Ruthless Game g-9 Read online

  Don’t underestimate him, Rose, Kane cautioned as he came into the room.

  She couldn’t imagine that Paul could possibly see to the health of her child. He barely looked her in the eye, but the moment Kane walked into the room, he seemed entirely different. Rose frowned, watching the boy—no—man. He was definitely a man. His face changed very subtly, which told her part of what she saw was an illusion. She knew all about illusions; she could change her looks subtly or even blatantly if need be. Paul obviously had the same ability to a lesser degree, but why would he need to do so there in the safety of Kane’s home?

  She studied him as he shook Kane’s hand and turned toward her for an introduction, nearly bowing, blushing redder than ever.

  “It’s nice to meet you, ma’am.”

  Can he even shoot a gun? She carefully avoided looking at Kane, afraid she’d laugh. “Nice to meet you too. I understand you might be able to look Sebastian over and tell us if he’s truly healthy without his blood leaving our home.”

  His father is Sergeant Major Theodore Griffen. He grew up shooting guns. I doubt that the military would have ever been his thing, he’s a gentle man, probably more like his mother than father, but he has an amazing and coveted psychic talent. Whitney would probably kill us both gladly to get his hands on Paul. No one knows about Paul outside of our team.

  “I can certainly try. Kane, you need to rest more. You aren’t completely healed.” He frowned, his eyes nearly glowing as he stared at Kane’s chest and abdomen, clearly looking through skin, deeper into his damaged organs.

  Tell me about him.

  Rose found Paul fascinating. His gaze was sharp and focused; his entire demeanor changed. There were frown lines around his mouth and brow, and all of a sudden she could see the quick intelligence she’d missed before.

  Obviously he’s a genius, like Jaimie. He graduated from high school at thirteen and holds multiple doctorates in chemistry, math, and something else I can’t remember. He also has a BA in at least three other subjects. His mother is Shiobhan Mangan, an ambassador’s daughter and the current ambassador to Ireland. She kept her last name and they gave it to Paul because when they first were married, Sergeant Major had quite a few enemies.

  She studied Paul’s face. He doesn’t belong in the military. He has too much empathy to kill, Kane. He shouldn’t be around violence.

  No. They put him with us to protect him from Whitney. His psychic ability is ... amazing. But don’t shortchange him; Paul gets the job done when it’s needed.

  “Who did this surgery?” Excitement edged Paul’s voice.

  Rose tensed. There was no way he could know. No way. Just in case, she eased away from the two men, putting a little distance between them.

  “Eric Lambert,” Kane replied.

  Paul shook his head impatiently, brushing off the quick answer. “No, before the doc. Who was in the field with you? Who worked on you in the field?”

  Kane shrugged. “Sorry, Paul, it was one of the team. I was out of it.” He looked at Rose. “Do you remember?”

  She avoided his eyes. She had promised herself she would never lie to him, and if they were alone ...

  “I do,” Javier stirred from the shadows.

  Rose jumped. She’d almost forgotten about him. He blended, perfectly still, until he was part of the wall he had draped himself on. His gaze moved over her with open speculation—and something else. If she had done anything at all to harm Kane ... She shivered at the dark promise there. She was very good at assessing threats, and in spite of all the skills the rest of this team had, Javier was truly the most dangerous—and unpredictable—of them all. His protective and loyalty instincts must have been off the charts when they tested him.

  “What’s wrong, Paul?” Javier continued.

  “Brilliant fieldwork. He would have bled out, but someone repaired the artery; I just can’t see how.” Paul narrowed his gaze, stepping closer to Kane and actually crouching down to peer upward toward his abdomen and chest.

  “There’s a definite wound site, the artery spliced together in some way.”

  The darkness gathering in Javier’s eyes disappeared, and he flashed Rose a smile. “You saved your man, didn’t you? What exactly did you do?”

