Page 118 of Killer Secrets (Tempting SEALs 5)

"No." She shook her head. "It was never about Diego. I came here because of you. I used Diego as the excuse."

He lea

ned forward and kissed her lips. "Thank you for that, Kira. But this isn't about DHS or what they want. This is about letting a monster roam free because politicians and paper pushers believe the information he gives is more important. The needs of the many outweigh the pain of the few. I can't see it that way. I won't see it that way."

"He's still your father," she whispered. "No one would blame you for walking away."

He inhaled deeply, staring over her shoulder for long seconds before his gaze came back to hers. The sadness, the somber acceptance of responsibility, darkened the fire in his eyes and dug creases of pain into his face.

"Because he is my father, the blame would be more mine than DHS's," he told her. "He's my responsibility, because I'm here, in place, with the means and the chance."

"DHS won't let you forget it."

"I have their agreement signed, sealed, and protected. It releases to the major newspapers across the world the minute Sorrell's death is announced. I'm not stupid. I know how that game works too. Now let's go. We'll argue over it later. Later."

He said it as though he had said it to himself often. Later. Now was the time to face Sorrell, to face the decisions he had made over the course of years. Kira only prayed that both of them could live with those choices.

* * *

Thirty

KIRA STOOD CONFIDENTLY, AMUSEMENT GLITTERING deliberately in her eyes, when the limousine entered the gates of the Fuentes estate and pulled up to the sheltered entrance to the house.

She stood at the bottom of the steps, but didn't deign to open the door to the luxury vehicle. The chauffeur moved from the front, irritation lining his face as he glanced at her.

She gave him a jaunty smile and stepped back as he swung the door open.

Sorrell and his associate, she presumed. They stepped from the vehicle, exuding arrogance and superiority despite the black masks that covered their faces.

"Kira Porter." A flash of a smile, familiar and faintly disarming, touched his mouth.

She arched a brow and glanced at his companion, instantly knowing who Sorrell was, and it wasn't the charming, smiling masked man facing her.

She turned back to the charmer though. "Sorrell?" She peered at him as though uncertain, unknowing.

His smile was condescending. "You will take us to Mr. Fuentes, I presume?" His hand wrapped around her arm, the thin leather gloves doing nothing to disguise the strength in the grip.

"You presume right." She flipped him another smile. "We'll just go through the door here."

The doors were open wide, showing the deserted foyer that awaited inside. "Ian's waiting in the study, as well as his father and your daughter. She's a beautiful young woman. A shame she was raised without her father."

A blessing was more like it.

The fingers tightened on her arm.

"Let's not bruise the skin." She tapped at his wrist with her opposite hand. "Ian gets upset when I get bruised. Mars the skin. He's funny about that."

As was Sorrell. Rumor was that he would kill if merchandise was bruised or in any way broken. He liked giving pain himself, and he knew how to do it without leaving a mark. She restrained her shiver and moved into the house, very aware of the hand holding on to her.

The grip was strong—the bodyguard, she presumed—and he was heavily armed. Beneath the long jacket he wore was a harnessed automatic weapon, most likely Uzi-type. A backup at his ankle and she was betting on another at his back.

The broader, stouter figure who walked on the other side of her wasn't as heavily armed. He was dressed casually in dark slacks and jacket. A weapon at his back would be expected, most likely another handgun harnessed beneath his arm from what she had glimpsed of his jacket.

To come here unarmed would have been idiocy. But it made the upcoming meeting and the plans that were in place harder to execute. She wasn't armed. Ian would be. Teyha and Antoli would be.

Not for the first time, Kira wondered at the plan they had in place. In theory, she agreed with Ian. If they arrested Sorrell, he would soon escape, one way or the other. The only thing they would gain would be his identity and his wrath, and Nathan Malone would never be same. On the other side of the coin, the imminent bloodshed raked at her conscience.

They were monsters. They were evil. They were killers of the worst sort. But how did that make her, Ian, and Durango team any better?

---