The three little words were, in his fucked-up psyche, inextricably, and permanently linked to loss, guilt, and fear. Flick would expect them, he wouldn’t be able to say them, and the longer he held out the more resentful she’d feel.
Kai placed his forearms over his eyes and thought, maybe hoped, that he might be seeing something in her eyes that wasn’t actually there. Maybe he was running away with this love idea, just seeing what he wanted to see. She was smart, funny, gorgeous, and successful, and his ego liked the idea of a like her woman falling in love with him. Yeah, maybe that was it.
It wasn’t it.
The ugly truth was that hewantedto love Flick, and he wanted her to love him back. He wanted normal but didn’t know how to do it. He wanted this feeling, this happiness, but didn’t know how to grab it. And,fuck it, did he deserve it? Was he entitled to be happy? Flick seemed to think that he did, but he wasn’t so sure. She didn’t have the whole story—she was operating on half-truths and subversions. She didn’t know everything—nobody did—and when he told her,ifhe told her, that look of love he’d seen earlier would be extinguished.
I killed my mother.
Not even love could conquer that.
Out of the corner of his eye, Kai saw the screen of his phone light up and he stretched out his hand to pick up the phone. A text from Sawyer? At three twenty in the morning?
“Outside ten minutes. Come ready to rock and roll.”
Kai gently slid out from under Flick, and she immediately rolled over and curled up into a ball, solidly asleep.Ready to rock and rollwas code for a kidnap rescue, meaning Axl needed their help. Kai walked over to his closet, pulled on a pair of dark jeans and a black Henley T-shirt, and slid back a wooden panel behind his dress shirts to reveal a safe. He punched in the code, swung the door open, and pulled out a black gym bag. He didn’t need to check it—it was there for this very purpose. Guns, cash, fake IDs. He was always ready to rock and roll.
Kai pulled on socks and sneakers, dropped a kiss on Flick’s head, and was at his front door in eight minutes. Sawyer arrived in nine.
Kai threw his bag onto the small bench seat behind them and settled into the passenger seat.
“Who and where?”
Sawyer looked grim. “Nigeria, and it’s Sheik Aban Armanjani.”
Perfect. Just freakin’ perfect.
“Clear!”
“Clear!”
“Clear. Shitafuckingbrick.”
Kai’s stomach dropped at Axl’s curse and he wiped the sweat off his forehead with the back of his wrist. It was spring in Africa and it was as hot as hell. He walked back down the passage to the back bedroom of the simple, small home situated in the well-off suburb of Lagos. There was a patch of lawn outside, a satellite dish on the roof, and lace curtains at the windows. A goat tied to the scrawny tree out back. All normal, for Africa.
Behind him, Kai could hear the nervous breathing of the members of the city’s Tactical Response team. He and his partners generally worked alone, but orders had flowed down the chain of command. The Nigerian government wanted the sheik found and their path had been cleared by someone very powerful higher up. The locals had happily handed over assault rifles and the ensuing responsibility to find the Sheik over to them. Judging by Axl’s doom-and-gloom voice, Kai wouldn’t like what he found inside the room. Something was very wrong. And very wrong normally meant dead.
Please,no.
Sawyer stepped aside and Kai walked into the room. Trying to delay the inevitable, he didn’t look down immediately. The windows were boarded up, he noticed, and flies buzzed against the deeply tinted glass. A fan whirling overhead did nothing to dispel the insects from dive-bombing their heads.
There were a series of manacles bolted to the wall, still gripping the lifeless hands of three, no, four bodies. Muhammad, Abas, and Jama were slumped against the wall, curled up into death. Kai swallowed down the bile in his throat and made himself look at the sheik. Like the others, he had just one, perfect, deadly bullet hole in his forehead. His passing had been clean, clinical, and as final as hell.
Kai turned away and ignored the hand Sawyer laid on his shoulder. He walked out of the house into the hot, humid air and onto the grass outside, ignoring the chatter and speculation of the Nigerian police. He placed his hands on his thighs as he tried to control his heaving stomach.
He would not vomit, he would not vomit...
“This isn’t your fault, Kai,” Sawyer said from somewhere above him.
Kai sucked in a couple of deep breaths and heaved again. His stomach felt like it was tying itself in ever-tighter knots.
“Do you see anybody else here responsible for training his guards?” Kai said, his voice as harsh as death inside.
“You told me yourself that they weren’t ready, that they needed more training. The sheik decided to take the chance.” Sawyer whipped the words back and Kai heard the frustration in his voice.
“My job, my responsibility, my fault.”
“Bullshit!” Sawyer hissed. “I will not allow you to take responsibility for this!”