Arctic Fire Page 5

  K nodded a sad smile curling his mouth. “You know you sound more British than I do.” She looked at him quizzically not understanding his words. “Offering to get the kettle on is quintessentially English.” He quirked a brow at her and smiled a devastating smile that made her heart race and her body ignite. It just wasn’t fair that he was so fucking hot.

  “Hey, I do not,” she protested, feeling a smile tug at the corner of her mouth. It was so unfamiliar but felt so natural. Moving to the old kettle she filled it with water and placed it on the gas stove he had lit.

  “Why don’t you go get cleaned up and I’ll rustle up some food for everyone,” he said as he indicated the dry blood on her shirt. “Daniel should hopefully have some clean stuff and painkillers in his bag.” He turned to the cupboard, effectively dismissing her.

  This was good, she was glad he had given up, so why did it hurt so much?

  ~~~

  Roz had cleaned up as best she could in the small bathroom, before rinsing her top and squeezing out as much moisture as she could. That left her with the only option of drying the top by the fire while she used a towel to cover herself. Normally it wouldn’t bother her, but she was feeling exposed, on display and she didn’t like it.

  Her wound was clean and dry and not red around the edges anymore. It still hurt like a bitch when Daniel had re-stitched it earlier though, but that was her own fault for refusing the pain relief. She just hated the slow, muggy feeling it gave her. God knows if Usov came at them again they would need to be in top form.

  Pulling on her boots and her makeshift towel top she went to leave the small bedroom she was sharing with Mustique when the woman herself walked in. She was strikingly beautiful, her long chocolate brown hair and dark brown eyes in contrast to her caramel skin tone. She could have been a successful model if her family hadn’t disowned her, forcing her to use her wits and body to survive rather than thrive.

  It was hard to believe that in this day and age people could still discriminate about race and colour. But her family had. Throwing her to the wolves in a country like South Africa had been like a death sentence, with no money and face and body like she had, Mustique had grown up fast. When Roz met her, she was hours away from death. It was fate that they had met but it was sisterhood that made them family.

  “You okay?” Mustique asked as she sat on the tiny single bed. Roz nodded, not wanting to talk about her revenge mission with Mustique. She could read her too easily and would see through her bullshit, she was also one of the people ballsy enough to call her out.

  “Yeah, I’m fine. They’re making a fuss that’s all.”

  “Uh huh.”

  Here we go, Roz thought to herself.

  “So, what’s the score with you and Captain Handsome?” Mustique asked bluntly totally catching Roz off guard and making her snort with laughter.

  “Captain Handsome?” Roz asked as she stood and turned away, hiding her face as she went to the window.

  “Yeah Captain Handsome and the fact you can’t keep your eyes off each other. Or do you expect me to believe that he followed you out here for fun.”

  “Zin probably asked him, you know how he is.”

  “I do yes, and he wouldn’t ask someone else to watch his sister if he was worried. He would do it himself. Come on, Roz, don’t fuck around, there is so much chemistry between you two that it’s like a fucking science experiment when you’re in the same room.”

  Roz turned around and gave her friend a cold stare. “Nothing is going on and I don’t want to discuss this anymore.” Her tone could freeze the balls off an Eskimo, but Mustique was unaffected.

  She stood and walked to Roz, stopping a few feet in front of her. “Oh, my fucking God, it’s him, isn’t it?” She paced as Roz felt her heart beat faster.

  “I have no idea what you are talking about,” she lied.

  Mustique gave her a withering glare. “Oh, bitch please, lie to yourself if you want but you can’t bullshit me. He is the guy you fell in love with, the one you walked away from.” Roz regretted getting drunk on tequila and confessing her heartbreak to her closest friend. They had never talked about it again. Mustique had understood why she had walked away and had helped her get drunk and spill her guts, allowing her to move on the following day as if nothing had happened.

  “I mean it, Misty,” she hissed using her nickname. “Drop it. No good can come from opening old wounds.”

