Page 78 of Killer Secrets (Tempting SEALs 5)

Because he had no choice. Because it was his life or the lives of those who had become his friends, his family. He was one man, alone. They were men with families, with lovers, with something to lose.

"That was the deal, remember?" he reminded Diego mockingly, hiding the fury now. Because now, he did have something to lose. "I save your cartel from Sorrell and you give me what I need to save my friends and take out the spy plaguing us. A simple exchange."

"With no emotion involved?"

"Goddammit, I took your fucking name." Ian came out of his chair in a surge of fury. "What the hell do you want from me, Diego?"

"I want you to call me father!" He was out of his seat as well, his own anger unleashed, twisting his expression into a grimace of emotional rage. "I want to know that when Sorrell dies, I will not then have to worry about your knife at my own throat. That I will not have to die by the hand of my son."

"As your brothers died by your hand?" Ian snarled. "Is that it, Father? Want to make sure the past doesn't bite your balls off? Son of a bitch!" Ian raked his fingers through his hair before swinging away from the other man.

Diego had paled at the word "father." Hope had sprung in his eyes like a kid at Christmas, sending an emotional blade ripping through Ian's soul.

He would not feel mercy for this bastard. He would not regret. He would not let himself ache for things that could never be.

"You . . ." Diego cleared his throat as he paused. "You rarely care or allow my opinion to matter."

Ian flexed his shoulders, careful to keep his back to the other man.

"It doesn't matter now." He felt like grinding his teeth in fury before he turned back to Diego. And saw, once again, the familiar features that he saw in the mirror each morning.

The hair and eye color were different. Ian was slightly taller, but the shape of the face, the curve of the lips, the arch of the brow, they were the same. He took many of his looks after his sire, and other things as well. Things he didn't want to admit to, didn't want to face.

Diego's smile was slightly less bitter, perhaps more hopeful, and Ian hated that. He hated that he would feel that twinge of regret even more.

"What the hell did you come in here for?" Ian snapped. "I have work to do and meetings this evening. I don't have time for bullshit."

Diego nodded. "Yes, you are busy building the cartel, its people and its product, as well as protecting it. I am here to tell you that the matter of your micromanagement is not suiting me. You will turn over the new routes to me in the morning and you will begin coordinating with me once again. You are a force to be reckoned with, and I admit this, but I am not so old nor so ineffective that I will allow myself to be pushed out. And there is the small matter of how this will end once Sorrell has been identified. Should you walk away, you will not leave me ignorant of my own world."

Ian nodded easily. "Agreed."

Diego would be as dead as Sorrell when this was over, s

o what would it matter?

Surprise flickered in the other man's black eyes, surprise, hope, and God help him, a father's love. Ian hated the fucking emotion more than anything else. Son of a bitch. He didn't want this. He didn't want to feel. He didn't want to regret and God only knew that he didn't want to risk more than he had come in risking to begin with.

"We will meet in the morning then." Diego nodded briskly before heading for the door. "Will you and your lovely Miss Porter be taking dinner with me before you leave this evening?" He turned as he gripped the doorknob and faced Ian once again. "I have had the pleasure of speaking to her again this afternoon by the pool. She is an intelligent, beautiful young woman. Not exactly the type of female you have surrounded yourself with on other occasions."

Ian stared back at him silently. He would no more discuss Kira with this man than he would discuss his mother.

Diego nodded easily, apparently accepting his silence. "I would enjoy your company this evening if you have time," he finally said. "We need time to know one another, Ian. Time to let the past heal."

He didn't wait for a response. He opened the door and let himself out before closing it behind him softly, leaving Ian alone.

He turned and faced the wall, his hands propped on his hips as he inhaled slowly, deeply. He didn't have time for this. Sorrell would be moving in soon, as soon as Antoli managed to capture Ascarti from the heavily secured yacht still anchored off Aruba's coast. Even if they couldn't take him, Sorrell would know his identity was threatened more than ever; he would come to Ian.

Nearly a year of waiting, watching, and it was almost over. He would make certain it was over.

Turning back to the desk, he pulled up the file that contained the pictures they had been taking of the yacht that week. Ascarti was there, as well as over two dozen unidentified suspects. Deke was working through the identifications upstairs while Antoli and Trevor worked on shooting more pictures and uploading them to Ian.

Progress could be counted in phases, Ian reminded himself. This was just a phase of it. Securing his position here, within Diego's life, within the cartel and its members. When it was over, the cartel would fall like a house of flimsy cards. It would be gone. Washed away like so much dust in the face of a good cleaning. This was just another phase leading to the end, and the emotion, the surging regret for what would never be, would be over once the mission was over. Idealism was a fool's game here. There was nothing ideal in the world he was fighting within, there was only the end result.

There was only success.

At least, that's what he told himself. What he tried to convince himself of. The mission mattered. Success mattered. Revenge mattered, and nothing else.

So why the hell did his heart feel like a ragged wound and why did he remember so clearly that bleak night that Nathan and his father had rescued him? Why did he remember screaming for a father that didn't exist?

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