She’d surprised him with the answer she’d left him in reply to his warning in Argentina.Come out and prove my enemy is near. Stalking me is only pissing me off. I much prefer to talk rather than continue looking over my shoulder. If what I suspect is true, we’re working toward the same goal. Combining our efforts would be far more effective.
And now, she was giving him the perfect opportunity to discuss whatever he pleased with her. She had given him similar opportunities after running from the Breed who was determined to claim her.
Too bad he wanted only to use her, just as the traitor within her group did. He had no intention of identifying himself to her. He would only follow her to the prize for which she searched, and he would ensure he possessed it before she could take possession of it.
None of that changed the fact that Diane Broen confused the hell out of him though.
She was an enigma to Gideon, but she wasn’t a fascination. It wasn’t this woman who hardened his dick when he thought of her. The Breed whose dick she did harden would be here soon, though.
Gideon knew he was only perhaps hours ahead of the Breed following her. And that Breed was pissed. Lawe Justice had roared his rage the second he’d left the Bureau of Breed Affairs and stomped to the black SUV awaiting him outside the Bureau.
Gideon had watched him from the shadows across the street, and his gaze narrowed, wondering if he should chance a grin as the Breed stopped and stared toward the area where Gideon had hidden himself.
As though Commander Justice knew he was watched. Knew, and knew the direction from which it came. Like the woman, he would make a fine adversary, but a much more dangerous one if Gideon dared to attempt to harm her.
Unfortunately, they just may become enemies if she threatened to step between him and his quarry, rather than leading him to her. Gideon couldn’t allow that. And he had a feeling the Breed wouldn’t be able to keep her from doing it.
It was regrettable that Gideon needed her to draw Judd, Fawn, and Honor from their chosen identities.
Unfortunately for the Enforcer, though, he’d been delayed in his quest for a while. A flat on the SUV before he cleared the block. That was a stroke of genius and luck, Gideon thought. The nail that had pierced the tire had been put in place the moment the call came down to the garage for the SUV.
Gideon had taken the call, prepared the vehicle, then slipped out to prepare the area for the small projectile.
He’d found it incredibly amusing that he’d been able to slip into the garage of the Bureau so easily. He’d not been able to get any farther, into the bureau’s offices, nor had he been able to sneak a weapon inside. The sensors were too sensitive and impervious to sabotage.
But he had gotten close enough to determine the vehicle Lawe Justice had called down for. Close enough that the garage attendant had tossed him the keys, believing him to be a fill-in for the Breed who’d called in ill.
Duplicating the security badge had been a bitch. It had taken more than twelve hours straight to prepare one that would fool the sensors as well as the guards and the garage attendant.
Luck.
Luck had been on his side for a minute.
The young woman centered in the scope arched her brow curiously as though questioning his inattention to her. His delay in pulling the trigger.
Daring him.
When she dared her mate in the same way, she would learn the consequences of such impulsive foolishness, he thought with an edge of regret. A shame, really, that she had already been marked by the Breed’s scent.
If times were different, if he were the Breed he had been at nineteen, or hell, even twenty-seven when he had been recaptured by the soldiers from the Brandenmore labs. Even then, he’d had hope; he’d remembered what it was like to laugh, to lust, to dream of freedom.
If he were still that Breed, then he would see if a mate could be charmed from her mate.
Once, he could have accomplished that goal, he thought. Or he would have at least had a chance. He would have given it a hell of a try, and had a considerable amount of fun in the attempt.
The woman in the view yawned as though bored and tired of waiting. She gave a little shake of her head and a chiding smile, as though she were berating him for merely watching her rather than confronting her.
What made her believe he would ever confront her?
What made her imagine he would pull the trigger?
He caressed it. His finger stroking over it as he would a lovers flesh as her lips quirked just a bit at the corner as though in a grin.
“Live by the sword and you’ll die by the sword, my uncle always said,” she had commented with a laugh as she had walked with her men days before from the airport in D.C. The Swede who walked with her had shaken his head at her response to his advice that she should proceed with care once they met with Director Wyatt.
She hadn’t heeded his advice. Instead, she had sworn to him that she would find the three they had been sent to collect and she would regret her actions later. This job, she had claimed, was too important. Her niece was too important for her to fail.
She would find all of them once she found Ms. Roberts. They would be with her, Gideon knew, and this woman would attempt to take them back to the Breeds to perform more tests. More brutal treatments.
A knife slicing through flesh just to see what hurt the most.
Gideon knew what they would see, though. He wouldn’t allow it. He hated the woman he was after more than he hated any scientists he had encountered. But even for her crimes, admittedly, a crime a child had committed. As terrible as it had been though, he wouldn’t allow that brutality to happen to her.
Ms. Broen was moving into the area where his prey was suspected to be located. Moving in to take from him the vengeance he’d lived and breathed for far too many years.
He couldn’t allow it.
He wouldn’t allow it.
He’d waited too long, fought for too long. And he wouldn’t be cheated of it now that the end was so near.
His sanity depended on keeping the vow he had made to himself so long ago.
He knew the general area where they were, and he’d given this woman the location. She would get there before he did, but, he would be close, and he would be watching. And once she found the prey, he would be there to steal it from her. If he remembered Judd, and he did, then he knew that the girls would be very well hidden. Very well protected.
Perhaps even sharing his bed.
He had to force back a roar of rage as he focused on the woman once again. Focused on what he knew rather than what he suspected.
He knew once Commander Justice arrived, Justice would be distracted by the past that would haunt him there in the form of the family his birth mother had been taken from.
The same family that had aided Judd and Fawn after Gideon had disappeared into the darkness on the night of their escape.
Terran Martinez had arrived, just as Judd had said he would. An arrangement Scott Connelly appeared to have been a part of. Because Fawn was his daughter.
His teeth clenched as a growl escaped before he could bite it back. He wouldn’t accept that. He couldn’t accept it.
He frowned and glared through the scope as the woman arched her brow imperiously.
Oh yes, she knew he was there. Watching. Waiting. She wasn’t daring him to pull the trigger, she was daring him to take what they were both after.
“Good night.” Did she speak the words or simply allow her lips to form the shape of them?
Regardless, she rose from the chair and strode to the curtains, which she pulled closed with a jerk, shutting out his view of her and leaving nothing to chance. She tucked the bottom edges of the curtains into the window frame, ensured there were no cracks an assassin could use to target her, then turned off the lights to the room.