  Paul pushed Kane’s shirt out of the way. “Clean cut. This is where he went in . . .” He broke off as Javier’s words penetrated. He blinked rapidly as if coming back from a great distance. Very slowly he stood, regarding Rose with awe. “You did this? How? You have to tell me what you did.” Excitement made his voice shake. “You know you saved his life. He would have bled out in minutes.”

  Kane must have sensed her reticence, because he reached out and took her hand, rubbing the pad of his thumb over her knuckles. The small gesture comforted her. She shrugged, trying to look casual. They thought they knew about protecting themselves from Whitney, but she’d been under the scrutiny of cameras and microphones nearly all of her life. She knew what it was like to live under a microscope. It had become obvious, at a very early age, that each of the girls Whitney was experimenting on needed to hide as many of their abilities from him as possible.

  She thought she’d have the chance to learn trust slowly—with just Kane. She hadn’t counted on his family. His team, with the exception of Paul, had grown up together, and Kane trusted all of them. He expected her to do the same. Panic hovered close. She could barely breathe.

  You can do this, sweetheart. You don’t have to answer questions. This is your home. There are no expectations.

  His voice caressed her. She forced her head up and looked into his eyes. She could live there. The way he looked at her—as if she was his entire world—it was a heady, potent experience, one she didn’t entirely trust. But she wanted to trust him. She wanted this to work. When she made up her mind to do something, she committed 100 percent. She wasn’t going to wimp out now.

  “Rose, please,” Paul’s voice trembled with excitement.

  “This is the coolest thing I’ve ever seen and—seriously—the closest thing to what I can do. I’ve never met anyone like me.”

  She heard the loneliness—the idea that he could be a freak of nature. All of them battled with being “different.” They always would. She could see how isolated Paul must have felt growing up. His father was a big man, a man who was disciplined and understood violence. Paul was just the opposite—a natural-born healer with tremendous empathy for those around him. His father probably had tried to understand him, but how could he? The boy was sensitive, and the idea of killing had to be abhorrent to him.

  In some ways, even among the GhostWalkers, Paul was still isolated. He wasn’t a soldier by choice. He was far too empathetic to kill. He was a healer, a poet, a man whose very soul cried out for gentleness, yet he was surrounded by extremely violent men. She could see both Kane and Javier were protective of him, but they didn’t understand him.

  “How? You have to tell me how.”

  While she could do some extraordinary things, she wasn’t quite as empathetic. She made a good soldier and she knew she did. Paul seemed a little lost. She looked from him to Javier and Kane. These men had accepted the boy into their world—their family. They offered him their loyalty and complete acceptance, which he obviously needed. He would give the same back to them tenfold.

  If it’s easier, Rose, I can take Javier into the other room.

  She took a breath and shook her head. She suddenly found she wanted to be a part of them as well. She wanted that same acceptance. If she became one of them—like Paul had become one of them—Javier would give her the same loyalty he gave his family members. She wanted his respect and his protection, for her and for Sebastian. It was difficult to let go of her fears—she had so many—but she’d always believed in facing her fears.

  “I’m able to visualize in my head what’s going on in someone’s body under extreme circumstances.” She chewed nervously on her lower lip, trying to find the words to describe how the talent manifested itself. “I feel heat
in my fingertips first. And then my palms. Eventually my hands get so hot it feels as if they’re burning.”

  Paul nodded. “The nerves are raw, and the heat starts running up your arms.”

  Rose’s gaze jumped to him. He understood. He actually understood the manifestation. They smiled at each other. “The first time it happened, I was seven, and one of the girls, Thorn, stopped breathing. We all loved her so much. I was panic-stricken. We all were. Whitney had just left the room, and Thorn suddenly dropped to the floor. She’d been defying him, and he’d used electric shock on her. I ran to her, and my hands burned. I knew I had to . . .”

  “Touch her. Put your palms on her,” Paul interrupted.

  Rose forgot everyone else in the room. She nodded, her heart pounding hard. “It was more instinct than anything else. Once I touched her, I could see her heart wasn’t pumping. It had stopped. I could see it in my head.”

