in her lap. Damn it. Why had she touched him? Why was she trying to keep him here when the smart thing to do was let him walk away? Far, far away.

“So Emily was your girlfriend,” she repeated, urging him to go on.

“High school sweetheart. We started dating when we
were juniors. I was the running back for the school football team, and she was—”

“A cheerleader,” Abby filled in.

“No.” He corrected her, the corner of his mouth lifting. “The artsy girl. She was into painting, figures and portraits mostly, and one day I got roped into posing for her art class as a way to get out of detention.”

She snorted. “Don’t tell me you had to be naked.”

“It was high school,” he reiterated, rolling his eyes. “I was fully clothed. Had to sit there on this stool for two hours while fifteen kids sketched me. After class, Emily came up to me and asked if I would pose for her after school. She said my face had interesting lines.”

“And you fell madly in love with each other.”

“Not quite. We totally hit it off when she painted me, but at school I was kind of an ass to her.” Shame flickered in his eyes. “You know how high school is—the jocks date the popular cheerleaders, the art kids date other art kids, geeks date geeks. I was embarrassed to be seen with her. Fuck, I was such a jerk back then.”

“So what happened?”

“She gave me an ultimatum. Said I could either be her boyfriend in
and
out of school, or else she wouldn’t see me anymore.” He paused. “I was disgustingly in love with her. I didn’t want to break up, so the next day at school, I held her hand in front of everyone and asked her to sit with me at the jock table for lunch.”