Gino moved through the swamp with ease. The night hid him, just as it did the other GhostWalkers, those moving in a loose line, spread out so they left no tracks and no evidence of their passing. There was no sound to give them away. They owned the night. When they moved in it, the darkness hid them, just as the swamp allowed them to become part of it.
He was known to his fellow GhostWalkers as the “Phantom Wind.” He’d gotten the name after a few battles when he moved through the darkness destroying the enemy and no one ever heard or saw anything but the wind. He had an idea of where Whitney might have managed to hide his soldiers. There were only a few places he could have gotten them in without the locals gossiping about them.
Up ahead. The camp belongs to the Comeaux family, Wyatt said, his voice soft in Gino’s head. We’ve had a running feud with them ever since I can remember. If there is one family that would be willing to take Whitney’s money and not get word to us, or anyone else that his soldiers are around, it would be the Comeaux family.
Gino was certain Wyatt was right. This would have been his choice, not because he was familiar with the family, but this was an entire section of the swamp where no one dared to go. Any other place, the locals would gossip, and Nonny would know about it. The Comeaux family was notorious for being unfriendly. They liked to shoot first and ask questions later. There were no trespassing signs up all along the waterway on both sides of the river and canal systems. He knew very little about the family, other than the men were big and mean, abused women and liked to fight.
The family bought up this land a hundred years ago, and the river has changed course since then, so that now, if you want to get near their property, you have to go off the main channel onto the much shallower stream. Boats can hang up there, making anyone caught in the shallows fair game. If you’re caught, you’re lucky to get off with a severe beating, robbed of course, and your boat confiscated, Wyatt added.
Do you really think they’d betray everyone in the swamp just to get at you, Wyatt? Mordichai asked. He was always cool under fire, with steady hands, scars and hair that was always that little bit too long and shaggy.
They’d betray their own father for money, Wyatt responded.
So yeah, without a doubt, Gino was certain they were on the right track. They were walking in. Even quieting the sound of their boats, something would have given them away. They could control frog and insect sound, dogs barking an alert, and they could muffle the sounds of a boat moving through the water, but that didn’t mean they could foresee everything that might happen and it was always that, the one thing not accounted for that got soldiers killed.
Wyatt sank down in the grass and the rest of the team followed suit, crouching low, listening. They were going to have to move into the open soon. The small stream was wide enough to get a boat in, but shallow, the rocks, sand and debris making it difficult, but not impossible to maneuver over. The Comeaux brothers did so on a regular basis.
Gino studied the layout across the stream. It looked peaceful enough. The moss hanging in the branches of the cypress trees swayed with the wind. The grass was taller here, although he could see two distinct trails where humans had walked single file forming paths leading back into the tree line. The tract of land between the stream and the swamp held only a few large boulders, grass and sand. The open space was approximately thirty feet wide. Maybe forty. Once into the swamp, the trees were thick and closer together than in a lot of other places. That gave the advantage to anyone guarding the property.
On their side of the stream, the bare tract of land between them and the stream was much narrower, perhaps closer to fifteen feet. Altogether, that gave them quite a lot of territory to cover without drawing attention from a guard.
Up in the trees, south end. The tall one with the wide branches, about two-thirds up, Rubin said.
Only Gino’s eyes moved. If they had a spotter in the trees—and the soldiers would—any movement would draw his attention. It took a few seconds to find him. The soldier appeared part of the tree, his body partially hidden, the rest in plain sight but covered with a ghillie suit, making him appear part moss and part leaves and branch. The man was very still, but obviously hungry. Every now and then his arm would move, so that it looked as if the branch swayed upward toward his mouth and then came back down.
He can’t be the only one. He doesn’t have sight from every direction, Gino told the others. He was already searching the trees in the area to the east. The second sentry would be in a similar tree—one tall and strong enough to support a heavy soldier. Now that he knew what he was looking for, and where the soldier would have to be, Gino spotted him. This one was sitting, not standing, and he was in a good position to shoot with his rifle. The cross-branch was perfect for him to set up shop.
I see him. These two know what they’re doing. I’ll take the one to the east. He’s taking his job very seriously.
I’ll take west, Draden said.
We’ll be taking a little nap while the two of you go play, Wyatt said.
