The Louisiana swamp had a magic all its own. Gino knew not everyone would find it that way, but for men like the GhostWalkers, it was the perfect refuge. There was a beauty to the land, a rhythm that got under a man’s skin and soothed him when he was a predator and needed space and a hunting ground. There was that same wild that called to him, a place to fish and hunt and an opportunity to live off the land if necessary.
Gino liked the humidity and heat and the fierce weather changes. He spent time learning the canals and waterways as well as his way around the various islands and large tracts of swamp. He liked to be alone, and the swamp provided him with ample opportunity. He liked the people even though he didn’t interact much with them. Most were good people, eking out a living, working hard to provide for their families. They worked hard and played just as hard.
He found himself cursing the heat and humidity that he liked so well as they built the exact replica of the jump site, thanks to Bellisia’s intel, up on top of Trap’s home. Trap had a huge cement warehouse he’d turned into a home. The roof was flat, a good place to put up the series of water towers and mark where all five would have to land when they jumped. The build went up fast in spite of the light rain that did nothing to relieve the heat.
The rain brought the fresh smell of the swamp, the perfumed flowers mixed with rotting vegetation. Shirts off, they worked fast to get the site ready so they had as much time as possible to practice the jumps. Just looking at the marks they would have to hit—all five of them—made Gino’s heart sink. He’d done many dicey missions, but this one was going to be bad. He wasn’t the only one feeling that way.
“Zeke,” Rubin said, after walking the length of the rooftop they’d mapped out with the water towers now sitting right in the way of their landing. Just that one name. A protest. An exhale. Saying that name said it all. Rubin stood on the edge of the roof they’d cut more than in half and then made it even smaller by adding the banks of large water towers. He stood for a long time, mathematically calculating their odds.
Gino knew the odds weren’t good. He’d already made those calculations and he hadn’t added the additional complication of it being a night jump.
“Boss, how the hell are we supposed to make this jump with all that gear? Power paragliders aren’t small and just with us it’s already a tight fit.”
Zeke shrugged. “It will be just like doing a tandem with a person strapped to you, only smaller.”
They all exchanged long, silent looks. Mordichai shook his head, swore under his breath, walked to the edge and spit. It was his older brother leading the suicide mission. “You’re going to need a couple of us there to collect the fuckin’ bodies, Zeke.” He meant it as a joke, but it was too close to the truth so no one laughed.
Zeke shot him a look that told him to shut the hell up.
“Is there a possibility of doing this with less men?” Gino asked. “Even dropping one, we might fit better up on the roof. Leave Draden or Diego behind. Draden is the biggest, takes up the most room.” He didn’t want to examine his reasoning for pushing to leave Draden behind. It shouldn’t matter who stayed, but somehow it did.
Zeke took his time thinking it over and then shook his head. “We’ll practice the jumps on the ground until we all hit our marks and then we’ll start jumping on the roof without the equipment first. We have today to get this right, and we will because it’s necessary.”
Gino nodded. Zeke was the boss and his word was law under the circumstances. If he said they needed everyone, then they did. Cheng wasn’t a normal businessman upset because he’d caught an industrial spy he would hand over to the authorities. He was a notorious criminal willing to torture and kill perceived enemies, let alone someone he caught working against him.
Gino had taken the time to read everything Joe had on the man. He seemed to be unraveling, or he was just that paranoid. He was known to shoot lab techs for messing up. He lined up workers, picked a few he claimed were working against him and they disappeared, presumably to be tortured and then killed. He locked down his office building periodically for weeks at a time, refusing to allow the workers to go home.
He had cameras in private apartments, spying on his workers at all times. His private security forces were drawn from ex-military, men who knew what they were doing and didn’t mind bullying or roughing up innocent civilians. He paid well. He seemed to the outside world to run a model business with day care and living quarters for his people. It was known to those around the world who knew his true character, that those children lived under a threat and their parents were his most loyal employees.
“This is sketchy at best, boss,” Draden pointed out.
“Joe said it was going to be a suicide mission. If you’ve got a better plan, I’d fuckin’ love to hear it.”
They looked at one another again. No one was going to back out. They had to get the woman out one way or another. She’d shut down the sale of their program, preventing terrorists from getting their hands on Whitney’s work or from having any intelligence on the GhostWalkers. Even Cheng would have begun experiments to have better soldiers guarding him. Or maybe he’d sell his soldiers. He was capable of selling human beings. If the information they had on him was correct, he did it often with the sons and daughters of the hapless employees he thought had double-crossed him.
