Ghostwalker 09 - Ruthless Game

else. This wasn’t about their life together, but about needs. The need to walk through a crowd of people or go into a store and shop for her own clothes—things she’d never been able to do. She wanted those things for herself. Maybe she was being greedy, but it mattered that he understood.
    “You know the team has to go with you.”
    “Around us. Not with us,” Rose corrected. “We’re trained soldiers, Kane. Civilians aren’t going to hurt us.”
    “They’re the worst because you don’t expect it,” Kane corrected. “I should be with you, Rose, close, the first time.”
    She sighed. “If that’s what you need to do, Kane.”
    “For God’s sake, Kane,” Javier hissed. “She’s got Rhianna with her. What the hel is going to happen to her with Rhee beside her the entire time?”
    Rhianna looked more shocked than anyone else. Her gaze jumped to Javier’s face, but it was impossible to read his expression. He never so much as glanced at her.
    “I didn’t think of that,” Kane admitted. He looked rueful, raking his hand through his hair. “Sorry, Rhee. I know you can look after her.”
    Rose suppressed the urge to stomp her foot. Rhianna had obviously earned their respect out in the field; she hadn’t. “We’l be fine, Kane. The three of us can kick some serious butt if we have to, and with Gideon and Ethan on the rooftops, nothing can happen.”
    “I’l be in the street. Lucas too,” Javier pointed out, some of the tension easing from his voice. “Lucas can blend. He’s a freaking ghost out there.”
    “This is the way we have to live, isn’t it?” Rose said.
    “We’re used to it,” Jaimie said. “This has been our lives since we were little, Rose. We practical y lived on the streets most of the time, and we had to look out for one another. It just feels normal after a while.”
    “And right,” Rhianna said. Again she glanced at Javier and then looked away. “Being alone is no fun when you know no one has your back. Looking out for one another is what family does, and we’re a tight family.”
    Rose looked around the room at al the faces. They weren’t her sisters, the women she’d grown up with, but they were offering her a home. A real home.
    She found herself smiling. “I think I can live with knowing I’m always surrounded by people wil ing to help me. I hope you know I would do the same for you.”
    She looked Kane right in the eye when she said it. He persisted in thinking she was a fragile little flower that needed protection.
    I know better, baby. It’s just that you’ve become my world. When a man’s had nothing, and he finds that one woman who owns his heart, it’s damned hard not to lock her away from any danger.
    But you know better.
    Logic doesn’t enter into this, he denied. “Go then, Rose. But Rhianna, you don’t leave her side. Not for one damned minute.”
    Javier stirred, drawing attention, but he subsided when Rose shook her head. “That’s not fair, Kane, and you know it. Rhianna is not less than I am.
    We’l al look out for each other.”
    Rhianna burst out laughing. “We’re going to the market, Kane, not to a war zone. We’re highly trained professionals. They’re freakin’ drug dealers.
    Sheesh. Have you al lost your minds? Come on, Rose. Let’s get out of here.”
    Gideon and Ethan rushed up the stairs toward the rooftops. Lucas left the room. Rose put Sebastian in Kane’s arms.
    “You can do this, Kane. I’l sometimes have to watch him while you go out without me. You have to be comfortable knowing the team wil look after me, just as they look after you.”
    “Damn it, Rose.”
    She laughed. “You seem to be stuck on that little theme.”
    He caught her chin and kissed her hard, kissed her until her heart was pounding and her knees were weak.
    “Just come back to us,” he demanded. “And for your information, it’s bul shit for me to be relegated to babysitter when you’re putting yourself on the line.”
    She raised an eyebrow. “For your information, it isn’t cal ed babysitting when it’s your own child. Sebastian is far more at risk than I am.”
    “I don’t think so, Rose, not anymore. I think Whitney believes I won his game by stopping him from taking both of you. But he wants you back.”
    “If you real y can’t stand this, Kane, then we’l do it your way,” Rose capitulated.
    Kane was far too distressed for her to try to prove a point. Sebastian would be safe with Paul. She trusted him. If it meant