Gino dropped back into deeper cover to work his way to the east. He would have to cross the stream and grass areas in order to get to his goal. He knew he looked no more than a shadow, but any movement would draw the sentry’s eye. That meant moving slowly. The one thing Gino had in abundance was patience. He could move like a sloth if that was what was required. He wouldn’t be surprised if Wyatt and the others really did take a nap while they waited. It might take a couple of hours for Gino and Draden to work their way to their goals, and the others didn’t have much to do.
He went to his belly and began to inch his way out of the trees into the grass and rock that would take him to the stream. The water was cold as he slid into it. It was so shallow that only his chest and legs were immersed, but he was inching over rocks, some sharp as he pressed down to make certain there was no sound to give him away. He didn’t look toward the sentry, there was no use. Either the man would spot him or he wouldn’t, and sometimes, scrutiny drew the eye.
The water was uncomfortable, but that barely registered. He was used to cramped, uncomfortable positions. Once, he’d stayed motionless, covered in mud, buried in the embankment of a river while the enemy camped just feet away. He killed seven of them before they discovered anything was wrong. They never saw him, but he watched them pack up and leave from that same mud bank.
He was on the other side, moving slowly now, using fingers and toes to slide forward over the rocky ground toward the grass. The grass was going to be tricky. He would have to follow exactly in one of the paths already trampled down, or the sentries would be able to see the grass being flattened as he moved.
Voices stopped all progress. Two men walked out of the trees. Both were big men with dark beards. They looked left and then right. Both spat at exactly the same moment. Gino recognized them immediately. One was Pascal Comeaux. He was the taller of the two brothers and had a reputation for beating his wife and children. Blaise wasn’t married, but considered himself a lady’s man, and he was every bit as mean as Pascal.
The brothers loved to fight, bully and drink. It was rumored they often shared women. Gino had, more than once, considered letting them pick a fight with him at the Huracan Club, a bar in the swamp they frequented. So far, he’d resisted, but it hadn’t been easy.
“No one tells me what to do,” Pascal said. “I want to shove my knife in that big bastard’s gut and watch him die slow. He keeps telling me what to do, it’s going to happen.”
“There’s only eight of them. We could take them. I was looking at their weapons, Pascal. If we kill them all, we could sell those weapons and make us even more money,” Blaise said. “After they kill Wyatt.”
“You see Wyatt’s woman?” Pascal licked his lips. “I want that one for myself.”
“If I help you kill these bastards, you’re sharing that with me,” Blaise protested.
They walked right past Gino, toward the part of stream where they had a boat beached. Clearly, they were experts at guiding their boat in the stream, going slow over the shallows until they made it out to the main branch of the river. Their voices faded a little as they pushed the boat into the stream.
“How we going to kill all eight of them?” Blaise wanted to know.
“Poison. They all gotta eat, don’t they?” Pascal said. “The wife fixes something for them, and we dump poison in it. Even if it just makes them sick, it won’t be hard to pick them off like rats in a sewer.”
Gino took advantage of the fact that both sentries would be naturally looking at the Comeaux brothers. He slid toward the grass, covering a few extra feet much more quickly. He was right at the mouth of the path leading back into the trees. The Comeaux brothers were idiots thinking they could kill the supersoldiers. They had no idea what they had let into their homes. They’d be lucky if they managed to get out of the entire thing alive, and that was with keeping a low profile.
He dug his elbows and toes into the ground and propelled himself forward into the crushed grass. The soldiers and the Comeaux brothers had been using the two paths for some time. He could see that the grass was so compacted that it felt like a thick mat he was traveling over rather than actual grass. He continued dragging himself, careful not to touch the taller grass still standing upright on either side of him. Even with the Comeaux brothers leaving, he knew the sentries would be watching closely. They had been too still up in the branches of the trees to indicate they weren’t taking their job seriously.
He made it to trees and slipped behind the deeper foliage. His arms and legs needed a little break, so he stretched cautiously while he took stock of his surroundings. The Comeaux household was about a half mile from the stream. It had been close to the river until erosion had changed the course of the river, creating the little stream and veering the river away from their property. Like most of those living in the swamp, Gino knew, the Comeaux family had originally relied on the river for their livelihood. The family now had more money than most, but still, they hunted and fished and crabbed. Losing river frontage had to have upset them.