Zeke sighed. “We’ll figure it out on the ground,” he repeated. “We’ll practice it all day and then do a couple of night jumps to get it right. We have to start traveling tomorrow to make that deadline of meeting up with the workers going to Shanghai.”
The rain ceased, which made wielding hammers easier. The rest of the unit not going continued to set up a site inside the building that was a mock-up of the floor Bellisia had seen. She knew nothing about the inside of the rooms, but the floor was basically the same as the lower floors. The positioning of elevators determined the layout of the floors, so that was easy. It was impossible to tell where all the guards would be, but she’d seen enough of the floors to know where the standard placement was.
The heat and humidity added to frayed tempers as the day wore on. They practiced their spots on the rooftop, making the dry run over and over. The first jump, without equipment, was a disaster. Trap had a landing field not far from his home with a large hangar that housed several aircraft including a smaller plane that would be similar to the one they had to use. Malichai piloted. All of them could fly a plane or helicopter if necessary, but Malichai had particular talents and Zeke didn’t want to worry about anything but the jump.
If the first jump was any indication, this wasn’t going to work, at least in Gino’s mind. They all managed to stay out of one another’s way, but he felt as if he’d never made a jump before—it was that bad—and he didn’t even have the heavy equipment with him. Still, they’d all gotten on the roof without an incident. Zeke called for the equipment. He wasn’t going to mess around. He wanted them prepared.
They barely had time to see to their gear before Malichai took them up again. Gino didn’t think the first jump with the heavy equipment went any better than the first dry jump. He cursed as Diego slammed into him, nearly sending both of them over the edge of the roof. He was going to be hurting like hell on the plane ride to China.
“That didn’t go well,” Diego announced. “I felt like I was a first-time jumper. Sorry, Gino. I just ran out of room.”
“I was all over the place too,” Rubin admitted.
“Me too,” Draden said. “The weight really pulled me off balance.”
“Yeah,” Gino added. “Even after I pulled my canopy, steering wasn’t great.”
“We’re fucked,” Diego said. “Wonder how Valhalla is this time of year.” His voice dripped with sarcasm.
Zeke looked them over. “Repack your gear; we’ll break for lunch and go up again in an hour and thirty. Eat, boys, you might not get another chance until we’re in the air, and Nonny did the cooking.”
That improved things as far as Gino was concerned. Nonny’s meals were always something to look forward to. He knew when they were leaving for a mission, she came up with special dishes, everyone’s favorites and loaves of freshly baked bread. Nonny was part of the reason he had begun thinking about having his own family. She was the epitome of what many men would want, a partner to walk beside him, one who could defend her children, to help carve a life out of the wilderness. She had hunted and fished right along with her husband, and later, after the accident that took her son and his wife, she had raised four wild boys herself with no money, her man in the ground.
Her meals alone were worth gold. He sat at the table, quiet as usual, letting the talk swirl around him, hearing it, but not really listening to the camaraderie of ribbing one another and telling old war stories to take their minds off the fact that it was more than likely some of them weren’t going to be coming back.
He thought about Zara and what was happening to her. He had no idea why just the images of her had gotten to him, but more and more, he couldn’t stop thinking about her. He was obsessed with finding everything he could on her, and he’d spent most of the night reading the articles he’d found online. It wasn’t a good thing, especially since he’d been tasked with putting a bullet in her head if she was working against them. Still, he couldn’t stop worrying about what was happening to her. That was another unusual thing for him. He didn’t waste time on things he couldn’t change.
Joe’s dad was a criminal. Straight up. A member of organized crime. Not just a member, but a boss. Neither Joe nor he could change that. Joe’s father, Ciro, and Gino’s father, Jacopo, had served in the Marines with Sergeant Major Theodore Griffen, and the three had been friends ever since. Gino had benefited from Sergeant Major’s abilities and connections. Ciro had run down those who had killed Gino’s father and made them pay. He had been the man to condition Gino to seeing torture and being able to shut down his mind and not view the recipient as anything but the slime they were. He considered, with his father’s two friends looking out for him, that his father was still there in spirit. He wished his father could see Zara Hightower.
