He had studied the file on her childhood, the way she was so gifted in art and color, the way she applied herself to her studies, in her own way, every bit as one-track as he had been. He embraced that small shadow of darkness in her. She hadn't quite learned to control her talent and therefore viewed the darker emotions as weaknesses instead of strengths, but she would learn once she got over her fear. And it was those darker emotions that would allow her to love him completely.
Physically, he was very drawn to her exotic appearance, her mouth and hair. He loved her Japanese heritage and the way she moved so gracefully. He was drawn to her passion and fire, matching those traits with his own.
It was just possible Lev was telling the truth. It made sense, especially if his wife was an element, as Stefan suspected. Like attracted like. Their psychic gifts would be magnets, continually pulling at one another.
A soft rustle had him rolling to his right, staying prone in the deep vegetation, his gaze sweeping the surrounding forest. Lev was close. He felt him close, a subtle wave of energy spreading out around him, encompassing the owl in the tree, probably using the owl's vision to spot Stefan. Although the ability to see through the bird's eyes would be a distinct advantage, the fact that Stefan knew his brother could do such a thing aided him. There was no way to use that kind of psychic gift without a shift in energy and Stefan was too adept not to feel it.
The wind moved again, and thunder rolled. Mist crept through the trees, eerie tails of streaming vapor coming off the roiling ocean. The sound of waves crashing against the cliffs was never ending, a part of the life on the coast, lending a certain rhythm to the earth sounds. Stefan strained to hear the smallest of sounds. The fog branched out like a great hand, reaching with fingers toward him. Out of the corner of his eye he caught a shadow coming at him and he leapt to meet it, knife in his palm.
The two hard bodies crashed together, went to the ground and rolled together. He had Lev's wrist in his fist, controlling his knife while Lev had his. Pine needles, twigs and leaves collected in clothing and hair as they rolled. The thick trunk of a tree smashed into Stefan's back hard. The two brothers came to an abrupt stop, staring into each other's eyes.
They remained locked in a life or death hold, neither relenting, neither giving an inch.
"I married her because I love her," Lev reiterated. "And I don't like you using Judith, even if you came here to find me. Judith is part of my family and under my protection. That makes her off-limits."
"You don't know what the hell you're talking about. Ivanov is in town."
"The hell you say." Lev didn't so much as blink, his grip as strong as ever.
"I chased him across the rooftops of Sea Haven, got cut up, managed to get in a few good swipes. He's hurt, but I rolled off the damn rooftop and he got away."
"I should have known he'd come back."
"I think he was planning on taking both of us out once I brought you out into the open. He arranged to have me sent here as bait."
Lev abruptly rolled off of him, sitting up, knife still in his hand. "Damn. Why would Sorbacov want you dead? He's the only one who could issue a contract. No one else would dare to go over his head."
"A reporter has been delving into the past and discovered records of the orphanages and the schools. He intercepted an excerpt of a document containing classified material on the training of children in military operations, spies and assassins. The excerpt was just detailed enough to keep the reporters in every other country digging deep. I think Sorbacov wants to purge the ranks, get rid of anyone who could be a threat to him. It was his father's operation and politically they're on shaky ground with this. If the program embarrasses the current government, the fortunes and power the Sorbacov family has amassed will be gone and with it all trace of them."
"Sorbacov massacred so many families, all because they were his political enemies. The government allowed his experiments because those of us who survived proved to be tremendously valuable assets they needed at that time." Lev rested his hand on his thigh, the blade still visible. "If the manner of our making is discovered, we cease to be valuable and become liabilities."
"Exactly. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that if Sorbacov would send me to Sea Haven on a foolish task, I'm bait to see if you come out of your hiding place," Stefan said. "And if he kills you, he has no choice but to kill me."
"Then we go hunting together."
Stefan sat up, shifting to make certain the tree wouldn't block any sudden need to move quickly. He drew his legs up, the knife sliding into the sheath strapped to his calf, but his fist remained curled over the hilt. "I thought about that, Lev . . ."
"Levi. You have to think of me as Levi. I'm Levi Hammond. I'm a diver with a wife I love and a home I'll fight to the death for. I'm Levi Hammond."
"You're serious."
"You better believe it. Rikki gave me my life back. I feel with her. I'm even beginning to extend those feelings just a little bit to her family. I'm never going back, Stefan, and I'll protect her and our home with every resource available to me."
"Are all of the women living on this farm elements? Every single one of them?"
Lev nodded slowly, as if a little hesitant to admit the truth. "All but one. Blythe has power, but I haven't figured out exactly what it is. The rest of them are all bound to elements. Rikki is a powerful water element. She saved my life when the yacht I was working on went down. I hit my head and still have problems remembering everything about my past. It comes to me slowly and in pieces. I'm not too proud of what I was, but she makes me feel worth something. I'm happy here, Stefan. I've found peace. I want to keep it that way. Ivanov has to go."
"Let me hunt him. You stay low. If anyone else is watching how things play out, you'll still be safe."
Lev shook his head. "You know I'd never let you do that. It's my fight too. And both of us know he's not above using the women to get to us. He'd kill any or all of them without a thought."
