Page 80 of Killer Secrets (Tempting SEALs 5)

"This isn't their fight." There was something akin to pain in his voice. She wanted to see his face, wanted to read the emotions there, but as she tried to turn, he held her in place. "Look on the roof." His hand gripped her chin, turned her head until she was staring at the edge of the slanted tile roof. "See, right there where the balcony roof slants away from the side of the house? The shadows are darker there, but there's the vaguest hint of an even darker shadow. Can you make it out?"

It couldn't be a human form; the slight glint of the moonlight against the black was too dull, too slender.

"I see it."

"It's a special lens Macey has. Sort of like the telescope a sub would use. He's hiding around the corner there, that telescope trained on us, watching us. Macey gets off on watching." There was the barest hint of fondness, of laughter, in his voice.

"He's a pervert," she agreed, a grin tugging at her lips.

"That too." He nipped at her ear. "I'll have to kick his ass for letting you know he's a pervert."

Kira snorted. "All you have to do is say hello to that man and you can tell he's a pervert. He didn't say a word."

Ian chuckled. "He has no shame. No modesty. No humility."

"Sounds like the Macey I know." She kept her voice as soft as his, barely more than a breath.

"Reno and Clint will be in the house with Daniel. Kell is most likely skulking around the grounds, watching and waiting. Hell, that bastard could be hanging from the balcony and you wouldn't know it until it was too late. We didn't call him the Cajun Gator for nothing, you know."

"What are Reno and Clint doing?" she asked, desperate to hear that affection, that loyalty that she was certain he had no idea he was revealing.

"Reno is plotting." His arms tightened around her. "Macey is relaying our location, trying to home in with that special mic he has to hear what we're saying, but the jammer in the bedroom is interfering. I bet he's pissed over that. Reno's trying to figure out how to make contact without compromising the team, or me. Clint is going over the information they have, trying to anticipate my next move, figure out where to waylay me. He was at Coronado's earlier tonight, in disguise, watching for me. He's probably cussing me. Reno is brooding. Reno can be worrisome when he broods." Regret shimmered in his voice. "I've managed to avoid them. It won't be sitting well with them."

She stared at the villa, at the point where Macey was watching with the lens. "You're going to contact them, aren't you?"

He nipped her ear, drawing a soft exclamation from her.

"You know he reads lips, you little minx," he growled before his tongue laved over the little sting.

"Why keep them wondering?"

"Because they're sticking their noses where they don't belong." Anger thickened his voice now. "Reno's wife, Raven, just had her baby. The boy, Morgan, is no more than a few weeks old. Reno worked his ass off for a three-month leave so he could be there. So he could bond with the boy. Clint's newly married. Just a few months. He came back from his honeymoon early to head out here. Kell postponed his marriage to Emily, did you know that?"

She shook her head. She hadn't known they had set a date.

"I better get my invitation." She frowned. "She promised I could be a bridesmaid."

"If you live long enough?" His lips pressed against her neck for a long, agonized moment before he pulled away from her.

Kira turned and watched as he leaned a hip against the rail, his arms crossing over his chest as he glared down at her. He wasn't angry with her. Concerned. He was irritated and just as aware as she was that things would come to a head soon.

"I had Sorrell's missile boys killed this afternoon." He sighed wearily. "They're going after Ascarti before dawn."

Kira blew out a rough breath. "Ascarti was suspected to know his identity, though there's never been confirmation of it."

"I got my confirmation today. A man doesn't lie when he has a live wire hooked to his balls." His voice wasn't hard enough to hide the self-disgust in his tone. "I told Antoli to kill them after he was certain he had all the information he could get. A single shot between the eyes."

"Did you have any other choice?" He hadn't, but to hear the anger and the pain in his voice at his decision eased something inside her.

"There are always choices, Kira." He shook his head at the question. "It was the simplest way to show Sorrell I meant business. Anything else wouldn't have blipped his little radar."

"Then you couldn't do anything else." She shrugged. "They weren't men, Ian. They were monsters. They dealt in death daily, it just happened to have finally caught up with them."

"There is no guilt, don't fool yourself." He grunted, his expression tightening now. "Anger perhaps. A lot of it directed at myself. I've let this game go on too long. It's time to finish it."

"So you're going to do something that will bring Sorrell out of the woodwork. Ascarti isn't it. If he was, then someone would have tried it before. Think about this, Ian. I know you want to keep them out of it, but hold off taking Ascarti until you talk to the others. Work with them. If they didn't have something of value to add to this, they wouldn't be trying to contact you rather than just watching you. You know this as well as I do."

He blew out a rough breath. "Macey's tried to contact me through the secured sat phone for days."

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