He caught movement to his left, and he rolled over slowly to get a better view. Soldiers moved, surrounding an outside fire pit. They were a good half a football field away, but he could see four of them. That accounted for six men if he counted the sentries. That left two more.
Comeaux brothers had conversation, stated eight soldiers here. I see four more back here. Don’t have eyes on the other two. Draden?
No, can’t see any of them. Nearing tree. Let me know when you’re climbing.
Will do. Gino made his way toward the east and the tall tree where his target was. He circled around behind the tree, making certain that there was cover between him and the fire pit at all times. It wouldn’t do for one of the soldiers to spot him as he was coming up on his goal.
He crouched at the bottom of the tree, looking up. He could see where there were gouges in the bark where the soldier had climbed up. In position.
Let’s do it.
At Draden’s go-ahead, Gino began to ease his way up the tree. He had the strength to use just his upper body, but he didn’t want the trunk or branches to tremble as he moved upward. He couldn’t displace bark or crack a limb. Any of those things would give him away to the soldier watching the entrance to the property.
He was into the heavier branches now, but he couldn’t move fast and draw the eyes of the sentry. He kept his pace steady and made certain he was on the far side of the tree, away from the observant soldier and the one Draden was targeting. He finally came up behind his man. The soldier was stretched out along the branch, his rifle resting in the crook of two twisted limbs. He was using his night vision goggles, sweeping the area along the stream and the swamp behind it continuously in a grid pattern.
Gino waited a couple of heartbeats, looking along that swamp line as well. There wasn’t one indication that his team was right there, waiting for the signal to attack. It was difficult to kill Whitney’s soldiers. Sometimes they even wore mouth armor. The doctor had created an armor beneath the skin that kept bullets and knives from penetrating. The armor was made of a kind of spider’s silk, but it rendered the soldiers a little stiff. Whitney had tried to experiment on a couple of the women, but this was relatively new, and he still made mistakes. It was a measure of his lunacy that he now used the supersoldiers he knew wouldn’t last very long. They could move fast when necessary, but they didn’t have the kind of agility and quickness they needed for fast hand-to-hand combat.
What Gino was going for was stealth. His GhostWalker team wanted to wipe out the soldiers without anyone knowing they were even there. It would be interesting to see what Pascal and Blaise Comeaux would do when they came home to a killing ground, especially after Whitney had to have paid them a fortune to house his soldiers in secret. The two men had gone to a bar to drink, something they were known for. Whitney had probably left orders that the two men stay away from the bar, afraid of loose lips. The two brothers had played right into the GhostWalkers’ hands.
Gino crept up behind the sentry, his heart beating steadily. There was no adrenaline to deal with, not wild breathing. This was his world and he was damn good at it. The soldier moved, his arm going slowly down to pick up his water bottle. He raised it just as slowly to his mouth, tilting his head to drink. Gino’s knife sank deep, straight into the throat to slice left and right. He left the knife in him while he caught the water bottle before it fell. Holding the soldier’s body as the life drained out of it, he lowered the bottle back to the small box the sentry had set up next to his rifle.
It took minutes to station the body in the tree, laying him out, belly down along the branch, wedged in the crook, his hand on his rifle, so if anyone looked up at him with field glasses, they would see he appeared in position to shoot.
Clear to the east.
He moved to the far side of the tree, away from the sentry to the west. He leapt, landing in a crouch and stayed at the bottom, close to the root system, waiting for Draden’s report. It came a few minutes later.
Clear to the west.
Eyes on the last two soldiers? Wyatt asked.
Negative, Gino and Draden reported simultaneously.
There was a small silence while Wyatt debated. We’re moving toward you. Look around, see if you can spot them. They could be taking turns sleeping.
That made sense, but Gino was uneasy. He didn’t like the idea of two of the soldiers being absent. He knew Whitney’s new army could go without sleep, just as the GhostWalkers could, for several days if necessary. If they weren’t sleeping, where were they? Could they be watching the Fontenot home and if so, did they see the team leave? He doubted that or there would have been an ambush set up.
I don’t like this, Wyatt. If they aren’t here, and I don’t think they are, they have to be watching our women and children.
