"My wife is pregnant," Wyatt said. "I'd appreciate it if you'd allow the bar owner to take her inside while we work this out. I don't want her to have a miscarriage. She's very sensitive."
Pepper shook her head and tightened her hold on his arm.
"Can't do that for you, man," the leader said. "All the more reason for you to cooperate."
"Pepper," Wyatt said. "I want you to get behind me. Close your eyes, baby, and keep them closed until this is done. You're pregnant, and I don't want you getting a brain bleed with all the violence surrounding you. Delmar, would you mind making certain my wife stays put? Just stay close to her." Wyatt pointed to a spot right behind him and waited until Pepper reluctantly did as he said, Delmar moving with her.
Zara caught movement as Cayenne stealthily made her way up onto the roof and disappeared into the darkness. Bellisia had inched her way closer to the embankment. She was above the canal and with one turn and a dive, she would be in the water and gone. The mercenaries would never be able to find her, or if they did, they wouldn't live through it.
She counted five at the bar and three on either side of the canal. It occurred to her Malichai was unaccounted for as well. She reached for Nonny's hand and the older woman took hers immediately and pulled her close, wrapping her arm around her.
"Stay very still, Nonny," she whispered. "They're up to something."
The words had barely left her mouth when something screamed. It was a male voice, the sound haunting, in agony, filling the swamp, quieting the drone of insects and croaking of frogs. Stillness settled over the swamp as, shocked, everyone turned toward the sound. It had come from the right side, where three of the mercenaries had been, covering them all from the distance with their weapons. Now, no one stood there.
She glanced to her left, icy fingers creeping down her spine in spite of the oppressive heat. The three men who had been on that bank were gone as well. Her breath hitched in her throat. Vaguely, as if a long way away, she heard a splash and a grunt. She turned back to look at the five men surrounding the GhostWalkers. Four of them lay on the ground, one hung from the roof, his body swaying macabrely. She realized that agonized scream had been a diversion, allowing Wyatt, Ezekiel, Trap and Cayenne that moment to kill the five mercenaries who had come to take her back to Bolan Zhu.
She didn't realize she was shivering until Nonny wrapped her arms around her. "You're all right, Zara. The boys took care of it."
"What do they do with all the bodies?"
"Someone comes. Zeke calls and they send someone out. Mostly we don't ask those questions. Delmar will keep his mouth closed. He's a good man and hard as nails when he has to be. These men are outsiders ..."
"I thought I saw Blaise Comeaux in the swamp just before the mercenaries came out of the bar."
Nonny sighed softly. "I wouldn't be surprised, but if he was there, I hope he scoots on home fast because your man is loose in the swamp. I would guess anyone out there is in danger."
She shivered again and rubbed her hands up and down her arms. "I want to see him. I need to know he's all right."
Nonny gave her a smile. "Child, your man is safe. Never fear that. He's doing what he does best. I need to get you home now." She lifted her head and signaled to her grandson. "Wyatt, I need to get these women home."
Wyatt kept his arm around Pepper, keeping her head against his chest as he walked her toward the boat, shielding her from the sight of the men dead on the ground. Cayenne trailed after him, Trap by her side. Ezekiel hurried down to the water, peering all around it as if he could spot his wife.
"What the hell, Wyatt?" Delmar demanded.
"Sorry," Wyatt called back without turning. "Gotta get the women home. You make yourself scarce for a few hours, Delmar. I'll have someone clean up the mess." Even as he spoke, Malichai came striding out of the swamp and dumped a body by the side of the canal.
Delmar swore under his breath. "Anyone messin' with you Fontenot boys had better know you play for keeps." He closed the door of his bar and followed Wyatt down to the pier. By the time he reached it, Malichai had dumped a second body on top of the first one. Delmar shook his head and watched him disappear back into the swamp.
Zara was busy inspecting the other side of the swamp, straining her eyes to catch a glimpse of Gino. Two bodies had rolled out of the swamp onto the embankment, but there wasn't a third one, and no Gino.
Wyatt glanced at his watch. "Let's move, ladies. We don't have a lot of time."
Zara couldn't imagine why they didn't have time. "Gino isn't here yet."
"Don't worry about him," Trap drawled. "Worry about the other guy."
"That doesn't help." Cayenne glared at him, then let her gaze travel around to the others. "You all obviously suspect or know something we don't. I don't like being in the dark. Did you know these mercenaries were going to attack us tonight?"
"Not a clue," Trap answered. He stepped onto the boat and tugged until she fell into him. At once his arm swept around her. "Just luck."
"Where's Gino?" Zara summoned up the courage to demand. "I'm not leaving here until I know where he is." She took a step toward the front of the boat where it was tied up to the pier.
Wyatt stepped casually in front of her. He'd already seated Pepper. "Gino's tracking the last merc back to the airstrip. If he can't take out Zhu right there, we'll be following."
Zara's breath caught in her throat. "Following? As in following the plane?"
"He'll get a tracker on it."
"But you know he'll head for Shanghai."