Ciro had been the one to insist he be taught to take care of himself, with hands or weapons, to keep himself in good physical condition. He had taught Gino that the world wasn’t always black and white or a man all good or all bad. He’d always recognized the cold well in Gino and had talked to him often, telling him to accept himself, but to find something to balance that side of him.
Ciro loved his wife and son. He loved Jacopo and Gino. He was capable of love, and Gino knew he was as well. He’d pushed that side of him down for so long, refusing to think about it because in their line of work, men didn’t always come back and sooner or later, putting his life on the line so often, his luck was bound to run out. Then they’d found the swamp. Nonny. Wyatt’s family. Trap’s woman. Bellisia. It was hard to get around the fact that they were building homes, permanency.
He had a lot to offer a woman. He hadn’t touched his family’s money—and there was a wealth of it and growing every day. He’d never needed it. He didn’t want a woman with him because of money. His choice was the military and now the GhostWalkers. There was no getting out of the program because no one could undo what Whitney had done to them. The government wasn’t certain what to do with them. They were dangerous, but they also were loyal, and they cut down on the deaths of soldiers when they were sent into the field. His woman would have to put up with military life. The only difference was, each team was able to choose their permanent location.
“You’ve gone a million miles away, Gino,” Joe said. “You okay with this?”
Gino knew Joe was talking about the order to end Zara’s life if she was a threat to them. “Don’t know,” he muttered truthfully. He could lie to anyone but Joe. “Don’t like it.”
“It’s just a contingency,” Joe reminded softly. “In case she isn’t like Bellisia. She planned an escape with Bellisia and one other woman, but they never could be in the same place at the same time. Whitney always sent one of them out along with the threat of a deadly virus implanted in them, held the other two up to be sent to the breeding program if things went wrong.”
“Whitney’s still got one of them.” Gino sighed. Loyalty was a huge reason the women stayed, unable to leave when they knew leaving would cause suffering to friends or others who had been raised as siblings. He understood loyalty. He felt it, first toward Joe, and then the other GhostWalkers in his unit, and lastly the ones not in his own unit.
Joe nodded. “I’m sorry, Gino, I should have asked someone else.”
Gino shook his head. He already thought of the woman as “his.” That meant if she had to be terminated, he would do it himself, quick and clean so there was no chance she ever saw it coming and suffered. “She’s my responsibility all the way. I’ll see to her.”
Something about the way he said it had Ezekiel’s head turning toward him, those eyes moving over his face assessing him. He stared back, keeping his expression blank.
“Gino, when the others go out, drop back and talk to me,” Ezekiel ordered.
Gino nodded, but he cursed under his breath. He was blowing it. He wasn’t a man to give anything away and in the space of a few seconds, both Joe and Ezekiel were worried about him. Joe’s father had taught him the importance of keeping his thoughts to himself, yet in a very short time, he was giving away too much.
The talk continued, no one wanting to draw attention to the fact that both of the commanding officers had questioned him. He listened to Malichai and Mordichai tease Trap and Ezekiel about their women’s ability to cook and how they were lucky to have Nonny as an instructor. Wyatt’s wife, Pepper, had a little more time with Nonny, and although in the beginning she had been pretty bad at cooking, she was getting the hang of it.
He waited for Ezekiel, a little wary, but managing to lounge by the door looking lazy and relaxed. Another thing he had to thank Ciro for. Ezekiel was a hunter, through and through. He stalked up to Gino without hesitation, his eyes giving off a faint glow, much like a cat’s might. The two walked out of the house together, the others moving ahead in a group to give them privacy.
“You think I’m a threat to Joe?”
The question startled Gino because he was expecting something altogether different. He shrugged. “You’re a threat to anyone making your wife uncomfortable. That’s the way it should be, so no judgment, but Joe’s in a bad place right now and I think he’s looking for a fight.”
Gino could see that his answer shocked Ezekiel. The man stopped dead in his tracks, ran a hand through his hair and glanced back toward the house. “Shit, Gino. You’re right. Why the hell didn’t I see that?”
“I’ve known Joe since we were kids. His dad was best friends with my father since grammar school. When the murders happened, it was Joe who found me. They saved my life when Ciro took me in and raised me as his son. Joe’s a little older than I am, so I guess I looked up to him and I learned his every mood. His expressions. I can read him like a book.” The trouble was, Joe could read him just as well.