Joe and Ezekiel have a five-man team there as well as Cayenne, Pepper and Bellisia. Nonny is no slacker, and neither is your Zara. She charged that soldier with a shotgun and bare feet. Keep your mind in the game, Gino. Those two soldiers aren’t going to try to take her themselves.
Opportunity could just be as simple as chance. Zara could be alone on the front porch. He hadn’t told her to stay indoors. The women liked to sit on the porch when they couldn’t sleep. He doubted, with Wyatt and him gone, that neither Pepper nor Zara would be able to sleep. He should have been very precise in his orders. Instead, he’d fucked her. Okay, who was he kidding? It hadn’t felt like fucking. He knew exactly what he’d done. He’d worshipped her. Paid attention to every square inch of her body. Memorized her. Etched her into his brain for eternity. He’d taken her twice and then, just before he left, he kissed her. Over and over. God. That mouth of hers. He was as addicted to it as he was her body.
He watched Wyatt and the others move out of the trees and denser foliage to belly crawl to the stream. Insects continued droning loudly. Frogs kept up their chorus. That reminded Gino that some of Whitney’s soldiers did have some developed psychic abilities. They hadn’t failed testing because of their psychic gifts—they’d failed psychological testing.
He swept the area behind Wyatt, Malichai and Rubin. There was no movement. Now all three were in the path created by the trampled grass. Draden joined him and the two went back-to-back, Draden facing the fire pit and the four soldiers there. Gino kept his gaze moving restlessly, quartering their back-trail, making certain that the missing soldiers—or the Comeaux brothers—didn’t come up behind his team.
Wyatt took the field glasses and studied the four soldiers sitting around the fire pit. Clearly, they weren’t expecting to be attacked, all four were looking into the fire.
One yawned. He glanced toward his sleeping bag and then toward the house. It was a good distance away. Several trees separated the house from the soldiers’ camp. “Wish that woman would cook for us,” he said. “Rations suck.”
“Gotta agree with you there Tyler,” another said. “The smells coming from that house are amazing. I’m pretty sure there’s fresh baked bread.”
“You ever get near the Fontenot house, Tom, you’ll smell some great food cooking. That old lady has a rep around here. We ought to forget bringing Zara back and get that old woman. Get her to cook for us,” Tyler said.
There was a great deal of laughter over that. Gino didn’t like them even saying Zara’s name aloud. It was said with familiarity. They knew her. They knew the way the women were treated by Whitney and still they went along with everything he did.
“Whitney would despise Comeaux,” Tom said. “He’s a greedy little bastard and doesn’t have one ounce of patriotism. Not one.”
“Neither do you,” another soldier sneered good-naturedly.
Tom threw his hat at the soldier, hitting with deadly accuracy right across the flames. “I’m in it for the money. What are you in it for, Brax?”
“The women, of course,” Brax admitted with a grin. “I’ve been trying to get Whitney to pair me with Zara. He says she’s too smart for me. Who gives a fuck what they have in their head? Comeaux might not be a patriot, but he knows how to treat a woman when she doesn’t give him what he wants. He beat the shit out of his old lady last night and then fucked her brains right out of her head.”
That black rage in Gino’s belly coiled into something deadly. Something lethal.
“How do you know?”
“Heard him swear at her in Cajun. Knew he was going to whale on her and I snuck up to his bedroom window and watched. He’s like a bull. Funny thing is, his brother was there. Right in the bedroom, calm as you please. Watchin’ right along with me. When Pascal quit beating her, he stripped her clothes off and the two of them went at it. Hot as hell watchin’ that shit.”
The fourth soldier rubbed the front of his jeans. “Just thinkin’ about it makes me wish I could join them.” He glanced up at the house. “We could kill the brothers and tap that. Afterward, just slit her throat and get out, no one would ever know.”
The other three soldiers laughed. “You’re a bloodthirsty bastard, Buck,” Tyler said.
“Nope, just horny,” Buck corrected.
Wyatt gave the signal, and Gino moved, making his way around the encampment to come up behind them. Wyatt and Malichai went straight toward them. Draden and Rubin came in from opposite sides. They couldn’t make a sound and every kill had to be silent. If Comeaux’s wife or children happened to look out the window, they couldn’t see GhostWalkers moving stealthily in the grass.
