Ghostwalker 09 - Ruthless Game

He’s gone and we’re not going to find him tonight, but we’ve gained more than we lost. He just doesn’t know it yet.”

CHAPTER 18
    Rhianna Bonds was nothing at al like Rose expected her to be. She was incredibly beautiful, not at al the tough chick everyone implied that she was.
    Average height maybe, but there was nothing else average about her. She was stunning with her large, impossibly blue eyes and thick, curly black hair.
    There was so much hair that her braid was as thick as her shapely arms. She was not conventional y thin but had a figure one couldn’t ignore, with curving hips, rounded breasts, and an extremely smal waist.
    She was hugged and kissed and greeted as a long-lost sister. Rose noticed Javier was conspicuously missing. Rhianna didn’t ask where he was. She took Sebastian in her arms and looked at him with such love in her eyes, Rose wanted to cry. This was a woman who felt deeply. Again, Rose expected her to be like Javier, a cold, female version of the man. She radiated warmth. She was the kind of woman who would walk into a room and be noticed instantly. She wasn’t spy material; she was too striking.
    Rose found out the hard way that Rhianna was not al looks. Training began almost right away, and Rhianna was a big part of that. It was grueling and unrelenting. Rose found out quickly that there was no reasonable way to nurse Sebastian and train with the hours she was putting in. Instead of quitting altogether, wanting the best start for him, she opted for pumping her breasts. It was a nightmare, but better that than the alternative of not training. She needed to become part of the team, needed them to know what she could do and that she was good at it. And she was. Soldiering was something she’d done since she was a child, and there was nothing too rough, too dangerous, or too difficult for her. She had discipline and a sense of duty. She discovered Rhianna did as wel .
    Jaimie sat and watched sometimes, feeding Sebastian his bottle as they ran through the urban techniques, the one thing Rose hadn’t trained in. Each man took his turn working with her. They often broke into smal er teams and pitted themselves against each other. The work was satisfying, and at night, she had Kane.
    Kane’s body was always wrapped around her, protective, loving, and he woke her often, sometimes twice a night, as if he could never quite get enough of her. She loved lying in bed just listening to him sleep. Sometimes he fed the baby a bottle, watching as she climbed the sides of buildings and ran along the rooftops. Other times she fed the baby while he massaged her neck and gave her pointers.
    She soaked up the training like a thirsty sponge. It felt so good to be active again, to feel like she belonged somewhere. This had been her world since she was a child, and she savored every minute she could be active. She found herself laughing more, talking animatedly with the team members, listening to them, and occasional y sharing some of her own knowledge.
    Eventual y, after nearly a month of nonstop training, it didn’t matter that she loved every second of her life; she stil felt the need to walk down the street and breathe in the air. From the rooftops she found herself watching people going about their lives, envying them their freedom. It was Jaimie who suggested the three women go out shopping. Such a simple idea, yet Rose had to brace herself to ask—no tel —Kane that she was going to go out that afternoon.
    “What is it, sweetheart?” he asked her, as if he already knew there was something wrong just by her silence.
    Rose forced a smile. “Jamie, Rhianna, and I are going shopping. Just the three of us.” She stole a look at his face, those hard angles and planes, and her nerve nearly broke, but she persisted, trying to sound casual. He looked like she’d dropped a bomb. “I need to real y get acquainted with the neighborhood, so it wil be both fun as wel as educational.”
    “Fun?” He sounded like he’d never heard of the word. “Rose. There’s a price on your head.”
    She dismissed that with a wave of her hand. “I need to do this, Kane.”
    She’d forgotten that several of the team members as wel as the two women had just finished working out. They appeared quite curious. Paul winked at her. Rose looked around the room. Every member of the team had arrived, as if Kane had put out some kind of SOS cal —which he probably had. The men were looking at the three women—at