Deadly Game (GhostWalkers, #5)(21)

Ken watched the conflicting emotions flit across her face as he helped carry her into the small house where they would wait for ground transportation while Nico threw off the hunters. He’d continue his flight plan to another location, a house Lily had also rented. When Mari’s team got there, it would be empty and Nico would already have the helicopter back on the base where it belonged. He’d lay low for a while in case they decided to grab him to extract the information. Nico wasn’t a man easily found. He was only waiting for the doctor to get moving so there would be little time to realize he’d made a stop somewhere.

Ken found it difficult to watch the beads of sweat break out on Mari’s face with each step they took. She had refused more pain medication because she wanted to be alert. He could read her confusion and humiliation. She was undeniably attracted to him, with the same frightening addictive rush he felt each time he inhaled her scent. He understood now what had driven Jack to go to such lengths to keep Briony. Jack had managed to walk away from the woman who was everything to him once, but he couldn’t do it twice. Ken wasn’t certain how his twin had managed the first time, but he knew he had to find the same strength.

He couldn’t have her. It didn’t matter that she wanted him, or that he could persuade her—he couldn’t have her. He didn’t dare. Jack had come through it, but he was different. Jack hadn’t believed he was a good man, but Ken had always known that Jack was. Ken had watched him carefully for any signs of the legacy of madness their father left them. He had stayed close to Jack and smoothed his way in every situation, making certain Jack didn’t have to do any of the things he preferred not to do, so there would be no reason for him to feel the burning rage—rage so deep it burned cold, not hot. Rage so ugly, it was beyond madness and as relentless as hell.

Jack had the same ice in his veins, the same ability to turn off emotion with the click of a switch, a trait that was dangerous but manageable, but Jack knew how to protect others. He watched out for the men in his unit, for the one woman who had saved them so many years ago when they were still raw teens out for blood and revenge on the world, and he watched out for anyone else they stumbled across in their lives that needed protection. He looked out for everyone, including Ken.

Ken hid his rage behind a ready smile and a quick joke, and he guarded his brother with his life. He looked out for one person, and that was Jack. He loved his twin fiercely, protectively, and was determined that Jack would have a good life with Briony and their children. Ken would keep his brother and his family safe—even from him and the certain knowledge he had that their father’s insanity lived inside of him. It was a monster he dealt with every day, knew intimately, and could barely conceal or control.

“You’re frowning.”

Mari’s voice startled him out of his introspection.

At once his smooth mask slid into place. It was ironic to him that the very mask people now saw revealed what was beneath the skin as well, but no one bought it. “I don’t frown.” He would have to be more careful. If she caught him slipping, so would Jack, and that wouldn’t do.

“The doctor is going to examine you one more time, and if he can, he’ll remove the catheter and the IV.” Jack’s voice was ultra-calm. He had his gun out, his hands rock steady and his eyes cold. “If you so much as twitch, I’ll kill you.”

She turned to look at him, forcing a smile when she wanted to scream with pain. “Maybe you’ll be doing me a favor.”

Something dangerous flickered in Jack’s eyes. “You don’t want to play games with me, Mari. I don’t know anything at all about you. Briony is my world, and if you are in any way a threat to her, you’re gone.”

Briony. She couldn’t think about Briony. Her twin was somewhere in the world, far away from all of this insanity. She was safe and happy and had a husband who adored her, not a stone-cold killer with silver slashing eyes and without a single shred of mercy in him.

The doctor moved in close to her. It took a moment before she realized just how humiliated she was going to be. He was removing the catheter with both men in the room. She wore little beneath the thin cover.

“Take a breath,” Ken advised. “We don’t exactly have a choice here, and in any case, we’ll be seeing to your needs until you can walk again.”

“How long did you have someone helping you with bodily functions after they chopped you into little pieces? Did they remove all of you or just parts?”

The soft snick of the gun was loud in the suddenly quiet room. The doctor gasped and studiously avoided looking at Ken. It wasn’t hard for anyone to imagine just what body part she was asking about.

Mari would have given anything to be able to take back the words the moment they left her mouth. She was lashing out in embarrassment, trying to hurt him, trying to get some reaction from him. It was petty and beneath her. She didn’t care about his scars, although she had to admit she did wonder if they had cut him everywhere. She couldn’t imagine a sadist like Ekabela—a man capable of genocide—not doing as much damage as possible to another man he hated and feared.

That drove out every other thought—Ekabela had feared this man—yet she was deliberately provoking him, prodding a coiled viper with a stick, digging into a predator’s wounds just to cover her own humiliation. She looked up at him, uncaring that the room seethed with tension and his brother wanted to pull the trigger. The two men were very connected. Jack must feel a stab of pain cutting as savagely as the knife that had cut his twin each time he looked at Ken. She would feel it if someone had tortured Briony and left visible evidence behind.