point behind killing Jordan?” Noah asked softly, the quiet tone more indicative of the danger raging inside him than the icy control the other men displayed.
“He protects me,” she said painfully. “That was Sorrel’s favorite game. To kill whoever stood between him and his goal of acquiring me. Right down to my mother.” She turned and watched Jordan, aching, filled with such regret that she could feel her stomach turning with the thought of the blood that had been shed when she was younger. “I killed Sorrel. How is he still haunting me?”
She remembered killing him as well as his son. She remembered seeing Raven and Sorrel’s lifeless eyes gazing back at her. Blood had soaked their chests from the bullets they’d taken to the heart. She remembered it all, yet, it was as though they still lived.
Pushing her fingers through her hair, she turned away from the others as they gazed back at her silently, somberly. She feared pityingly. She didn’t want their pity and she had been cruel to accept their help.
They had lives, families. They had children, friends.
She only had them until she had moved to Hagerstown. And even now, she hadn’t truly made friends. No one would miss her, save those who stood in the room with her now. And they would go on. They would remember her fondly. They would regret her death. But no one cared enough to truly grieve.
Perhaps not even the man sleeping with her. The man she had given her heart to.
She couldn’t look at him. She couldn’t face the danger she had brought to his life. And she had been too weak to run, too weak to remember the lessons she had been taught in the past.
Never make friends, because they died.
Never love anyone, because they were murdered.
Never, ever, dream of a life that could include a measure of security or of peace.
“Tehya.” Suddenly, his arms were surrounding her, turning her, pulling her against the muscular strength of his chest.
He was warm, strong. He held her as though he could protect her against anything, anyone that would strike against her. He held her as though he were bulletproof, and she knew no man could make that claim.
“I wanted it to be over,” she whispered as her fingers curled into the loose material of his shirt. “I just wanted it to go away, Jordan. It should have died with Sorrel.”
“And it will,” he promised her, his lips against her ear. “I promise you, this time, we’re going to bury it for good.”
She turned slowly.
She should have run, she should have protected him when she had the chance.
* * *
He was going to kill.
It was all Jordan could do to keep from stalking into the other suite and murdering the two men where they sat.
“You expected this,” Noah stated quietly, accusingly, as he stared back at Jordan from the other side of the table.
“I would have been stupid not to.” Jordan shrugged as Tehya finished bandaging his side more than an hour later, after Micah had been found to stitch it. “They just moved faster than I expected.”
“I would have expected another attack to come outside the protected area,” Micah inserted as he sat back in his chair. “It came too soon.”
Jordan shook his head in denial. “The first attack was an attempt to take Teyha. Whoever’s pulling the strings here wasn’t aware she had friends willing to protect her.” He glanced at John Vincent and Travis Caine. “Tonight’s attack was the taking of an opportunity.” He glanced at Teyha. “They thought they had the advantage so they took it.”
He sat back, aware of the others watching him thoughtfully as he hid a mocking smile. There was a reason he was a commander in the Elite Ops unit. There was a reason he had been given more freedom than any other commander in the private covert operations organization.
Because he knew how to cover his ass, and he knew exactly how to push to achieve a reaction.
“We know whoever’s been searching for her has a personal stake in it,” he began.
“And how do we know this?” Nik was the one that leaned forward to question the observation. “I’ve gone over the past reports filed on her mother and the deaths of the men attempting to protect them, as well as the months Teyha was in France and the attempt against her there. I would say it’s more likely one of Sorrel’s partners attempting to punish her for killing Sorrel.”