There was a long pause.
“What do you mean by that?” Killian’s voice hardened.
“Exactly what I said. How long before you would have tried to send her on a mission that she couldn’t have returned from?”
The short laugh that came across the line was cold and bitter. “You think I would have actually made her operational?” Killian asked with a sneer in his voice. “When did you start taking me for a fool, Jordan? She would have sat on her ass in her suite and kept it there. I have no use for her on any of my missions or in my unit. I can think of much kinder ways to commit suicide here. You’re so fucking irrational where she’s concerned that you would have killed me if she’d gotten even a scratch. God forbid anything more serious had happened.”
A lifetime of friendship had just been shot to hell, Jordan thought. In all the years they had been friends Jordan had never asked him for a favor, just as he had never denied Killian any help he needed.
Killian had destroyed those years in a single, thoughtless act. He had refused Tehya the protection Jordan had once extended to Killian’s wife without so much as a request from the other man. They were friends; and that had made Catherine’s life just as valuable to Jordan as Killian’s had been.
Catherine had died anyway. Shot down by Sorrel. He had killed not just Killian’s wife, but also their unborn son. A child Killian hadn’t known she was carrying until the autopsy. And now, Killian thought he could make Tehya pay for her father’s sins, despite her innocence and the hell she had lived through because of her father as well?
“Then it’s a damned good thing I didn’t send you one of the best communications and logistics agents that I’ve ever worked with, isn’t it?” Jordan said. “I’ll contact Elite Command for any help I may need from here on out. I won’t bother you again.”
“Dammit, Jordan, what the fuck are you talking about?” Surprise filled Killian’s voice now. “I’ve always had your back. That hasn’t changed.”
“Yes, Killian, it has. It changed when you endangered her life because of your own grief and inability to see past who fathered her to the agent she’s become. If that’s what you call having my back, then I think I’d prefer to have Sorrel alive and watching it. At least I knew what to expect from him.”
There was nothing but silence on the other end. Jordan waited, wondering if the other man would even attempt to present a decent defense. Not that Jordan could think of one, but sometimes the truth had a way of knocking a man on his ass.
“You’re making a mistake, Jordan,” was all Killian had left to say.
“God forbid I should see you again in this lifetime,” Jordan stated icily, “because you may not survive it.”
He disconnected the call before Killian could say any more. The rage building inside him didn’t leave room for regret over a lost friendship. A friendship that had spanned almost a lifetime, he thought as he contacted one of the only men he knew who could cover him at this point.
“We’re on our way to Maryland,” John Vincent, a.k.a. Heat Seeker said as soon as he picked up. “Bailey refused to wait for your call. She’s been too damned worried.”
Bailey Serborne, the heiress John had married, had taken a liking to Tehya during an operation Tehya had worked on with her and two other Elite Ops agents. It had been one of the few operations Tehya had worked off base, and Jordan remembered the nights he had paced the floor worrying while she had been in the field without him.
“Have you contacted Travis?” John asked. “He and Lilly have been just as concerned. They should have landed at JFK earlier and will be waiting for your call.”
His men were coming together without being called into operation because Tehya was one of their own. Because they trusted her.
“Call him.” Jordan ordered. “The situation here has changed. Too many watching eyes. Tehya’s refusing to hide.”
“And you really thought she would agree to it?” John questioned in amusement. “Even I doubted your ability to pull that one off Jordan.” And here John had taken to calling him the “Miracle Worker” in the past few years.
“If Rawhide makes contact, he’s to be considered unsecure,” Jordan told him coolly. “Relay the message to Travis and Lilly.”
There was a moment’s silence.
“That doesn’t surprise me.” John finally sighed. “Killian can’t let Sorrel go, and our girl is all that’s left of him. She’s all Killian has to punish, if that’s his frame of mind.”
Both John and Travis had warned him, Jordan thought. When they learned Killian was heading the new Elite Operations unit out of Texas, John had said he hoped that Tehya would never need a haven at the base, as they had all been offered. If she did, John had been certain the doors would be closed to her. Jordan had hoped he was wrong.
“I’ll fill you in when we meet,” Jordan promised. “Until then, I’m with her, but I don’t think she can be convinced to hide.”
A moment of silence filled the line before John spoke again, his voice heavy with regret. “After running her whole life, it would get damned old, don’t you think?”
Jordan could only shake his head. “Contact me when you meet up with Travis and Lilly. Security is well
in hand here for the moment. It should hold until we come up with a workable plan.”
Until he could figure out where to stash Tehya and how to convince her to go along with it.
Hell, she was going to turn her protection into a battle, he could see it now.