Stefan sighed. There was no real use in arguing with Lev. If he was married and had a home, he wouldn't expect someone else--even his brother--to bail him out of trouble. Lev wasn't that kind of man and secretly, Stefan was proud of that fact.
"You need dogs."
It was Lev's turn to sigh. He slipped his knife into the sheath inside his boot. "I haven't been with Rikki more than a few weeks. We were married very fast and, yes, I know what I'm doing. She pushes her comfort zone for me all the time, but I like to introduce things to her slowly. Airiana, one of her sisters, wants the dogs as well, so I'm trying to push the idea that Airiana gets a couple of shepherds or mastiffs and that Rikki and I do as well."
"Judith told me the youngest sister, Lexi, wants a dog."
Lev swore softly. "Judith shouldn't be telling you anything about her sisters."
"Fuck you, Levi, you're not the only one who can find someone. Judith didn't betray anyone's secrets," Stefan snapped. "Don't try to interfere."
"You're not going to use her, Stefan." Lev didn't back down for a moment. "If she's Rikki's family, she's mine. And that means she's off-limits to you. Go find another woman to cement your cover story. I've heard all about Thomas Vincent, the great businessman from New York. I'll admit your cover is solid, even impressive, but you can't use Judith, not even to keep Ivanov off me."
"What makes you think I'm using her?"
"Of course you are. Tell me you didn't come here and target her to help with your cover. And I'll know if you're lying."
"Bullshit. You wouldn't know one way or the other. I can fool anyone, even you. Of course I came here undercover, and as a rule, I would develop a relationship with a woman to help cement my cover, but Judith isn't that."
"What is she then?"
"Everything. Life. For me, she's what your Rikki is to you."
Shock registered on Lev's face. His blue gaze searched Stefan's face with slow, careful deliberation. "You're telling me you've fallen in love with Judith?"
Stefan wi
nced. Put like that he didn't quite know how to answer his brother. He didn't know what love was. He only knew he had to be with her. His body, his mind, every single cell in his body knew she was meant for him. He was a man who used sex as a weapon and achieved release after release. It felt good, great even, but not like what it had been with Judith. His body had reacted of its own accord, mixing with his emotions until there was no one but Judith. Was that love?
"I don't know what to call it, Levi." Deliberately he used his brother's new identity. "I only know she's the person I'd stand in front of. For the first time in my life I want to stay somewhere. Be someone. Is that love?"
Lev smiled for the first time. "I'd say you're well on your way. I'd fight with everything in me to keep Rikki. She's fierce, Stefan, unafraid. She faces the world head-on. I'm so crazy about her, I can't see anything or anyone else."
Stefan felt his gut settle a little more. Lev couldn't fake that note in his voice. There were certain small things that gave someone away when they lied--or told the truth. The light in his eyes, the expression on his face and that awed, shocked note in the voice would be impossible to fake. His brother was very taken with his woman.
"Are you wrapped around her little finger?"
"Probably. Yeah. No question about it. I fell hard."
"I'm not leaving, Levi. I'm going to stay here and make Judith mine. And we're damn well getting dogs and set this place up for war."
Lev's eyebrow shot up. "War?"
"When we kill Ivanov, Sorbacov will send someone else after us."
"Ilya lives here," Lev informed his brother. "I doubt he would be in danger, although he went through the original school, but he was trained for other things. He worked for Interpol and retired legitimately from his job. We'll have to send word to the others. Have you seen any of them?"
"Only Gavriil. I helped him escape from the hospital. He went underground. He was hurt pretty bad, Lev."
"We can get word to him to come here if we can secure this place and come out into the open. With three of us here, it would be difficult for anyone to come against us."
"You know it sounds like a pipe dream," Stefan said with a soft sigh. "Men like us don't have homes or women of our own."
"I have a woman and a home and no one, including Sorbacov--especially Sorbacov--is going to take it away from me," Lev said.
"The one thing Sorbacov hasn't thought through, and it makes no sense, is the fact that none of us are going to want those documents to see the light of day," Stefan said. "We'd all become targets. No one would have a chance at a life. Our covers would be blown, our pictures in every country preventing us from moving around, we'd be hunted by everyone."
"He never meant for any of us to have a life," Lev pointed out. "We weren't human to him. We were tools he shaped into killing machines. None of us had a chance. Most of the kids I started with in those schools never made it all the way through training. He killed them when they couldn't perform to his satisfaction."
"Nevertheless, had he been thinking, he would have utilized his weapons and gone after the threat to all of us, which would ultimately have benefited him. Now he's got to hope his exterminators get to all of us before one of us gets to him."
"How did they get you to come here, Stefan?"
Stefan knew the question was bound to be asked and he hadn't yet made up his mind to trust his brother completely. Distrust was a way of life, a way to stay alive. Was he actually going to try to make a stand here, and if so, he'd have to be honest with both Judith and his brother. But there was still the matter of the microchip. He was loyal to his country. He might not want to live there--he spent very little time there and had no ties anymore--but he loved his country. If the information on that microchip was crucial to his country's defense system, then he had to make certain it was back in the hands of responsible people.
