He hadn’t known she was here.
The Chameleon smiled and, while surprise held him immobile, she moved.
Her leg kicked up, almost slamming into his balls but barely glancing them instead. He went back, his fingers slackening on her throat as she tore out of his grip.
His hand gripped her wrist as she turned into the hold, her ankle twisting around his, almost taking him down. Once again, she managed to do no more than loosen his hold on her.
A graceful twist and she had an arm’s distance between them as she crouched and stared back at him, eyes narrowed, her breathing heavy now.
Adrenaline coursed through her veins, her heart raced but not from fear.
“Let it go,” she hissed back at him. “I’m no threat to you.”
She would never be a threat to him. Not unless she had to be. She was here for him, and her heart ached because this wasn’t the man she knew, the man she had fallen in love with in Atlanta.
She watched him, pushing back her anger and her fears of what he had become as his eyes narrowed further. His weapon was tucked into the front of his black mission pants, easily accessible. God only knew where hers was. He could take her out so easily, they both knew it. Just as they both knew he wouldn’t. She hoped she knew that.
“Why?” The snarled question was soft, filled with banked fury. “Why are you here?”
Of course he knew who she was. He had always known who she was, no matter where he saw her, no matter her disguise.
“For you.”
“To kill me?” He sneered. “DHS decide they couldn’t handle the shame of having one of their own defeat them?”
She shook her head. “I’m leaving now.”
“The hell you are.” His lips lifted in a warning growl, his savagely honed features reflecting his fury now.
“The hell I am.” She smiled back as his hand gripped the butt of his gun. “Will you shoot me, Ian?”
She backed away from him. Her exit was only a few feet away, the boards loosened just in case of such an emergency, prepared for her esape.
She closed the distance as she watched his face, his eyes. A second later it was her only warning. The gun was jerked from the band of his pants, he aimed for her and fired.
Kira threw herself back, knowing, certain, she was staring death in the face until she stumbled over the body behind her.
Whirling, she had only a moment to glimpse the fallen terrorist before she shoved the loosened board aside and slipped from the warehouse to the inky darkness beyond.
Just that easily he had killed one of his own men. For her.
She ran through the night, careful to stay down, to keep as many obstacles as possible between her and any bullets that might come her way.
The Chameleon had been bested by a Navy SEAL gone rogue. Or had she been rescued by a deep-cover agent now so immersed in the mission that he was no longer the man he had been a year before?
Something inside her ached at the thought of either answer. Over the years, Ian Richards had managed to see through every disguise she had used in the various operations where they had met up. She had been on the inside, he had always been part of the force sweeping in to clean up the mess her information had helped locate. Once again, he had seen through another disguise, but this time, they might not be on the same side. And the very scary part of that was the fact that she knew she wouldn’t let it stop her. She had come to Aruba to claim what was hers before his father, Diego Fuentes, could steal his soul.
But she was there for another reason as well. If he hadn’t gone rogue, then she was there to make certain that the SEAL didn’t murder either the terrorist Sorrell that he had vowed to identify and capture for his father, or his father, the drug lord Diego Fuentes.
The Chameleon had no answers to the questions she had confronted the director of Homeland Security with. Was Ian operating under mission parameters of DHS? She had asked that question twice. Each time the same answer: DHS doesn’t contract rogue SEAL operatives.
There were no straight answers, there was only supposition and her orders. Reestablish a relationship with Ian and ensure Homeland Security acquired Sorrell should Ian identify him, as they suspected he would. And keep Diego Fuentes alive.
Diego Fuentes was an asset. He was a DHS-contracted informant. And Ian had no idea the lengths the Department of Homeland Security was willing to go to keep him alive.
IAN SWEPT HIS GAZE ACROSS the floor of the warehouse as the team of trained soldiers moved in slowly, dragging the bodies of the assassins to the cleared center of the warehouse.
There were a dozen. Their faces were known to him, several had a price on their heads. Too bad he couldn’t collect.
“There’s one missing.” One of his elite bodyguards spoke at his side. “The blonde. We haven’t found her body.”
And they wouldn’t either.
Ian glanced to his head bodyguard, Deke. Deep cover, a ten-year veteran of the Fuentes cartel, his dark eyes reflected the same chill Ian knew his own did.
This world did that to a man. Planted in ice where a heart should be and diluted the guilt over the bloodshed. The bastards now lying in the center of the warehouse were murderers, kidnappers, rapists. They were terrorists who didn’t care who lived or died as long as their fanatical agenda was observed.
He kicked at one lying on its side, knocking the body over until the dead eyes stared up at the heavily beamed ceiling.
“The girl that got away is Algeria Winters,” Deke reported. “There’s no sign of her, boss.”
She didn’t get away. He’d let her go.
Ian stared at the terrorist’s body. He remembered this one from a mission in Russia several years before. Algeria Winters had been there as well. A Russian-born informant who often worked with Antoni Ruissard, the dead terrorist at his feet.
Anger tightened his jaw as his fingers clenched on the Glock he held carefully by his side.
“We have a team in place in Oranjestad as well as Palm Beach,” Trevor stated. “We can get her description out, have her picked up.”
Ian nodded slowly. “Go ahead.”
They wouldn’t find her. The persona Algeria Winters would be discarded before anyone else had a chance to see her. The higher cheekbones would be altered, that sharp chin would disappear, hazel eyes would change, and blond hair would become another color. Her next disguise would be as natural, as smooth as birth, and no one would ever know she was Kira Porter, except him.