Ezekiel shook his head. “Thanks for letting me know, but just so you know, I may have gotten upset with him if Bellisia told me she didn’t like his questions, but I wouldn’t ever attack a man, a friend, when I know he’s wounded. If you’d thought about it, you know me too well to think I’d do that.”
“Before the enhancements, yeah, I get that. None of us can predict what we might do now. You need to hunt. It’s in you now. It was always in me, even before the murders, but you got that in you, Zeke. We have to watch out for one another. Your brothers covered you, and I covered Joe. Next time, you might have my six while I’m taking Mordichai’s.”
Ezekiel flashed him a smile. “You’re a good man, Gino.”
Gino regarded him soberly. “No, I’m not. I try to be. I want to be. But I’m not. Joe’s a good man. I think we were born into the wrong families. He never wanted to be a part of his family’s business, and I would have followed in Ciro’s footsteps. In the end, I looked after Joe for so many years I just followed him into the service.”
“And you’re still at it.”
Gino nodded. “This mission, Zeke. You’re married. Maybe you should turn it over to one of the others. Let them take it. I’m an officer. A surgeon. I can run it and you stay back this time.”
Ezekiel clapped him on the shoulder. “You know I can’t do that, but thanks for the offer. We’ll bring her home.”
Gino wondered if Zeke still thought the same thing when the next two jumps proved to be a nightmare. No one hit their mark on the first jump with the heavy power paragliders attached to them. The second jump wasn’t much better, and Ezekiel lost patience and growled orders at them, reminding them they still had to simulate the actual rescue and this was the last jump before their practice night jump. The man definitely wasn’t happy with them.
“Get it together. Focus. There won’t be room for mistakes up on that roof. One of you fucks up and goes over, we’re all dead. Every single one of us and the woman, so hit your damn marks,” Ezekiel snapped.
Gino pushed down amusement. Growling sometimes worked, but Zeke could look like a Bengal tiger when he wanted. Joe always spoke softly. Zeke did the same, but the two were so different in their delivery. Joe had the way of his father. He could be scary with that soft voice. Zeke growled, looking every inch the predatory male he was.
Somehow Ezekiel’s order was followed and every one of them managed to hit the mark with their bulky and very heavy equipment on the third try. They repacked everything and went into rescue mode, ready to simulate the actual retrieval of the prisoner.
Rubin jumped first and disrupted the cameras as he came down, hitting the roof and hurrying into position as soon as he removed the powered paraglider. His brother was on his six, hand on shoulder at the door. Gino moved into position. He would go in first, checking for guards, making certain the way was clear. Draden stepped up, his fingers working magic on the lock, and then dropped quickly into the last position, watching their backs. Ezekiel was positioned right after Diego.
They moved quickly and silently down the stairs leading to the floor. It was Gino who signaled all clear so they could open the door onto the floor, while Rubin disrupted the cameras. Small glitches only. The lights flickered, so that it seemed perfectly logical that the cameras would be having trouble as well.
Once on the floor, they split into two teams, Draden and Ezekiel going to the left and Rubin, Diego and Gino going to the right. Each room would have to be checked. Draden had gifts similar to Gino’s and would be the one to hopefully know the positioning of any guards.
Gino had to strain, using his gifts, the ones that burned his eyes but allowed him to see beyond walls. He could feel for the energy that told him someone was behind a door waiting and just how focused they were on their job. He moved with authority, with confidence, along the hall. Sensing someone behind a door, he signaled to the others. Diego nodded and he and Rubin stood to either side of the door.
To the left of the door, Gino told them. One man.
The count was silent, but the moment Diego got the door open, Rubin exploded inside, was on the “guard” and took him down with a tranq. They hadn’t wanted to take down any guards, just in case there were radio check-ins, but they had to check each room that was occupied.
They repeated the same entry and operation several times until it felt smooth. They broke for dinner and prepared for their night jump. They’d only do one and then they’d have to repack gear to be ready to leave.
They ate dinner at the Fontenot house—all of them. The entire family together, and as promised, Nonny and the women fixed a feast for them. It was plain Cajun cooking, which meant it was amazing. Gino looked around the table. These were good people, all of them. He liked them. They were loyal, true to their word, warriors ready and willing to fight for one another and yet quick to give a hand to a neighbor.
