just insulted not only my honor but that of my friends, as well. Right now Rafferty is risking major trouble with the Coalition. Joss is doing her best to take care of two little girls who have to be scared out of their wits. Ambrose should be coming after me for helping you escape. Instead, he’s right there beside Rafferty trying to get to the bottom of this mess.”
He paused to catch his breath. “They’re all doing everything they can to help simply because they know you’re important to me. That’s what friends do, so drop the martyr act and get your head back into the game.”
Her own temper flared. “Martyr act? You think I want to do this on my own? I love that your friends are willing to help me even though they hate that I’m back in your life. And love—”
She brought herself up short. That was the last place she needed to go right now. Instead, she crossed her arms over her chest and met Conlan glare for glare.
“Right now I’m scared to set foot outside of this room. But the only way I’m ever going to find any peace in my life is to retrieve that flash drive and see if I can use it to leverage an end to all of this. If that makes me a martyr, so be it.”
She wanted to stamp her foot like Maggie did whenever she was out-of-control tired. As an afterthought, Kat added, “And I’m hungry, not to mention I had to waste my coffee on that jerk.”
Conlan started laughing, the last thing she expected.
“What about any of this is funny?”
He crossed the room to stand right in front of her, his mouth still quirked up in a smile as he leaned down to brush his lips across hers. “Not a damn thing, Kat. I have no idea how any of this is going to play out, but at least I can feed you. It’s a start.”
Yeah, it was.
“I still think you should go home.” As she spoke, she raised up on her toes to brush her lips across his. “But I’m glad you’re not going to.”
He kissed her back. “Me, too. Now let’s get going while we can.”
She followed him out to the transport, feeling better about their situation. That lasted until Conlan handed her his gun and said, “Keep that handy for me, but pray we don’t need it.”
Chapter 14
Out on the street, Conlan leapfrogged up the line of traffic, quickly passing four vehicles one at a time, ignoring the chorus of squealing tires and honking horns as he did so. Instead, he kept a wary eye on the surrounding transports, trying to see if anyone was duplicating his maneuvers or consistently making the same turns that he did, even if they did so at a distance.
So far, he hadn’t been able to pick out anyone tailing them, but that didn’t mean much. Those bastards who’d made the aborted attempt to capture Kat hadn’t gone far. Mercs didn’t stay in business long if they failed in their assignments. The only way they would’ve quit was if whoever was funding them had called them off.
Even then, they might be tempted to continue. He had thwarted their efforts in the valley and again at the gate to Rafferty’s estate. If that hadn’t been bad enough, his men had shot out their tires. Hiking their asses out to call for assistance had to have stung their tough-guy egos.
Add in Kat’s success in eluding them that morning, and they had to be really pissed off about the whole mess. They might take another run at capturing Kat, especially if they were looking for a little payback. If their mysterious employer was to let it slip how badly they’d screwed up, the lot of them would be out of work. Of course, if it were up to Conlan, they’d not only be unemployed, they’d be incarcerated—or dead.
Either worked for him.
But he’d let the whole bunch go in exchange for the name of their boss. Once he and Kat had a chance to refuel with some coffee and a hot meal, he planned to set a trap to see if he could get his hands on one of the mercs. He was under no illusions that it would be easy to make one of them roll over on his buddies or whoever was funding their team.
However, he’d leave the prisoner trussed up somewhere for Ambrose to pick up. Between the chancellor and