Ghostwalker 09 - Ruthless Game

wouldn’t have survived if Whitney had managed to get his hands on Sebastian.”
    Kane threaded his fingers through hers and brought her hand to the warmth of his mouth. “Yes, you would have, Rose. We would have gone after him.”
    “And we’d never stop until we had him,” Mack confirmed.
    “The thing I don’t understand,” Javier said, inhaling the baby’s scent, “is why Whitney thinks we would stop. He knows us, or he should know us.”
    “He can’t know our bond,” Mack said.
    “Javier has a point, Mack,” Kane agreed, “He knows us as individuals.”
    “Which is why he had you assigned to the compound, Kane,” Rose said. “He read al about you, what you were like, and he knew you would appeal to me.”
    “Then he has to know if he took you from me, I would never stop looking for you unless I was dead.”
    “And then we’d continue,” Mack added. “I think there’s a part of him that likes to see if we’l win. Like playing a game, only with human beings for game pieces. He sets up a battlefield and throws the players onto the board and amuses himself watching what wil happen.”
    “That’s pretty sick,” Javier said. He smiled at the baby, his tone softening. “And Whitney thinks I’m a psychopath.” The baby wrapped his fingers around Javier’s index finger as if in response. “For future reference, a psychopath is considered very bad.”
    Rose glanced at him. Javier had sounded hurt, yet when she looked at him, he was bending his head to kiss the baby’s fingers.
    “Actual y,” she said, “that’s exactly the type of grand experiment Whitney would enjoy. It probably doesn’t even matter al that much which side wins as long as he can observe and document . . .” She trailed off. “He had to have been here in San Francisco when they tried to take Sebastian. He would have been close enough to observe. He would never plan something so elaborate with so many different ways for his team to escape with us without watching it al play out.”
    Mack and Kane exchanged a long look. “Why the hel didn’t we figure that out ourselves?” Kane lowered his voice.
    Javier beckoned Rose. His face had lost al expression, his eyes once more going flat and cold. Sebastian stared up at his face, immediately ceased gurgling happily, and looked careful y around the room with so much awareness in his eyes that Rose shivered as she took him. She glanced at Kane, worried. The baby was only a couple of months old, and already he was picking up his cues from the adults around him, recognizing danger far before he should.
    What kind of a childhood is he going to have? There was despair in her voice and fear creeping under her skin. There’s no way for our son to have any kind of normal life, is there?
    Kane stroked a single caress over her hair and then reached out to take the baby. He’ll be safe, happy, and prepared, Rose. It’s up to us to make a new normal for him.
    He recognized the difference in Javier and is already alert to the changes in all of us. She wanted to cry for them al . She didn’t want that for her son.
    She wanted her little boy free to play and laugh with others, not living the kind of life she had—already training for a life of warfare by the time she was able to walk.
    “This is our life,” Kane said aloud. “This is his life. He’l have a playground, and he’l have a happy childhood. He’l just know from early on that, like us, like his family, he’s different, and he has to live differently. That doesn’t mean worse, Rose, it means different.”
    Nodding, she swal owed the terrible choking lump in her throat, blinking fast to get rid of the shine of tears in front of the other team members.
    Javier touched Sebastian’s head with a gentle hand. “He’l be safe, Rose—and very loved. We’l see to his needs, al of us. We’l help provide everything he needs. You tel us, and it’s yours.”
    She looked around her at the circle of faces. They al nodded. Some of the tension eased. She couldn’t help smiling. Even as they reassured her, they were sliding weapons into clothing, readying for battle. There seemed to be an armory on every floor, hidden of course, but wel stocked with just about any weapon they might need. She knew they went armed everywhere outside the house, probably in it as wel .
    “You good?” Kane asked.
    They were al looking at her, waiting for her answer. Not, she realized, to get it over with, but because they genuinely cared and