“Back room?” Logan’s hazel gaze met his with a questioning stare.
Giving his former team leader a curt dip of his chin, Van carried their target into one of the suite’s three bedrooms. Before tonight, it had been the room where he’d slept. Now it would be where they’d conduct their interrogation.
He waited while Logan went to the small wooden table positioned near the suite’s impressive kitchenette. His former teammate grabbed one of the two matching chairs and brought it to the center of the room where Van still stood. The two men worked together to restrain their captive’s wrists and ankles with tightly wound rope.
And just in case she wakes up screaming…
Van went to the beat-up dresser and snagged the roll of duct tape he’d left waiting with the rope. As he walked back toward the slumped woman tied to the chair, he ripped off a strip of the tape, put a hand under her chin to tilt her head back, and secured it across her kissable lips.
Kissable?
The thought took him aback as he gently let her head fall back into its previous position. The woman was responsible for killing their friend and damn near taking out their entire team. He shouldn’t be thinking of her lips as kissable or anything else.
Beautiful or not, she was a terrorist and a killer. Something he’d do well to keep in the forefront of his mind.
Van looked away from the unconscious woman to meet his teammate’s gaze. “I’ll check her for any more possible weapons.”
After that, they had no choice but to wait.
CHAPTER 2
Kaamisha was pulledfrom her unconscious state one microscopic step at a time. The first of her senses to return was her hearing as multiple hushed, male voices reached her from somewhere far away.
She tried listening to what was being said, but whoever it was spoke too low for her to make out their words. Using a mental checklist to avoid giving away her awakening presence, Kaamisha started her assessment at her head and moved down to her toes.
A dull ache filled her mind, reminding her of a time back in college when she’d unintentionally consumed too much wine. She couldn’t move her mouth for the tape that had apparently been placed across her lips, and her chest rose and fell with the steady movement of her breaths.
Kaamisha tried moving her arms but found the task surprisingly unattainable. Her fingers would move immediately on command, but her wrists felt as though they were being forcibly held in place.
The voices sounded again, and this time, she was aware enough to comprehend their muffled tones. The men who’dtaken her—Donovan Braddock and his teammates—were in a room apart from the one she was in.
What she couldn’t possibly know for sure, however, was whether they’d left her in here alone or if one of the Eagle’s Nest men was standing guard. Silently watching and waiting for her consciousness to return.
Only one way to find out.
Ever so slightly, Kaamisha began peeling her eyelids apart, letting the low lighting of the room filter its way between her fluttering lashes. Her lap and bent forearms slowly came into focus.
With the next beat of her heart, she realized both of her wrists had been tightly bound with sections of thin nylon rope. Her ankles were hidden beneath the long material of her dress, but she didn’t have to see them to know the same rope had been used there, as well.
She didn’t see or feel any noticeable injuries, and the headache and fog filling her head was already beginning to vanish. Her mind grew clearer, and as the seconds ticked by, all of the pieces began falling right into place.
She’d been standing in the alley. Her knife had been pressed against Braddock’s throat. But then the highly trained operative had easily taken control of the situation, rendering her unconscious with a safe but effective pressure to the pulse point at her neck.
The last thing she’d told him was that he was the killer. The last words she remembered hearing were his deeply rumbled vow.
It will be a cold day in hell before I let you take another American life.
Notalife, but…another.
Funny that. She’d never taken a human life. American or otherwise. And yet, the man who had kidnapped rather than killed her believed the lie as if it were true.
Kaamisha drew in her first deep breath since waking. Hermind was finally clear enough to fully process the situation as a whole.
She was alive, which had been a fifty-fifty shot the moment she’d decided to put her knife to the SEAL’s throat. Lucky for her, the feeling in her gut had proven itself right, and Braddock hadn’t turned the knife on her in that dark alley.
He would have been justified in his actions had he decided to kill her right there, on the spot. The fact that he didn’t offered up hope that what she’d learned about him and his team was true.
They weren’t cold-blooded killers, and she was willing to bet her life they also weren’t the ones who’d slaughtered her mother in the middle of a street in Kandahar. But their team was there the day it happened, and though three years had passed, Kaamisha still needed answers.