Wyatt shook his head. "We don't know that for certain. We hope. He has a favorite little place he likes to go to unwind. We think, if he managed to reacquire you, that he planned to take you there. Now that he didn't, he could go there to let out his frustration."
"How could you know that?"
"He waited for a couple of months in order to make certain we forgot all about the threat. He thought we'd just buy that he let you go. The time gave us the opportunity to find out more about him. That was his first big mistake. The second was underestimating Gino. We were ready for him." Wyatt indicated the seat.
Zara tried to stare him down, and then glanced anxiously into the swamp where she knew he was. That sound. The agony in the man's voice. She knew Gino had caused that. It had given the others the necessary distraction to prevail. Intellectually, she told herself that, but emotionally, she feared Gino had been the one to make that terrible sound.
She sank onto the bench seat and gripped the edge, all the while staring into the swamp. Nonny sat beside and reached over to take her hand. "He's going to be fine. That man of yours comes alive out there. He's a hunter. It's what he does. He's going to eliminate the threat to you as any man would want to do."
Zara shook her head, tears blurring her vision as Wyatt started the engine and took the boat into the middle of the canal, heading home. "I don't want him to," she whispered. "I really don't, Nonny. I don't want him to put himself in danger in order to protect me. He does that enough for everyone else. I just want him to come home. How many times is Zhu really going to hire mercenaries? After a while, he'll give up." But she knew he wouldn't.
"You had to know Gino would hunt him down," Nonny said.
She nodded because she had known. Before, she'd felt safe with him because he was the kind of man who would hunt down Bolan Zhu, but now that wasn't at all what she wanted. She wanted him just as safe as he made her feel. She held herself very still, almost rigid, in spite of Nonny's close proximity and her reassurances.
"So much for our girls' night out!" Bellisia yelled. She was soaking wet, but as usual, refused to dry off, even though she'd been handed a towel by her husband.
"We always seem to have adventures," Cayenne agreed.
Pepper nodded and sent them all a shaky smile. Energy created by violence could affect her. Just like the first team: Ryland Miller's team could get brain bleeds when using violence. Ryland's team was the first group of psychics Whitney had experi
mented on. With each group, Whitney got better, freeing the GhostWalkers he enhanced of most of the problems that came with his improvements. Because of Pepper's brain bleeds around violence, Wyatt was very protective of her whether she was pregnant or not. Zara noticed Cayenne was as well.
The water was dark and choppy as the boat sped toward the Fontenot home. Zara couldn't help but think, as laughter spilled around her, that everyone had someone, but she was once again alone. This time, she wasn't thinking of herself, but of Gino, somewhere out there where he could be killed. Alone.
19
Z
ara stood at the window, one hand to her throat, staring out into the night. With the light off in the room, the only illumination was from the moon trying so valiantly to shine through the gathering clouds. Thunder rumbled ominously, and she rubbed her arms in an effort to soothe herself. She didn't bother to check the tears running down her face. No one was around to see her weakness and she could cry all she wanted.
As soon as they'd returned to the house, a flurry of activity had ensued. The men seemed to be getting ready to take off, presumably to join Gino, wherever he was. Wherever he was going. Chasing Zhu was madness, but no one would listen to her. Zhu was like a wounded animal, lethal and angry, raging at the world around him, but disguised under his handsome features and his civilized clothing.
Rain hit the roof in a long wail. Not soft and light, but a furious pelting, as if the heavens had opened up and the water was pouring over the highest falls. She watched the drops hitting the window, obscuring her view of the thick swamp and the river. What would she do if Gino didn't return? She touched the glass with her fingertips, a small brush that didn't remove the heavy wash of raindrops from the other side. It didn't give her mind any clarity either.
With a sigh, she turned back to the room, looking a little helplessly around her. The women had gone to bed finally and she was alone. In spite of the rain, it was still hot. The fan was going at high speed and not even that seemed to alleviate the relentless heat. It was strange that when Gino was around, the heat felt different. Sultry, yes, but sexy, as if the nights were made for sin and pleasure. Now it was just plain hot.
She paced until she could barely stand the pain in her feet and then she took a long cool soak in the bathtub, hoping she'd just drift off there, but it didn't happen. She was certain she cried enough to raise the water in the tub an inch, but all she did was give herself a headache to go along with the persistent ache in her feet.
Wrapping herself in a silken robe that felt like heaven against her skin, she gave up and made her way back to the bedroom, where she put her hair up on top of her head to get it off her neck. Tossing the short robe aside, she lay under the fan without a stitch on. She clasped her hands behind her head and stared up at the rotating blades.
Gino. She'd been with him nearly three months and in that time he'd become her everything. Of course Zhu would try to lull them into a false sense of security. He thought they'd dropped their guard down. She was shocked at how the GhostWalkers worked so fast and so perfectly in sync to eliminate the threat to her. She shouldn't have been. She had been trained as a soldier, and so had Bellisia. Maybe differently, because mostly, once they were adults, they had worked alone, but when they were younger, they ran missions together.