Lev swore under his breath and stood up. "I knew you were full of shit."
Stefan rose just as fast. "I don't have it as easy as you do, Levi. You're dead. They might suspect it's all a hoax, but they don't know for certain. I've been working on returning a very crucial piece of sensitive material for the last five years, following dead end after dead end. I'm this close." He measured with his fingers. "I'm still a patriot whether or not I've outlived my usefulness to our country. Gavriil asked me to make certain the microchip taken from Theodotus Solovyov is returned. I gave my word to him and even if I hadn't, I'd make certain Russia is safe."
"Is Judith involved in some way? How would tracking a microchip lead you to Sea Haven? That seems too big of a coincidence."
"What do you know about Judith's past?"
Lev's face closed down immediately. "The sisters rarely talk about one another. They guard their pasts carefully and I've never pried. I wouldn't want anyone asking questions about me and I give them that same respect. Here, we take one another as we are."
"I understand, Levi, but if you want to know why I'm here then you're going to have to accept that Judith's past is mixed up in this."
"You're telling me the truth? Judith Henderson is somehow a person of interest in the disappearance of sensitive materials our brother was guarding?"
"That's the truth," Stefan said and waited for his brother to make up his mind.
He could see why Lev wouldn't believe him. It was absurd to think that a woman like Judith could possibly be mixed up in international intrigue.
"Let me get this straight. Our brother, Gavriil, was assigned to guard Theodotus Solovyov and they were ambushed."
Stefan nodded. "Solovyov's wife betrayed them. She was having an affair and she sewed the microchip into her husband's coat. No one else knew. Gavriil was stabbed seven or eight times, but he kept firing, keeping them off Solovyov. The attackers left the briefcase and went for the coat. They knew exactly what to look for."
"I take it you tracked down the wife," Lev's voice was grim.
"Damn straight. Gavriil was taken to a hospital and knew orders would have been given to terminate him. I went out the window with him. I knew a doctor, a surgeon who owed me, who would take care of him if he lived long enough for me to get him to the doc. He's tough as nails, our older brother. And then I tracked down the wife and her lover and had a little talk with them. It wasn't difficult to get the information I needed. That led me to France--more precisely, Paris."
Lev closed his eyes briefly. "Judith was an art student in Paris a few years back. I remember Rikki telling me she'd been to France, studying."
"She met the wrong man. The trail led back to Jean-Claude La Roux, who at this moment is sitting in prison surrounded by photographs of Judith. The pictures span the last five years. He's had her watched all this time. I know, because I shared his cell, trying to get information out of him. He was picked up on a gun-running charge, but his crimes far exceed that. He's ruthless and vicious and even from prison, his network is still up and running."
"You think he has the microchip." Lev made it a statement.
"I tracked it to him. He had it in his possession right before the French arrested him. They got to him before I did. If he'd sold the information to the highest bidder, we would have known by now. Certainly some of the documents would have surfaced. And someone would have made a threat. There was very sensitive material on that microchip. Theodotus Solovyov was transporting the chip to a meeting. He is a brilliant man, and that chip contains the only copy of his latest work."
Lev rubbed his jaw. "Is it possible it also contains documents regarding the training schools we attended? The reporter who printed the excerpt, who was he?"
"It was a publication out of France, and the man is a respected journalist. We're certain he got his information from La Roux and since it was recent, La Roux must be planning a move on the microchip. He hasn't trusted anyone to retrieve it and act for him, so he has to be planning to retrieve it himself."
"He's getting out of prison?"
"We're helping him. The plan is to pick him up and interrogate hi
m. That's how I knew someone very powerful had put out hits on us. I was with La Roux for two months. I know him better than anyone and I could have broken him quickly and extracted the information we need, but instead, I was sent here on the off chance that he escapes our men. Judith was his girlfriend. So essentially I'm supposed to babysit her."
Lev's face lost all expression, but Stefan ignored his brother's suspicions. He'd already told him the truth and he might as well finish what he'd started. "I knew they wouldn't send me on a simple babysitting job and of course, everyone knows the yacht you were working undercover on went down off this coast and that you're presumed dead. If I didn't believe it, I figured Ivanov didn't believe it either. I've been here a couple of weeks reconning, but Thomas Vincent officially came into town yesterday. Ivanov was watching me."
"So you went after him."
"I knew he was using me to find you. I think killing you is a sanctioned hit, but when I reported back to my handler, he acted as if Ivanov had gone rogue and gave me the green light to kill him. If he really went rogue and they lost control of him, they would have put the word out to everyone."
"And because they sent you here as bait, you're certain Ivanov is going to erase you as well," Lev mused. "How bad did you hurt him?"
Stefan shrugged. "He was hurt enough that he ran when he could have had the advantage. I think broken ribs, he was having trouble breathing and I cut him some, but he's a wounded bear now. And never forget, he was trained in the same school we were. He was in Siberia with me. He was a couple of years older and already he had a taste for killing. There was a blizzard, heavy ice and snow with howling winds. Kids were dropping all over the place, the cold killing them before we had a chance to construct any kind of shelter. Ivanov would bend over and watch them die. He liked to see the light go out of their eyes."