Page 104 of Killer Secrets (Tempting SEALs 5)

"Your way or the highway then?" she asked him with a sharp breath. "Wow, Ian, took you a while, but you just reminded me why the hell I've always steered clear of SEALs for lovers. Your attitude sucks."

"If it took you this long to be reminded then you should be locked up for your own protection," he growled as he turned his back on her and paced the large sitting room before throwing himself on the thickly cushioned sofa and staring at her with blistering anger. "What do you think you can do, save him? Why? It's like trying to save a rabid animal."

He glowered up at her, his brows pulled low over his eyes, his expression a mask of offended male pride and anger.

She pushed her hands back into her jacket and sighed wearily. She couldn't tell him the truth and not because she had been ordered not to. He would lose the tenuous hold on the control that had gotten him this far and she knew it. He had lived within this dirty, corrupt world with only one goal in mind, working methodically toward it. Learning that it could be snatched from him would push him from that edge of being a loyal American agent, and possibly into rogue.

"I agree with you." And she did.

His jaw tightened. "Then what the hell are you doing hurting for that son of a bitch? For God's sake, Kira, don't try to deny it. I saw it in your face, in your eyes down there."

He pushed himself from the sofa and stalked to the balcony doors.

"Do you remember Nathan?" he asked her then. "Do you remember what you saw in that hospital?" He turned back to her, his body thrumming with fury. "I saw him when we took him out of that hellhole in California. Wasted to skin and bones, his eyes crazed, his mind nearly as destroyed as his body was. You didn't see that, I did."

"And he's your friend, so you have to avenge it," she said.

"I want to avenge it. But even more importantly I want to make certain it never fucking happens again. Don't stand in my way on this, don't try to convince me differently. It won't work."

She wanted to touch him, wanted to ease the tortured fury from his face, his eyes, but she knew better. Touching him would mean giving in, and she couldn't give in. Not just because of her orders, but because of Ian. He would never forgive himself. He would never be able to forget that he had been the one to kill his father, no matter the monster he was.

"Will killing him make the pain go away, Ian? Will it make the memories stop festering inside you? Or will it only make them worse?"

"I don't know," he snarled. "You answer that question first, Kira. Will seeing Sorrell die bring your parents back? Or Jason's lover and his child? What satisfaction will you gain from it?"

She didn't flinch. It hurt. Oh yeah, that hurt, because she knew Sorrell's death would afford her a measure of security. But she had made peace with the fact that she might fail years ago.

"Good strike," she said softly. "Sorrell's death will bring closure to the past, Ian. Not to my hatred. Nothing will ever change that. But he isn't my father either."

"Diego isn't my father. He was a sperm donor," he sneered.

"Your mother loved him once." She was broaching dangerous territory and she knew it. Territory that even Diego Fuentes refused to broach.

Ian almost flinched at the memory, his rugged face tightening once again at the mental slap. She didn't say it to hurt him, she said it to remind him. To make him think.

"She was young," he finally said. "She didn't know what he was."

"And once she learned she didn't hate you. You didn't pay for Diego's crimes," Kira pointed out. "I'm not excusing him, Ian, I don't even blame you. But is this something you really want to remember in the dead of night? The fact that you took his life?"

"I'll remember it with pleasure." His voice was strong, certain, but she saw the flicker in his gaze, the uncertainty. Unfortunately she knew that uncertainty wasn't strong enough to sway the course he had set for himself.

Men were stubborn, SEALs especially so. They had the supreme confidence that they were right, their decisions logical and without flaws. They were determined, arrogant, and essentially a pain in the ass to deal with. It was just her luck to fall in love with one.

She stared back at him, aching for him, and in some ways aching for Diego as well. They were both strong men, but Ian's strength was based on his honor, and Diego's was based within a world that his son could only see as evil.

"Did you drag me up here to argue over Diego?" Kira asked him when she couldn't come up with a single damned argument to save Diego's life. Not one. The man had built his entire life on watching others suffer, watching and using the suffering for his own ends.

"I dragged you up here to ask you exactly where your loyalties lie. Diego and Sorrell are going to die, Kira. If you have a problem with that, then you better speak up now. You don't want to stand in my way later."

Tension pulled at them both. Kira could feel it, she could almost see it pulsing in the air between them.

"My loyalty is with you, Ian," she told him simply. And it was true.

His gaze locked with hers, his intent, burning with an inner rage as his gaze probed hers, searching for a weakness, or a lie. She wasn't certain which at this point.

Finally, he nodded quickly. "I need to make contact with the team, make certain everything's ready to go."

Kira clenched her hands inside her pockets as she turned away from him and paced into the bedroom while he made his phone call. She needed a few moments to repair her control, to center herself and to grieve.

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