Bellisia had known exactly what to do. The moment Gino had provided the distraction, she was in the water, exactly where she could have done the most good had they needed it. Cayenne had participated, both women blending in seamlessly with the GhostWalkers. She had stayed on the boat, uncertain what to do. She didn't want to leave Nonny, nor did she want to mess up whatever plan the GhostWalkers had.
She sighed and lifted the pillow next to her, inhaled Gino's scent and then switched it with her own. She stared at her pillow a few moments and then punched it hard. The pillow went flying across the room. She wanted to get up and kick it.
"Is that a substitute for me?"
Gino's soft voice set her heart pounding. She closed her eyes tightly, hoping she wasn't hallucinating. None of the other men had come back. There was a skeleton crew there and they'd called a friend, Donny, to help watch over the house. Two men she recognized from the compound where she'd been trained were there as well. They'd worked for Whitney and had defected with Bellisia to the GhostWalkers. She was still a little afraid of trusting them.
"Yes." She whispered her answer, but it wasn't true. "No." She looked around the room into the darkest corners. She couldn't find him, not even when she knew the direction of his voice. "I was afraid for you."
"Princess, you need to be afraid for the other guy, not for me."
Her eyes strained to see him, bouncing from one wall to the next, shifting to the floor, trying to cover every square inch of the room. She sat up and turned toward the door. "I don't care about the other guy, whoever he may be, I care about you. You went into that swamp and you didn't come out." There was accusation in her voice.
"I had to tail the remaining merc back to Zhu and his plane so I could put a tracker on it and make the necessary arrangements to follow it. I've got a plane standing by and we're leaving in under an hour."
"No." She said it sharply. Asserting herself. "Absolutely not. That's like following a wounded animal into his own territory. He'll know if some strange plane enters Shanghai. He'll know it's you."
"I have businesses all over the world, Zara." His tone was gentle. He emerged out of the shadows, almost right in front of her. "Including China. What's the point if I can't commandeer my own airplane? He won't know it's my team following him. He's arrogant, baby. He's arrogant and thinks he's above retribution. He believes he owns Shanghai. He's gotten away with murder too many times and walks around thinking himself invincible. He's not. Retribution is coming his way."
He walked toward her, one hand pulling his T-shirt over his head and tossing it into a corner. He wore no shoes and she had no idea how that had happened. She could see them now, his boots, set neatly in a corner close to the shadow he'd just come out of. Both hands dropped to his belt as he got to the side of the bed.
"He'll know," she argued. Breathless. All that muscle. He looked invincible himself.
He kicked his trousers away and put one knee on the bed, right between her legs. "No, he won't." He took her mouth with exquisite gentleness.
Her heart fluttered and her sex clenched hard. Her arms crept around his neck and she gave herself to him. To that kiss. His mouth was fire. But so much more. Tears burned behind her eyes. The way he touched her was as gentle as his mouth, one arm curling around her back and locking there, sliding her beneath him, so she lay looking up at his beloved face, those eyes that burned over her body and then rested on her mouth.
"Did I remember to tell you that I'm crazy in love with you, woman? I should have told you that before I let you out for your girls' night out." He punctuated each word with soft kisses over her eyes and down her face. "Because I am. So in love. I didn't know it was possible to love this much."
He wasn't a man to say such things, and it meant all the more to her that he did. He kissed her again, stealing her breath. He'd taken her heart some time earlier when she wasn't paying attention. Now he owned her soul. She lifted a palm to his face. Those lines cut deep with desire. With hunger. For her. Those eyes, so dark and compelling, alive with love for her.
"I love you so much, Gino. I don't care about Zhu. I'd rather live with a few bad moments of worry than to ever have you put yourself in danger."
He caught her hand and pressed it to his mouth, making her heart skip a beat. He kissed the center of her palm and then nipped at the end of her finger, sucking the sting away. He stroked a caress down her body, his mouth following. Her breath caught in her throat. He could make her come alive with a look, let alone the way he touched her. Everywhere his hands and mouth went, he left flames licking at and over her skin. In her belly. Deep in her core. Between her legs. Everywhere until she couldn't think, only feel.
Then h
e was moving in her. His fingers threaded through hers, stretching her arms above her head, eyes staring down into hers, intense, loving, possessive, connecting them on such an intimate level she could barely breathe. He never once looked away from her, his body moving slow, a burn that spread through her, growing hotter and hotter with each stroke.
She slid her foot up his leg to his thigh and then wrapped her leg around him. She did the same with the other foot. Still, he moved with the same slow intensity that was earth-shattering. She couldn't look away from his gaze. She was mesmerized, caught by him. Held spellbound. Love was overwhelming. She shifted under him, writhing as the need crawled up her spine and heat coiled tighter and tighter in her.
He kept moving at the same pace, and it was beginning to drive her crazy. It was too much and not enough. And then suddenly, just that fast, her breath was hitching. Her lungs felt raw. He never looked away. Never let her look away. Her body came apart and she saw herself in his eyes, saw the wide, shocked look, the dazed pleasure that only he could bring her and then her body clamped down like a vise on his, taking him with her. It was heat and fire, a blaze she didn't anticipate, consuming her. Consuming him.