  “And in response, you felt the electrical current needed to jump-start her,” Paul said, “running through your own body. It’s as if our bodies provide what’s missing from those hurt or injured in some way. I always refer to it as psychic healing.”

  “How does it work?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve tried studying what happens to me when I run across someone damaged. Each response is different. I see the patient in colors. Is it like that for you?”

  She shook her head. “Not really. When I lay my palms on their skin, I see inside their bodies, not through my eyes but in my head, as if skin to skin, I absorb them into me.”

  Kane’s fingers tightened around her, startling her, drawing her attention. She looked at him, almost afraid of what she’d see. Seeing inside someone was a strange, freaky experience. Having her own body react to theirs was almost an intimacy, a bonding between the two bodies, hers providing whatever the other needed. She didn’t tell anyone if she could help it and she never elaborated on what happened—she didn’t want to think about what happened. It was frightening and exhilarating. It was also very, very painful.

  Her eyes met Kane’s. There was nothing but awe. Respect. Love. Her heart fluttered in her chest, and she swore her knees went weak. He had a way of looking at her. Hungry predator. Intense desire. Amazing, absolute devotion. All the emotions were there for her, and he didn’t try to hide them. It was always a little difficult for her to believe he could feel those things for her, but she was trying.

  “You saved my life.” Kane brought her hand up to his mouth. “Didn’t you?”

  She shook her head. “I gave you a chance. I’m not adept at healing. I can only do it in a crisis. I managed to repair the severed artery, but I wasn’t certain it would hold, so I actually held it together until we got to the airfield. They’d set up for surgery right there. The doctor who did the surgery fixed everything else as well. The bullet ricocheted around in there and did a lot of damage. You were in surgery over three hours, and they nearly lost you twice, Kane.”

  “He would have died in the helicopter if it wasn’t for you,” Javier said. “We’re all very grateful to you.”

  Rose was so startled, she actually took a step back. Javier seemed to disappear and then just emerge from the wall itself. She put a hand to her throat, shocked at the way he was looking at her as well. She had gone from potential enemy to reserved acceptance. She was grateful she was on his good side.

  “I don’t know what happens,” she admitted. “My body takes over my brain and just acts. I barely remember what I did.”

  “You cut him open and put your hand inside of him,” Javier said.

  She shivered, remembering his reaction. Javier had placed a knife to her throat. The gesture had seemed casual but was anything but. She’d kept working, knowing she didn’t have much time. She’d found the severed artery and repaired it within minutes, shouting for Mack to give Kane her blood immediately.

  It had all been hazy from the moment she’d pulled Kane into the helicopter, “saw” the severed artery, and cut him open. Mack hadn’t hesitated, starting the transfusion immediately, even as Gideon gave him plasma. She’d been so frightened, wanting to grab Sebastian and leap from the helicopter, taking her chances with the unknown rather than with these grim-faced strangers without Kane.

  Oddly, it had been Javier who helped her. He held her stable through the flight, using his own body to prop her up. He’d asked one of the others to slip makeshift pillows under her arms to help keep them up and then had her covered with a warm blanket as she crouched over Kane. Her blood flowed into Kane’s body in a desperate attempt to keep him from bleeding to death, while her fingers, deep inside his body, had reinforced her repair of the artery. She would never forget that incredible helicopter ride as she tried to breathe for Kane, willing him to live with every ounce of strength she possessed.

  “Whitney never found out about you?” Kane asked.

  She shook her head. “I told you, even as children we knew we had to hide our gifts from him. He might help us develop them, but had he known about me, he would have put the other girls in jeopardy just to see me use it. He can be very cruel. He doesn’t look at it that way. Everything he does, for him, is justified in the advancement of science.”

  “That’s why you have such a difficult time with Eric,” Kane guessed.

  Rose nodded. “His need to learn can outweigh his moral scruples. Once a man believes that an individual doesn’t count for the good of the masses, he crosses a line and is capable, in the name of science, of anything. Whitney crossed that line a long time ago. He believes himself far above everyone else in intellect. He has powerful friends who aid him. That only feeds his ego and belief that he’s above the rest of humanity. Laws don’t apply to him.”