  Mustique reached out and cupped her shoulders, Roz flinched but tried not to show how frayed her nerves were. “This is not an old wound, Roz. This is alive and festering and hurting you both, can’t you see he loves you.”

  “I know he does,” she replied softly.

  “Do you still love him?”

  “I can’t afford too,” she said with finality before changing the subject. “Has Will got any more intel on the auction?”

  Thankfully Mustique allowed her to, that was the thing with her friend she knew when to stop pushing her. “Yes, that’s why I came up, they need you downstairs.”

  Grabbing her damp top, she followed Mustique downstairs, ignoring the crater in her gut or was it her heart.

  Chapter Eight

  Kanan watched Roz as she walked into the room, wearing a damp top that put her lush tits on display. Steeling himself for the pain and longing that came next. Jesus Christ, she was trying to kill him. He thought he couldn’t hurt more but her rejection had stung more than he could have imagined. He had been so sure that he could win her over. But he had laid it on the line, opened himself up and admitted things to her that he had never said to anyone before and still she held fast, locked behind her cold walls and now she was trying to kill him with blue balls. Just his fucking luck to fall for a ball buster.

  Her body had wanted him, he felt how she watched him, the way her body responded to him, just like it always had. He needed to step back now and give her what she said she wanted even if deep down it wasn’t what she needed. Maybe when this was over she would feel differently.

  He didn’t look her way again as Daniel sat at the head of tiny kitchen table with Will beside him.

  “We have a few details on the auction but as of yet, they are still quite sketchy. Will is reaching out to see if anyone can firm up the details on this. What we do know is that it will take place in three nights at the Denisovich home. It is invitation only and from what we can see the guest list looks like a who’s who of rich scum bags.” Daniel looked up to check everyone was following before continuing.

  “At twenty-one hundred hours the auction will start and that means we need to be out of there by then with the girls. If we lose them they will disappear, we won’t get a second chance and I for one am not going to stand by and let that bastard sell young women and girls for the sex trade,” he said vehemently.

  They all nodded, agreeing with him.

  “Now, we need to get two people inside, the easiest way to do that is to get them on the guest list which Will can do.”

  “I want in,” Roz said and Kanan had to set his jaw to keep from voicing his opinion on that. Luckily Daniel was already shaking his head.

  “No, he knows you. It would blow our cover immediately. I propose I go in with a date and Drew as my bodyguard.” He rolled his eyes at Drew who laughed and nudged Daniel.

  “I got your back old man,” he said.

  “I could take you before you had a chance to blink, want me to prove it?” Daniel asked with a smile that would cause Satan to shiver. Drew went silent and then it was K’s turn to smile. Damn kid had a lot to learn.

  “As I was saying, I go in as a rich gunrunner with a date and my deadly bodyguard.”

  “Who will you take?” Mustique asked.

  “I know you’ve had run-ins with the Denisovich family so that rules you out as well. The best plan is to bring Lucy in. She is unknown and good at what she does, which would mitigate the risks.”

  “Yes, she’s a good choice,” Roz said. The sound of her voice tickled over his skin m
aking it hurt with need.

  “Okay we’ll get that set up and we’ll need a backstory with a full cover that will hold up to a deep background check. Remember it needs to be someone Usov hasn’t met but has heard of but also won’t be there.”

  “No problem,” Will said as his fingers flew over the keyboard so fast Kanan thought he saw sparks fly.

  “Hey what’s your handle,” K asked, the question seeming important all of a sudden. He knew he was trying to distract himself from the woman opposite him.

  Will looked up and grinned as his fingers carried on moving. “I could tell you but then I’d have to kill you,” he smirked as he looked back at his screen. “Just know that I am the best there is,” he said it with not a whit of arrogance but the knowledge that it was pure fact, which Kanan knew to be true. K could feel Roz’ eyes boring into the side of his head as he waited for Daniel to wrap things up.

  “Right, while Will is sorting that, let’s look at the floor plans of Denisovich’s stronghold and decide who is going to go on the first recon mission.” Daniel laid the plans out on the table as everyone leaned in to see.