Did he fit in? He was never certain. Wyatt was the closest thing to him, and Wyatt was a good man. Gino had a cold edge that set him apart, and yet the triplets kissed and hugged him, accepting him as their uncle just as they did the other men. Pepper looked at them all with affection, although she stuck very close to Wyatt and never touched any of them physically.
Cayenne was beginning to overcome her anxiety around them. She’d lived alone in a cell for too many years, and it had taken her longer to warm up to the idea of one big family. She and Trap never seemed to be able to keep their hands off each other and she looked to him for cues around the others, which was laughable as Trap was the most antisocial man Gino had ever met.
Ezekiel and Bellisia were good together. She was a tiny little thing, but very strong and, like Cayenne, lethal as hell. Gino liked watching their interaction. He liked all three women and the way they were devoted to their men. He sat back in his chair, smiling at Pepper when she poured him a cup of coffee.
“You don’t have to wait on me, honey,” he said.
“I know. That’s why I do it. I can’t wait on Wyatt or he’d expect it every time.” Pepper tossed her wild mane of dark hair—it was almost as thick as a man’s arm when she braided it. It had a faint darker pattern strewn through the silky mass.
The men erupted with laughter at Wyatt’s expense. He just wrapped his arm around his wife’s waist as she tried walking past him and pulled her down onto his lap. “You wait on me,” he announced, nuzzling her neck. “Anything I want. Anytime I want it. Everyone knows you worship at my feet.”
“I do not.” Pepper pretended to struggle.
Gino noticed that her butt wiggled around all over Wyatt’s lap. He liked that for his friend—that a woman loved him enough to show him.
“Maybe not my feet, but you do worship other parts of me.”
“Wyatt.” She punched his shoulder lightly and buried her face in his neck. “I do worship you, but I think it’s gone to your head.”
The men, including Gino, burst out laughing. He could tell Pepper had no idea why they were laughing, or that Wyatt could have come back with something even more embarrassing.
He wanted that, he realized. What Wyatt had. What Trap had. What Ezekiel had. He even needed it. Sooner rather than later. He knew he grew colder every day in spite of having the little triplets following him around, asking him to do bird calls for them and teach them to track animals in the swamp.
He loved the triplets’ company and sometimes sought the little girls out when he was feeling particularly shadowed. Nonny always seemed to notice. Once she’d gestured at him with her pipe while she was rocking away on the porch and told him he needed a good woman. He hadn’t replied, but at the time, he’d thought a good woman wouldn’t have him. A woman like him, one dark enough to accept him, would only drag him down further and he couldn’t afford that. He was looking for just the opposite of him. He was searching for a woman who made his world light up when she smiled.
He excused himself and went out to the porch to look at the night. He loved nights in the swamp. The sounds of the insects, the slide of alligators through mud to get to the water. The bellows of the bull alligators. The plopping of snakes as they fell from low-hung cypress branches into the water. The swamp seemed laid-back when it was really teeming with life. It was a long way from the city where he’d been born and raised.
He was surprised that Joe had taken to the place. Joe was much more civilized than Gino. Gino was primitive and a little savage, and Joe was charming, sophisticated and easygoing. Joe seemed to love the swamp so much he didn’t want to leave. Like Gino, he spent hours a day exploring when they had the time. The team had bought up as much land around the Fontenot home and between Wyatt’s home and Trap’s as possible. There was one tract of land they couldn’t get, a prime piece they’d offered far more for than it was worth, but so far the owner hadn’t bitten. Joe was obsessed with that piece of land.
He liked birds. Who knew? Big bad Joe Spagnola liked birds. The tract of land was home to quite a few. He went there often with his binoculars and watched them. Gino knew, because when Joe went into the swamp, he followed. He was used to protecting his foster brother, and having the man traipse around in a dangerous area didn’t have Gino quitting his bodyguard ways any time soon.
“You got somethin’ on your mind, Gino?” Nonny asked as she pushed open the screen and slid out onto the porch, pipe in hand.
“A few things,” he admitted. He’d come to know Wyatt’s grandmother, and he was fairly certain the Fontenot boys had gotten psychic gifts from her. It was useless to try to hide things from her.
She was small now, looking frail, with her silver-spun hair and her thin body, but she worked all day, never shirking, even when they all tried to anticipate what she might need or want. She slipped into her favorite rocking chair and regarded him over her unlit pipe.
“You’re a much better man than you think. And you’re deserving of happiness just like all the rest of them.” She announced it as if by her decreeing it, that made him a good man.
