Page 31 of Undefeated Love
Katlin squeezed the grip on her Smith & Wesson Shield, letting the hashmarks in the grip dig into her palm. She needed to know that this was real. Jack was truly delusional.
She hesitated. Should she tell him the truth that no way in hell was she ever going to marry him or allow him to impregnate her with eggs he’d fertilized? Or should she continue to play along?
“Fuck!” Tori’s single word put Katlin on edge. “Guardian Elite just slithered through the same gate we entered. They’re dividing up. Four men are moving toward the clinic. Alex and Griffin are headed to the house.”
Alex was there. She ignored that fact and concentrated on Jack. It didn’t matter why he was there. All that mattered was the target was fifteen feet in front of her.
“Darn Griffin. I’ll bet he followed me here. Katlin, I’m sorry.” Grace sounded truly upset.
“Don’t move,” Katlin ordered her team, but Jack obviously thought she was talking to him.
“Understood,” came the reply from each team member.
“Alex is in the house.” Nita chuckled. “Don’t kill him.”
Katlin knew the minute Alex stepped into the house. Her body recognized his close proximity and yearned for his touch. She felt his presence somewhere behind her. He hadn’t made a sound, but she knew exactly where he was. She’d always had that connection with him. He could walk into a crowded room, and she could find him in seconds. Their bodies were so in tune with each other.
Jack raised his hands palm up as though pleading with her. “Katlin, everything I’ve done, I’ve done for you. Because I love you. That’s why I had to kill my parents. They didn’t want us together.”
“Holy fuck.” Lei Lu voiced what everyone else thought.
“What did you do, Jack?” Katlin wasn’t sure she wanted to know the answer.
“I was done with Homeland Security. After you almost got killed on that last mission, I couldn’t do it anymore.” His hands dropped to his sides. “I couldn’t continue to send you into danger. I love you too much. The traumatic brain injury was bad enough.” Jack rolled his lips between his teeth as though to hold in the emotion. “Maybe next time you wouldn’t come back…alive.” Tears rolled down the face of the man who for years had commanded black ops all over the world without emotion.
“Tell me, Jack. What did you do?” Katlin knew she was pushing him but was aware that the entire conversation was being audio and video recorded. Someone back at Homeland Security operations center was watching the live feed.
“I went to see my parents and to tell them that I was quitting, but they’d both gone to bed. Father got furious and insisted that I man up. He had plans for me to be the Secretary of Homeland Security someday. He would have made that happen, too.” Jack sniffed. “That’s not what I wanted and for once I told him that. He treated me like a child and told me that I would do exactly what he said. I was so furious. I was done with his mandates. I was done with him.”
Jack inhaled a deep breath and squared his shoulders. “I pulled out my service pistol and shot him. Right there. As he sat propped up in his bed with pillows, arranged like a throne.” He smirked. “And then the king was dead.”
His explanation fit the description in the police report.
“And your mother?” Katlin coaxed.
Smiling, he continued his story. “I went to the other wing of the house and told Mother that I was quitting and going to marry you. I shared with her that we already had babies, fertilized and ready to impregnate…” Jack gave her a loving smile. “You.” He then shrugged. “And if you weren’t available—which you weren’t, and I ended up looking all over the world for a proper surrogate—” He paused as though lost in his story. Suddenly he brightened. “Oh, yes. I was talking with Mother. I told her I hoped to give her a grandchild within a year.”
Jack rolled his eyes. “She went fucking ballistic. She informed me that she’d picked out several prospective wives and I would marry one of those women.”
Katlin watched as Jack balled his fists. His carotid artery started to rapidly jump. He was becoming more and more aggravated as he continued with his confession.
“She told me that I could keep you as one of my mistresses, the same way my father kept several women on the side. I told her I couldn’t do that to you, or to me. But most of all, I couldn’t do that to our children. She said if I used those eggs to impregnate anyone except the wife she chose for me, I would be disinherited. I’d already killed my father. I sent her to hell to join him.” He shrugged. “The rest was Staging the Scene 101.”
Out of the corner of her eye, Katlin saw Alex move into the shadows of the living room.
At the click of fingernails on the tile floor, Jack looked down to where Nikkole stirred. In the blink of an eye, Jack swooped down, picked up Nikkole, and held a gun to her temple.
Katlin immediately pulled her gun and aimed it at Jack’s head. “Put the gun down, Jack. You don’t want to kill Nikkole.”
“You’re here. I have no more use for this weak woman. She means nothing more to me than a human blowup doll. Someplace to stick my dick as I closed my eyes and pretended it was you.” He jerked her around into a better hold. “Besides, if you don’t want to carry our babies, that’s perfectly fine with me. We have found the perfect match, and she’s successfully already had one child.”
Katlin didn’t want to do this, but perhaps in Nikkole’s injured state, she couldn’t fight back. “Jack, put down Nikkole and I’ll come to you.” That’s all the promise she was going to make to this insane man.
“Put down your gun. On the floor. And walk to me,” Jack ordered.
Katlin was carrying several other guns so setting one on the floor was no big deal. While she was down there, she’d take the one out of her ankle holster. Katlin knelt and shoved her gun to the side. While doing so, she saw Alex had a clean shot once he dropped Nikkole.
If her shot didn’t kill Jack, she knew Alex’s would.