I’ll take the big guy closest to the fire. The one called Brax, Gino informed them. The sick fuck wasn’t getting close to Zara or Comeaux’s woman.
The others chose a target. Rubin wanted Buck. Draden took Tyler. Malichai had Tom.
Wyatt would back them up with his gun, if necessary. They would all slide forward in the grass together, get as close to their objective as possible before committing to the kill. This was a world Gino was very comfortable in and he began to move, easing his body onto the ground, using his toes and fingers to pull himself forward, eyes on target.
The soldier called Tyler, let out a heavy sigh. “Whitney wants Zara bad. Wonder why? He usually doesn’t care that much if they get away. They’re always replaceable.”
“He likes to get them when they’re young and do his work on them, then he gets pissed that they act like women when they grow up,” Tom said. “I’ve been trying to get into his breeding program for months.”
Tyler shook his head. “Not me. It’s dangerous. None of the women want any part of it and unless, they’re tied down tight with a gag in their mouths and gloves over their hands, it’s too dangerous to get it up. I prefer the whores in town to any of Whitney’s creations.”
Buck shrugged. “All women are whores. You just have to let them know you’re not taking any of their crap. They’ll do whatever you want given the right motivation.” He leaned forward and spat into the flames.
In position. Gino was right behind Brax’s chair. Buck actually turned his head and stared right at him without seeing him.
Wyatt waited until the three others had given the okay that they were in position. It’s a go. Three, two, one.
All four rose up simultaneously, knives sliding neatly through throats, while hands muffled any sound. Each held their target through the death throe and only when the bodies had stopped twitching did they allow them to slide down into their chairs, feet dangerously close to the fire-pit.
“I’d give anything to see that bastard Pascal and his filthy brother find the soldiers. They were talking about killing them and now, suddenly, they’re all dead,” Wyatt said.
“Is there a way to get his wife and kids out of here?” Gino asked.
Wyatt shook his head. “Nonny’s reached out several times, but she won’t leave. Too afraid, I think. She’s never been away from home and the only life she knows is here. I’ll have Nonny try again, but even doing that is dangerous. Pascal gets wind, he’ll try to burn our home down.”
“Maybe we should make certain he tries,” Malichai said. He sounded grim. Darker than they’d ever heard him. “Gives us an excuse to kill him.”
“I could do it,” Gino said. “No blowback. He uses the waterway as his own personal highway. He’s always going to the Huracan Club. It would be easy enough to kill him.”
Wyatt sighed. “We aren’t the police here. I detest the bastard. Pretty much every decent family up and down the river despise him and his brother, but we’ve got enough going on without taking that responsibility too.”
Gino shrugged and turned back toward the river. “There’s still two of Whitney’s soldiers out there. Let’s go find them.”
• • •
“It’s hot tonight,” Zara observed.
“Humid,” Pepper agreed. She wound her thick braid on top of her head and pinned it into position to take the heavy fall of hair off her neck. “I can’t tell you how often I’ve considered cutting my hair off. Wyatt would lose his mind though.”
“Does it matter what Wyatt wants?” Bellisia asked.
“To me?” Pepper was already nodding. “Absolutely it does. If he prefers my hair long, then I’ll keep it that way.”
“What about you, Cayenne?” Bellisia asked. “Would you cut your hair if Trap said not to?”
Cayenne stretched and then pulled herself up onto the railing surrounding the porch. “Nope. Trap doesn’t like something, I don’t do it.”
“Really?” Bellisia frowned at them. “I don’t get that. I take into consideration what Zeke likes or doesn’t like, but he isn’t going to dictate to me.”
“Why would you think Wyatt dictates to me?” Pepper asked. She unbuttoned the pearl buttons on her blouse and poured water on her chest, uncaring that it got on her blouse, rendering the material see-through. “I said he prefers my hair long so I keep it that way. I didn’t say he told me I had to keep it this long. I don’t mind doing things that make him happy.”
“Trap dictates,” Cayenne said. She shrugged. “I don’t mind at all. I decide whether or not I’m going to do what he says. If it matters more to him, I do it, if it matters more to me, I don’t. It all works out.”
“Cayenne, marriage isn’t a dictatorship,” Bellisia said.
