Reno snorted at the comment. “Live Wire tracked a tail on you,” he told him. “Or rather one on Risa. She was followed from the apartment to the club. The car circled the club twice, then disappeared into traffic, and they lost it. Do you know how hard it is to lose one of you bastards in traffic?”
Micah’s jaw clenched. “She’s already being watched. Were they able to identify the driver?”
“All we have is dark hair and glasses. He was careful to keep his face hidden. We have some pictures, but it’s going to take a few hours to get a clear idea of who we’re looking for.”
“It’s not Orion.” Micah rubbed his hands over his face, wishing he had the lack of control that would allow him to punch something. Or someone. “He wouldn’t make that mistake. You’ll not know when he’s watching and when he’s not.”
He looked up in time to catch Clint and Reno exchanging glances and carefully stilled all expression on his face; even his eyes would be blank. He knew how to do it. These men were good, but Micah had learned, even at a young age, that any hint of emotion could get a man killed.
He did breathe in heavily. “Have a crew go into her apartment before she returns home, check for bugs. Orion will lay in listening devices sometimes, to track his mark. Several were found in his last victim’s hotel room. That’s how he knows where to strike and when. Make certain her apartment is clean.”
“That could give us away,” Clint pointed out. “He’ll know we’re on to him and he could run.”
Micah shook his head. “He’s been tracked before and escaped. He’s a master at his craft and the execution of it. He’ll know I’m her protection, there’s no hiding that. Orion will see it as a challenge, but he won’t back off. Nothing will stop him from attempting to kill her.”
He and his father had found the devices in Micah’s parents’ home when his mother had turned up missing. How long they had been there, Micah wasn’t certain. Definitely long enough for Orion to have tracked her schedule and to know where and when to take her.
“I’ll get Live Wire on that.” Reno nodded. “What are your plans tonight with Risa?” There was a vein of protectiveness in the other man’s voice.
Micah stared back at him coldly. “What I do tonight is none of your concern. From this moment on, she’s under my protection; that’s all you need to concern yourself with. Watch my back; watch for Orion; follow Live Wire’s commands. Do not involve yourself in whatever I do with Miss Clay.”
They stared back at him, their gazes hard, defiant. Micah almost grinned at their expressions. He would hate to have to fight them, because damn if they wouldn’t be hard to beat together. He might have a chance one-on-one, but these two men weren’t that insane. They’d strike together.
“Don’t f**k up, Maverick,” Reno warned him then, his voice hard. “She’s not just a mark; she’s a friend. Hurt her and you won’t have just me and Clint gunning for you; you’ll have the entire team on your ass. You don’t want that. Ko;tn&r”
No, he didn’t want that because he would need these men in the future during other missions. They watched his ass, protected it when the need arose. He’d have to move carefully.
He nodded at the warning. He could expect nothing less.
CHAPTER 3
THINGS WERE HAPPENING too fast.
Risa sat, poised on her chair, after Micah, Reno, Ian, and Clint moved away from the table.
She tried to join in the conversation and the teasing of the one remaining male at the table, but her efforts were stilted at best.
The club was too warm. There were too many people and she was too used to cowering in her apartment, alone.
She wasn’t accustomed to the sensitivity in her own body or the confusion tearing through her. Or to being racked by shudders of…something that didn’t make sense. Sensations she could not put her finger on.
She’d been around other men in the six years since she had been rescued from the asylum her father had had her placed in. After she had been rescued from Diego Fuentes’s cell, her father had rushed her straight to a private hospital. It wouldn’t do, of course, for her to start screaming in hysteria when she became conscious. Which was exactly what she had done.
She had been sedated and kept quiet for nineteen months. She remembered a few times that a doctor had come to her room, one she hadn’t been familiar with. Her father had laughed and joked, petted her arm, and she had been injected with that hated drug again.
Why? She still questioned that. They hadn’t raped her. After that first time, no one had touched her. Jansen Clay had told her she was so ugly he couldn’t pay anyone to f**k her, even in the interests of the test they needed to run on the drug.
They had let her suffer. Suffer while they petted her arm or stroked her hair.
She flinched at the distant memory. It was like that, except in her nightmares. The memories and the knowledge of her pain at that time were so distant, almost as though it had happened to someone else. Unless she dared to allow a man to touch her. Then the fear and the bleak sickness rolled inside her like a tidal wave ready to consume her.
Until tonight. Tonight, she would have given all she possessed for all the promises behind that one kiss. What made Micah different? What made her body react in this new way? Was it the man or the instinctive knowledge of the man’s control?
They were questions she couldn’t answer. Instead, she turned her attention to the dance floor and watched the gyrating bodies in fascination.
She had loved to dance when she was younger. As a teenager she had gone to every ball, every party, every dance that her father allowed her to attend. She would beg for weeks to go until he finally relented.
She had danced with friends then. Other girls who weren’t paired with a date, who were left out of the male/female dynamic. But it had been fun. S Ns the had laughed then, she had felt free during those hours.
Oh, let her go, Jansen. It’s not as though you have to worry about her virtue.
Her stepmother Elaine’s frustrated anger at Risa’s begging struck through her mind. Risa shook her head, fighting against the self-consciousness, the familiar pain that assailed her.
She promised herself she wouldn’t do this tonight.
Tonight, she was going to have a lover. It was a promise she had made to herself.