  “Can you see the fantastic job Dr. Lambert did?” Paul asked, indicating Kane.

  She shook her head. “It never happens unless there’s a crisis. That’s why I can’t be certain Sebastian is completely healthy. I know he’s not in immediate danger, but I can’t examine him.”

  “Do any of the other women have this talent?” Paul asked.

  “We stopped sharing information fairly early on because he recorded our conversations. Most of us became very secretive. Whitney believed we each had one strong talent and maybe another to a far lesser degree. It wasn’t until he began experimenting on adults that he discovered there could be more than one strong psychic talent in one individual. He isolated us after that, but we’d learned to be vigilant by that time.”

  Kane tugged at her hand, a little disconcerted to have Paul staring at his insides. “Come take a look at the baby, Paul.”

  “I’ve never really examined an infant,” Paul hedged. “I’m not certain I’m really qualified to do this.”

  “You’re what we have,” Kane said. “That makes you qualified. Take a look at him.” He stepped back to allow Paul into the bedroom where the small crib was.

  Rose hovered close as Paul approached the crib. Kane indicated for Javier to follow him out of the room. He wanted to know exactly what threats his family faced. Rose wouldn’t leave Sebastian’s side while Paul was with him, giving him the opportunity to assess the risks.

  “Where’s Mack?” he demanded.

  “Didn’t Paul just tell you to rest?” Javier asked, one eyebrow raised.

  “The hell with that. What’s going on, Javier? Half the team is missing, and don’t tell me they’re out on a mission somewhere.”

  Javier shrugged and swaggered into the kitchen to pour himself a cup of coffee. “Mack will be here in a few minutes. He wasn’t that far behind us. You got yourself a good woman. She admits she learned to be secretive, yet she’s obviously disclosing information to us in an effort to show good faith. That takes a great deal of courage.”

  Kane glanced up at the admiration in Javier’s voice. Javier rarely showed inner thoughts or allowed real emotion to surface.

  “You should see her in action,” Kane said, “No hesitation, Javier. None. She gets the job done.”

  “I can see
that in her. I put a knife to her throat, Kane. When she was cutting you open on the helicopter. One moment we’ve pulled you aboard, blood all over the place, and the next she’s on her knees, slicing into your belly. It scared the holy hell out of me. I thought she was hacking you up, she was that fast. I put my blade against her neck, tight enough to cut the skin, and she never so much as flinched. I swear she didn’t even bat an eyelash. She just kept working fast. Your blood was all over her, and she was shouting orders to all of us. In the end we just did what she said. She’s one cool customer.”

  “I should beat you to a bloody pulp for threatening her,” Kane said, “but it wouldn’t do a bit of good. You’d do the same thing again.”

  “I’ve never seen anything like that, Kane,” Javier answered seriously, leaning back against the sink, coffee mug in hand. “Seriously, she moved so fast, no wasted effort, cut right into you in front of us, no hesitation, not even when I threatened her. She’s a very unusual woman—and dangerous.”

  Kane’s gaze flicked over Javier. “You admire her.”

  “Damn right. She reminds me a little of Rhianna.”

  Javier rarely mentioned Rhianna Bonds. She’d grown up with them on the streets of Chicago, the only other girl in their “family.”

  “Does she?” Kane wasn’t altogether certain he was happy Javier thought that. Although he never admitted it, Javier was obviously crazy about Rhianna in a weird, possessive kind of way. Kane didn’t want Javier looking at Rose that way.

  Javier nodded. “Rhianna doesn’t seem to have a fear factor, other than when it comes to me, where Rose battles fear, but they both are very dangerous.”

  “And you like dangerous women.”

  Javier shrugged. “They’re intriguing to me. That edge you come up against. She might kiss you or stick a knife in you. You never know what you’re waking up to.”