“Tell Trap that.” A ghost of a smile appeared on her face. “The man doesn’t know the meaning of the word ‘ask.’ I’m with Pepper, I don’t sweat the small stuff. I like pleasing him, and he gives me the world, and I don’t mean in material things, although he’d buy me a country if I wanted one. I know I’m his world, and that’s good enough for me. The rest of it, Bellisia, is just diction. Trap has learned not to make the same mistake with me twice. I’ve learned to wait until I cool off—and he does—before I work out what’s wrong and fix it.”
Bellisia sighed. “I guess that’s why we all are attracted to different men. What you can take in your marriage, I’d never be able to in mine.” She went down the steps to the garden hose, turned it on and let the water pour over her head until she was soaked.
“I could use a little of that,” Cayenne said. “Spray me.”
“Me too,” Zara said.
“You’re both going to end up feeling sticky,” Pepper pointed out. “It will cool you off for a few minutes and then you’ll be steaming.”
“With Zeke, I feel like I have a partner,” Bellisia said, turning the hose on Cayenne.
Cayenne hopped off the railing and stood at the top of the stairs, turning around so Bellisia could really get her wet. She was wearing a white T-shirt and instantly the material was see-through just like Pepper’s blouse. They didn’t care, no one was around. Pepper joined Cayenne, putting her hands in the air and spinning around gracefully so Bellisia could soak her clothing and hair. When she was dripping she looked down at herself a little ruefully.
“Since I’ve been pregnant, my breasts have grown. A lot. Sheesh. I can hardly keep them in my bra.” Her white shirt was mostly open and the curves of her breasts were very much in evidence. “Wyatt and I are partners, Bellisia, just different from you and Zeke, but I like the way Wyatt is with me.”
“I love the way Trap is with me,” Cayenne said. She reached toward the eaves, shot silk from her hands and wove a swing. She was fast at it. She sat in it where the slight breeze could fan her body. “I sometimes do things to get into trouble just for the fun of it.”
Bellisia was really frowning now. “Get into trouble?” she repeated.
Zara fanned herself to keep the others from seeing the color creeping up her neck to her face. She wasn’t about to say that she was certain she would prefer the relationship Trap and Cayenne had to any other that she knew of. She loved the way Trap looked at Cayenne. Since she’d been around them, there had been several times when he very abruptly would just turn to his wife, swing her over his shoulder and carry her out of a room. She wanted Gino to want her like, that and so far he’d seemed to be exactly that way. She didn’t mind in the least pleasing him. In fact, she hated disappointing him. She wanted to know more about Cayenne’s relationship.
Cayenne nodded, making little circles with her foot. “Yep. In trouble. He spanks me.” She grinned at Bellisia. “It hurts so good.”
“Are you kidding me?” Bellisia demanded.
“Nope, it’s fun and it’s hot. I especially love it when he tells me to do things.”
“His voice,” Zara said, startling herself that it came out of her mouth. “Well, Gino has this voice sometimes.”
Cayenne grinned at her. “I know all about the voice. I should have realized Gino and Trap were friends for a reason.”
“You two are hopeless,” Bellisia said, shaking her head. “How are we going to cool Zara down? I think she needs to be sprayed with the hose too, because she’s very red right now.”
“She can’t help thinking about Gino,” Pepper teased. “It’s a good thing Nonny went to bed or she’d be asking when you two are going to get married. She practically aimed a shotgun at Wyatt and told him he had to marry me.”
“Well, you did have three children together,” Cayenne pointed out. She hopped off the silk swing. “Come on, Bellisia, you’re strong. We can make a seat and carry her to the edge of the porch. You can spray her with the hose there.”
“You are not going to carry me,” Zara said decisively. “I can walk a couple of steps. I ran to the pier.”
“I saw Gino’s face afterward,” Cayenne said holding out her hands to Bellisia so they could form a seat with their arms. “You do it again and he’s going to put you right over his knee. Course, you’ll probably like it. I always do.”
“Oh. My. God,” Bellisia said, rolling her eyes. “You are insane. All three of you. I wouldn’t want Gino to smack you on the butt, Zara, so sit your ass down and let us carry you.”
Zara couldn’t help laughing. “I wish Shylah was here as well. She’d love this.”
“I’d like to see some man try to smack her on the butt. She’d have them on the ground with a knife to their throat in ten seconds.”