  K felt his dick twitch at the closeness of her scent, his hands itching to rip the towel away and devour her, not caring that her brother would shoot him, or she would break his neck. He was starting to think it might be worth it and cursed his adult decision to not take her up on her offer of meaningless sex earlier. Since when did he do the right thing anyway?

  Oh yeah, since a little boy started to look up to me and my sister gave me a reason to be a better man. Caring about people sucked donkey bollocks.

  “These are the three main points of entry,” Daniel began but Roz shook her head.

  “No, he has two other ways out from an underground tunnel here and here,” she said pointing to one on the east and a tunnel near the north side of the house. He felt his blood go cold. He knew those exits, he had carried her out of one when he’d rescued her. He looked at her quickly looking for any sign of trauma or upset. Her face was a mask, no emotion showed at all, at least not to those who didn’t know her, but he did. He knew every nuance of her face, had studied it in detail as she had slept in his arms on the island in his wooden beach hut.

  The way she gave an extra blink when she talked about the Denisovich bastard and the place of her captivity was a dead giveaway for him. He fought every instinct in him to go to her and wrap his arms around her, but he knew she would hate him for exposing her weakness, so he held on tight to the table and ground his teeth into stumps in an effort to control his compunction.

  “Roz, can you give us what you know?” Daniel asked as he leaned away giving her the floor.

  She nodded and leaned forward explaining all the points of entry, weaknesses, black areas, and hotspots for potential trouble. Everyone listened with rapt attention, all focused on the same goal, to get the kids out and kill the motherfucker.

  “Thank you,” Daniel said as he looked up at them. “Does anyone have any questions or issues they need to raise?” Everyone shook their heads, “Good, Boy Wonder and I will take the first recon while you lot get some rest,” he said as he slapped Drew on the back.

  “K, you got a minute?”

  Kanan nodded, “Sure.” He followed Daniel outside, walking a few feet from the house before stopping and turning to him.

  “Is she going to be okay for this?” Dan asked without preamble.

  Kanan frowned at his words wondering where this was coming from. Why ask him not Zin? “Why are you asking me? Ask her brother,” he said as he turned to leave.

  “I’m asking you because you saw her, it was you who brought her out of there nearly dead.”

  Kanan stopped dead at his words, his back going ridged. He spun on his heel and faced Daniel. “Who told you that?”

  Daniel walked to him and K held his ground. Nobody was meant to know that, if it ever got back to Roz it would finish any chance of them being together. Daniel tilted his head. “Don’t make the mistake of underestimating me K. I might look mild-mannered, but I’m the same as the rest of you. If I’m to do my job then I have to have the facts and know my team, so I made it my business to find out all I could.”

  “You got Will to pull my sealed records?”

  “I got Will to pull your sealed records.”

  “Is it okay to break his fingers?” K asked only half joking. He was beginning to think Will was the most dangerous person among them. It was always the fucking quiet ones you had to watch.

  Daniel grinned. “No, we can’t do that, we need him. But seriously will she be okay, PTSD is a serious possibility with this mission.”

  “Honestly, I don’t know. I brought her out, but she doesn’t know it was me, so it’s not like we ever discussed it. If she was going to tell anyone it would be Zin.”

  Daniel nodded thoughtfully. “Maybe, but I want you working with her and I want you beside her when we go in, you stick to Roz like glue. I’m concerned she will do whatever it takes to kill him, and while I agree he needs to die, I don’t think it’s an at any cost situation like she does.”

  “Again, I ask why me?”

  “Because she looks at you every time something goes to shit since we’ve been here. She trusts you and I trust you to keep her safe from herself.”

  The revelation that others were seeing something that he hadn’t shocked him. Was she really looking to him or was it because he was putting himself in her way all the time? Either way, he had no intention of letting her get killed so he would do as Daniel asked and when it was over he would walk away and spend six months in a drunken stupor getting over her…. Again.

