Ghostwalker 09 - Ruthless Game

He’d die for Jaimie—and for you and Sebastian. More important, he’d kill for you. He’s a good man. He lives by a strict code. He’s a man of honor.
    I believe that, Kane, but I also believe it would never be a good idea to cross him—or betray him.
    She was a good judge of character, no doubt about it. He rubbed her rib cage with gentle fingers, soothing her as he turned his attention back to the matter of the cartel. “Do they know she’s with us?”
    “Of course not. They have no idea. Whitney sure isn’t going to give her up to them. More likely, we’l get an influx of his men hanging around to help protect her—or snatch her if they get the chance. They’l just muddy the waters for us,” Mack groused.
    “So what are you worried about?”
    “They have her picture. It’s been circulating, and they’ve got bounty hunters looking for her. They put a hefty price on her head.”
    Kane took the body blow without flinching. His hand found hers, threading his fingers through hers in silent reassurance.
    “What are we doing about it, Mack?” He knew Mack. There was already a plan in motion.
    Mack’s smile was anything but pleasant. “We’re adept at urban warfare; they’re adept at kil ing unarmed, terrified people. We have as good—or better
    —weapons than they do. If they’re stupid enough to come at us, they’re going to get a fight they won’t believe.”
    “I don’t understand what that means,” Rose said.
    “It means,” Kane explained, “that if they find you here, if any bounty hunter finds you here, we’l take the fight right back to them.”
    “And shove it up their ass,” Javier added. “If you’l excuse my language, ma’am.”
    “You can’t invade a foreign country,” Rose said. “It would cause an international incident. Every GhostWalker could be in trouble.”
    Mack shrugged. “They’d have to catch us first, baby sister, and that just isn’t going to happen. We’re ghosts, remember?”
    “Have you sent them a message, Top?” Kane asked.
    “Not yet. We’l deliver it though, personal y, if and when it’s needed.”
    Kane frowned and shook his head, his body straightening. “No one is doing my job for me. I’l take the message to them myself.”
    Rose tightened her fingers around his and stepped in front of him, as if she could physical y block his body from harm. “No one is going to deliver any message. They don’t have a clue where I am. They don’t know about any of you or what you do. If you go throwing down the gauntlet, you’l be stirring up a hornet’s nest. Right now they’re looking for a pregnant woman worth a lot of money to a crazy bil ionaire. They don’t know about any of you. They know about Whitney, the man who supplied weapons and Humvees to the rebels. They think he kil ed al of their people trying to acquire me.”

    There was a smal silence. “She’s probably right about that, Top,” Kane said. “The cartel has to think Whitney’s men shot them al to hel .”
    “In fact, they did,” Rose pointed out. “We only were responsible for a couple of them, and remember, they think I was a hostage.”
    “Is the word on the street to kil her?”
    “Dead or alive,” Mack’s voice was grim. “Preferably alive, but they’l take what they can get. It’s more money if she’s delivered alive.”
    “They plan on taunting Whitney with her,” Javier said. “Showing him they wil retaliate.”
    “The bottom line for me,” Kane said, “is that they said dead or alive. That’s unacceptable.”
    “You can’t go to war with the cartel,” Rose said.
    The three men smiled at one another, and there was nothing at al pleasant about those smiles.

CHAPTER 14
    Rose stood on the rooftop and looked around, a little awed by the view. Three stories up, she could see the ocean as wel as a good portion of the city. A garden had been started on the roof, mainly, she could see, for defense purposes. She was coming to realize this team did everything with both offense and defense in mind.
    “Urban warfare is different than what you’ve been trained for,” Kane said, indicating the buildings around them. “See al those windows? Every one of them can house an innocent family. Women and children, a good man working to provide for his family—or an enemy can be sitting there waiting for you to give him a good target. Sometimes, it can be extremely difficult to tel the difference between that good man trying to protect his family from