“She’d be too late,” Cayenne pointed out, while Zara circled her neck with her arm. “Ten seconds with these men is far too long.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Don’t knock it until you try it,” Cayenne said.
The two women carefully deposited Zara on the middle step. Bellisia grabbed the hose and began spraying her. The water was cold and it felt refreshing in the sultry heat of the night. She sank back on her elbows. “This is heaven. Keep spraying, Bellisa.”
Cayenne climbed back in her silken swing, and Pepper joined Zara on the middle stair so she could have the water running over her as well.
“Has Gino … you know,” Bellisia asked. “And not with spankings.”
Pepper burst out laughing. “You know? Is that how we say it? Has he touched you yet?”
“Yep,” Zara admitted.
“It was a lot more than touching,” Bellisia said.
“Details, woman,” Pepper coaxed.
“He kissed me. A lot. And it was hot. That’s a detail.” She wasn’t about to share anything else they’d done. It was hers. Gino was hers. “He did say I was his woman. That I belonged to him.”
Bellisia groaned and made a show of gagging. “You don’t belong to him. You aren’t his sex kitten.”
“I’m Trap’s sex kitten,” Cayenne said smugly.
Zara nearly fell off the stair laughing when Bellisia turned the hose on her. “I think your entire relationship is based on sex, Cayenne.”
“Isn’t everyone’s?”
“You are so full of it,” Bellisia said.
Pepper shook out her blouse and rebuttoned it to the pearl button just under her breasts. “She never says a word unless she’s talking about that man of hers.”
“What else is there to talk about?” Cayenne turned upside down and crawled down the long ribbon of silk. “You should see what I can do to him hanging like this.”
“I am going to learn the moment I have this baby,” Pepper decided. “I think your silks are the coolest thing in the world. And it’s beautiful to watch you. I can imagine how much Trap loves that when you entertain him.”
Cayenne flashed her a smile, did a slow somersault and planted her feet on the stair beside Zara. “Anyone want lemonade? Nonny made her fresh strawberry lemonade and it’s fabulous. I tried it when she was making it. Best yet.”
Immediately the other three nodded. Bellisia turned off the hose. “I’ll help you carry the glasses out.”
“I’m using the tall ones and filling them with ice,” Cayenne said.
The two women hurried into the house. Two minutes later, Pepper glanced back at the house when sounds came from the interior. “Is that the girls? They better not have gotten out of bed. I swear, Zara, they’re little escape artists. You know those dog crates? Why can’t we put our children in them when they go to bed? It’s the only way to ensure we get any time off at all.” She was up and running into the house, laughing as she went.
Zara leaned back on the stairs on her elbows again and looked up at the night sky. Somewhere, Gino was out there. She sent up a little prayer that he was all right. Something rustled in the dry leaves at the corner of the house. She turned her head and saw a man standing there. He was in the shadows of the house, but she could just make him out. He held a finger to his lips and motioned her to come to him.
She shook her head, sitting up straight, glancing back toward the door.
“Zara, you know me. I’ll kill every one of those women if you don’t do what I say. Get over here.”
She shook her head again. A darker shadow moved close to her, near the hose Bellisia hadn’t wound back up. The long rubber tubing lay on the ground right next to the house. She looked at the man standing so close to her. He was grinning, staring at her shirt, the one that was practically transparent. She made no move to cover up. The loop slid over his head, the strands of silk so delicate he didn’t feel them until they pulled tight.
Ezekiel came out of the shadows. “Seriously? What kind of soldiers watch a group of women spraying themselves with water in enemy territory and not figure out that they’re keeping eyes on them? I bet my wife twenty bucks it wouldn’t work and I lost.”
The first soldier had eyes on the second one as he dangled off the ground, kicking and swinging macabrely in the night. He looked around at the five GhostWalkers surrounding them and then back to Zara.
“You bitch. Whitney’s done with your disobedience. He wants you dead. Orders are to bring your head back to him. Sooner or later, someone’s going to get you.”
“Maybe,” Ezekiel said. “But it won’t be you. You were too busy looking at the show to figure out we spotted you the minute you entered our territory. It was only a matter of time before you got complacent enough to come look at the peep show.”
“Just do it.”
Ezekiel obliged, and killed him.