She made him smile. He turned toward her, leaning his back to the porch post. “How do you know I’m a good man, Nonny, when I don’t know it?”
“I see more than most people. I see you struggle, but you don’t quite understand that sometimes, in this world, someone like you is needed. You go with a clear conscious and you find your woman. She needs you and your strength. We’re not all made the same. Cayenne is all warrior. Bellisia can be a warrior but isn’t thrilled with it, where Cayenne feeds off it. Killin’ makes Pepper sick. She still will stand up and do what’s needed, but it does sicken her. Does that make her weaker? Or does it make her the strongest of all of us? I don’t rightly know. But I do know there is a woman needing you.”
“My brand of loving wouldn’t be easy for anyone, Nonny, let alone the kind of woman I want.”
“It’s need that matters, Gino. Find the kind of woman you need. Wanting can fool you.”
He nodded because he knew she was right. He’d thought a lot about women and what would be right for him. He wasn’t ever going to be easy, and the last thing he needed was a woman who would spend her life opposing him at every turn. He wasn’t a man who liked a fighter as so many of his brethren did. He needed someone who would soothe him, quiet the dark demon when it began to emerge. A fighter wouldn’t do that for him, and any union with the wrong woman wouldn’t end well.
“My family has money, Nonny. So much. You have no idea how much money. I haven’t touched a penny of it, although I offered it to the others to help with purchasing land for us. Or to buy weapons to keep the little ones safe. I mostly forget about the money, until I meet a woman. In the last few years, I haven’t met one who hasn’t already known about the money and deliberately set out to meet me with one idea in mind.”
She laughed softly and lit her pipe. The scent was soothing and somehow fit with the swamp. “There are good women in this world, Gino. Hardworking, caring women who prefer to be partners with a man.”
“Don’t want a fuckin’ partner, Nonny,” he said before he thought. He ducked his head. “Sorry for the language, ma’am.”
“I raised my own boy and then four grandsons. Language never bothered me none but it was fun to make them think so. A partner can be many things. I worked alongside my husband because there was need and I’m that kind of woman. Cayenne will fight beside her man. Your woman will find her place with you and whatever that is, it is a partnership with each of you having your role. You just need to make her feel loved and cared for. Communication is important, not just in the bedroom, but mostly out of it. You have that, you’ll have no problems.”
He wished she was right. He hoped she was right. He was damned tired of being alone. “I think it’s your swamp, Nonny. It’s cast some kind of spell on all of us.”
She looked around her, out over the water and into the thick trees and foliage. Her rocker creaked softly, adding to the symphony of the insects and frogs. “It is beautiful here. I spent my days here, Gino, and never longed for another place. I love the beauty of it. The mystery. The wildlife. Most of all, the people. There are good people here.”
He let himself grin at her, teasing her a little. “I suspect you loved the lazy bayou at night with your sweetheart.”
She flashed him an answering grin, looking a little mischievous. “You wouldn’t be wrong. My man made my life good right up until the day he passed.”
“I’m happy for you. I’d like to think my father did the same for my mother. Believe me, having gone without a woman of my own so long, I’d know to look after her if I found her.” He broke off abruptly when Draden joined them. It was one thing to talk like this to a woman in her eighties in the cover of darkness, but not in front of one of his fellow GhostWalkers. Likely, he’d never hear the end of it.
“Draden,” Nonny greeted. “Did you get enough to eat?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he said. “If I didn’t run so much I’d be putting on all kinds of weight. Where did you learn to cook like that?”
“Growin’ up here, in the old days, we didn’t have much. Hunted, fished, crabbed, even shot alligators for food. Had to cook for my brothers and sisters. I was the youngest by a good few years and they were all workin’ tryin’ to help so I was home tendin’ to the food and house.”
She’d worked hard all her life. As far as Gino could see, she was still working. But she was happy. She was a woman who wouldn’t have looked at a man’s bank account to judge his worth. She looked at whether or not he would take care of his family. Working hard, bringing passion to his woman. Those were the attributes she looked for in a man.
He wanted a Nonny, but not the fighter. He half listened to Nonny engaging Draden in conversation while he stepped back out into the night, thinking of Zara Hightower and wondering what was happening to her. His gut knotted with dread. Reading the file on Cheng was like reading a man’s descent into paranoid madness. Cheng was rarely seen in public anymore, but if he was, he surrounded himself with bodyguards.
