of control he possessed to keep from picking her up and lifting her back to the bar where he could love her in a way that would have her screaming when she came around him.
He contented himself with the knowledge that she had a bar at her own home, and he knew well exactly how to use it. He would have his chance once this was finished, and that was all that mattered.
Pulling away from her, he cupped her cheek for a moment, his lips quirking at the worry, the concern in her expression and the fear in her pretty green eyes.
“Smile for me, love.” He gave his voice the faintest hint of the Irish that he’d picked up from his father.
Her lips twitched at the sound of it.
“I’ll stop worrying if you promise to talk Irish to me the next time you make love to me,” she offered.
They both knew she was lying, but hell, whatever it took to get her back in the bed.
“That’s a deal.” A quick kiss to her lips, just one more taste before he had to leave her and return to the dark shadows that awaited him.
A kiss into which he swore she fed all the love she believed she felt.
If the illusion was preserved, pampered, and taken care of, did it matter if it was an illusion, Jordan asked himself again as he slipped from the study and made his way to the basement, where Noah, Micah, and Nik awaited him.
With them was one of the two-man teams, his youngest nephew, Rory Malone, and a former Army Ranger with whom Jordan had worked in a few past operations overseas, Turk Gillespie.
“Commander.” Turk nodded as Jordan stepped into the wine cellar at the back of the basement and closed the door behind him.
Low lighting and racks of wine stacked throughout the room gave it a shadowed atmosphere. At the very back, the door leading to an old tunnel and a hidden exit was open.
“Status?” He started with Turk and Rory.
“Casey and Iron are watching Ms. Talamosi,” Turk answered. “The chip you placed in the belly ring she wears is working perfectly. Everything’s in place if anyone makes a move on her.”
“Ascarti’s warehouse was hit and the weapons confiscated,” Noah informed him. “Ascarti wasn’t there, but we managed to get a jig on one of his bodyguards at a bar last night when he used his credit card to pay for drinks. He’s currently sleeping off a hangover in a motel, so we haven’t managed to follow him to Ascarti yet.”
“I want Ascarti taken out at the earliest opportunity,” Jordan informed him as he forced back the fury that rose each time he thought of the bastard still living.
“We already guessed that.” Noah nodded.
“One of the mercenaries working with Ascarti, Mark Tenneyson, has made several drive-bys along the street in front of here,” Rory reported. “We’ve tried to track him, but we keep losing him. So far, we’ve not seen anything or anyone to indicate someone else is pulling the strings.”
“I agree with Jordan, though,” Nik stated. “This setup with Ascarti is just a little too damned handy. Something isn’t ringing right with it.”
“John and Bailey, Travis and Lilly will be covering Tehya at the party,” Jordan mused. “I have the tracker on her and we have every access to her I can come up with, covered. They’ll move tonight, before they believe John and Travis can get a plan in place to have her covered. This is their best bet, there’s no way they’ll find a better opportunity to grab her, especially with the information both John and Travis have put out there.”
Jordan prayed it would be enough. From the moment they had set this up, they’d pushed every contact they had and placed pressure at each pulse they could find leading out from the men they’d identified as a threat.
This party was the only chance they would see in the near future of grabbing her. Word going out was that a team would arrive in the morning to whisk her to an undisclosed location, where her identity would be so completely altered that there would be no finding her.
Whoever was tracking her, whether it was Ascarti or others, wouldn’t want to risk being unable to find her, or identify her again.
“Our contact in Afghanistan also reported finally.” Noah leaned against the wall, his dark face covered with a closely cropped beard to hide the scars he carried, frowned pensively as he crossed his