  He watched as Daniel went back inside the small cottage. He didn’t want to go back in, even though he was dog tired, he knew he wouldn’t sleep. Thoughts of the mission and Roz kept flying through his brain. He walked to the edge of the property and sat down on the edge of an old well. The pump was rusty, but the stonework was sound. Looking at the stark beauty of the place he let his mind fly with the thoughts Daniel had provoked.

  Would she really take out Usov whatever the cost to herself? The terrifying conclusion he came to every time was yes. There was a strong over-protective streak in Roz, a mothering instinct that not even she saw. If she loved you, she would literally step in front of a bullet for you. The thought caused a shudder to go through him.

  He would just have to make sure that didn’t happen, he couldn’t curb the wildness in her or the over-protective streak but if it came to it, he could be the one to put himself in the firing line. A world without her was not worth thinking about, she had a family who loved her, a team who adored her.

  He had nothing. Yes, he had Celeste and he loved her, but she had Zin now. Zack had Ava, but he had nothing and nobody to rely on him. He wasn't an overdramatic prick or a martyr, but the job they did sometimes involved sacrifice and he was okay with it being him. He wasn’t suicidal or anything like that, he was a realist. Yes, living was his preferred choice, but he’d made peace with death a long time ago.

  Chapter Nine

  “What the fuck is she doing here?” Daniel yelled as Drew and Kanan walked through the door two days later with a very sheepish Megan behind them.

  Drew shrugged his shoulders. “Don’t ask me, I just collected her,” he said as she headed to the kitchen.

  Daniel glared holes in Megan, as he felt his blood begin to boil.

  “Daniel, I….” The words died on her lips as he angrily dismissed her and turned his ire on Kanan.

  “Where’s Lucy?” He could feel her at his side, her sweet scent invading his mind, curling around him, making him feel things he had no right to feel. He was being a prick and he knew it. He spent half the time being a complete asshole and the other half seeking her out with bullshit excuses just so that he could be close to her. He hated the fact she made him feel again. After losing Claire he had shut down his emotions, not knowing how to deal with all the mixed feelings about her, her death, and their marriage.

  Me
eting Megan changed everything, opened every wound he had until he had become a walking, festering sore, bottling it up until he thought he would burst. He had no right to feel like he did, it was disloyal to his dead wife and his best friend. They all thought they knew him, Daniel the grieving widower, the trained operative, wonderful father, but they were wrong. He was a fraud.

  He focused on Kanan, who to be honest didn’t look any happier about it than he did.

  “Don’t know, we showed up to the rendezvous and she was there,” he said cocking a thumb at the woman beside him, who was currently chewing her thumbnail down to the bone.

  The air practically crackled with electricity as he looked at Megan, her lush mouth just begging him to kiss her while her big, innocent eyes expressed every emotion that crossed her face.

  “Fine,” he said and grasping Megan by her bicep, pulled her roughly from the room. She let out a slight gasp that made his dick twitch as he walked her outside. Releasing her he rounded on her, almost groaning when she bumped up against him.

  “What the fuck are you doing here?” he spat between clenched teeth. She stepped back slightly, as fear and something else flashed in her eyes. Yes, you should fear me, he thought as he stepped closer.

  Her pink tongue came out to swipe across her bottom lip and he almost groaned allowed.

  “I, um. Well,” she started as she wrung her hands with nerves.

  “I, um. Well. That’s not exactly an answer, Princess,” he mocked. Heat flared on her cheekbones and her hazel eyes flashed with fire. Finally, some fire from her. He wanted to provoke her more, so he could watch the fire in her eyes again.

  “Lucy isn’t feeling well, and I heard Zack talking on the phone and wanted to help. Everyone has been so kind to me and I wanted to do something to help.”

  “How?”

  “I booked a first-class ticket and made a note of the rendezvous, then I stole my sister’s phone and replied as if I was Lucy. I told Lucy I would tell Zack she couldn’t go.”

  He took several breaths as he tried to make sense of the shit coming out of her mouth. “Well aren’t you the devious little liar,” he said hatefully, knowing that he was being a total dick.