Gino didn’t quite understand men like Cheng. What was he doing it all for? Stockpiling a fortune he couldn’t take with him. Keeping to himself so he had no friends or family. Trading his government’s secrets as easily as he traded those from foreign countries. Loyal to no one, not even the country he was born and raised in. In the end, what was the point?
Zara was being tortured. He knew she was. Cheng would never lose that data and let a foreigner leave his country. After, he would have to kill her. Even if she never admitted she was spying for Whitney, or running a mission, Cheng would still have to kill her. How could he not? He couldn’t rely on her not talking about being detained and tortured. She might have the United States lodge a protest on her behalf. Cheng’s government would have no recourse but to investigate. No, he had to kill her.
How long did she have? He was suddenly anxious to get started. They were making one last night jump, and he wanted to get it over and get on the road. He was a doctor, a damn good surgeon, and he had a healing touch. That was always a shock to him because his hands killed. Not just killed outright either. Ciro had taught him that sometimes killing cleanly didn’t send the right message. If you wanted others to pay attention and fear you, killing cleanly didn’t get you what you wanted and you did it another, very ugly way.
He didn’t like inflicting pain on anyone, but he didn’t mind either. He could shut down. He had shut down when intruders had murdered his family one by one in front of him. When they shot him three times and left him for dead. Over money. It had all been over money. He detested that money more than anything else. They had broken in with the idea of taking Gino and ransoming him back to his parents. His parents and grandparents had refused to let him go. They wouldn’t step aside.
Gino remembered trying to push them aside and get around them, so no one would get hurt, but his father had quietly stopped him. He’d shaken his head and told the intruders very softly that he wasn’t giving up his son. That was a man taking care of his family. He hadn’t resisted, or tried to hurt the intruders, he’d simply said no.
Being nice didn’t work with some men. Being nice was equated with weakness. Gino had made certain he would never be equated with weak. Like Ciro, he learned to be strong and feared. He wanted to be feared so no one would touch the people he loved. So no one would ever try to do to his child what had been done to him. Money cost him his parents and he’d turned his back on it. That was ironic, because now he was far wealthier than his parents had ever been. What was more ironic was the fact that he’d shaped himself into a man to be feared so no one would touch those he loved—but he was so cold and dark no woman would ever love him for himself.
The sky was clear tonight, and the moon shone over the water. A light fog moved through the forest, giving the interior an eerie glow when the sky and water were both so clear. He stared into the trees, looking at those fingers of fog pointing toward him. He didn’t believe in signs or fate the way Nonny did. She saw signs in everything from rings around the moon to horny toads jumping across the road.
“We’re coming for you, princess,” he whispered to the night and hoped she heard him. Hoped she could hold on. “I’m coming for you and nothing will stop me. Not heaven. Not hell. I’m not leaving you in that place.” He’d already made up his mind she wasn’t working with Whitney, and that was plain stupidity. He wasn’t a stupid man. It didn’t matter. “I’m coming, baby, just hold on a little longer.”
That was another thing he had to consider as he made his way back to the small airfield where they’d go through the jump one more time before they packed their gear for the night. Zara Hightower was smart. Way the hell smart. Like Trap smart. She was used to being in the spotlight, and he didn’t want that life. He didn’t want any one of his family members to ever set themselves up as targets. That wouldn’t happen. She traveled the world, giving her talks. She might need that. Still …
“Won’t make a difference, princess,” he whispered again. “I’m coming for you. Just hang on.”
The jump went far smoother than he expected. They knew the feel of the power paragliders as they steered their chutes down to the rooftop. Each knew where he had to come down to avoid hitting the others. They were out of their gear and into formation in minutes, cameras disrupted, and then they went through the entire routine of finding the prisoner. Every movement was planned in advance including what to do if she wasn’t able to walk.
“Good job, everyone,” Ezekiel said. “Okay, everything is set with getting out of here and joining the work crew. We leave at twenty-four hundred hours. You have two and half hours to get everything ready and reset. Adjust your gear, get your chute repacked, do whatever you’re going to do, but be back here on time ready to kick ass and get our girl back. You can sleep on the plane, it’s a long journey. And remember, the minute you leave here, you are no longer soldiers, you’re construction workers.”
Gino inclined his head and went to work. He knew exactly what he was—and he was neither.