“You have two fingers up, three down. One head and two eyes,” Micah growled. “When we arrive at the clinic, stay the hell out of my way. Where she goes, I go.”
“I got that part when you pushed that gun into my face,” the paramedic grunted. “Don’t worry, man; we’re not standing in your way.”
“Two minutes,” Jordan called back to him. “Doctors are waiting at the entrance. Stay the hell out of their way, Micah, while they get her prepped and examined. Don’t make me knock you the hell out.”
Micah grunted. “Where she goes, I go. Period.”
Jordan was cursing.
“She must be damned important to you,” the paramedic murmured. “That’s one dude I wouldn’t want to mess with.”
“She’s important.” She was more important than Micah had let himself believe until he’d seen her struggling with the man he knew had to be Orion.
He could have lost her. Not just his opportunity to take Orion down, but he could have lost Risa. Her smile. Hell, he hadn’t heard her laugh yet. He could have lost her wonder at each touch they shared. He could have lost the fragile sense of warmth he was beginning to feel with her when he had never felt it with another woman.
WHERE HAD HE messed up? Orion was almost screaming in pain from the bullet that had torn into his foot as he’d tried to shove that little bitch into the SUV.
Who knew that the man riding with her was carrying a gun? Orion knew he should have found a way to get into their apartment and check out the unknown lover before making this at
tempt. He had argued with his employer that it was too soon to make the attempt. He needed to be certain; he needed to check out the new lover before he made his move.
His employer had refused to listen. It had to be done quickly, before she remembered anything more.
Orion groaned in pain as he turned the SUV off the interstate and looked for a quick place to stash it, and for another to steal for long enough to get him to a safe area where he could treat the gunshot wound and get a cab back to the apartment he had taken.
He’d tried several times to slip into Risa Clay’s apartment since the bugs had been swept up by the housecleaning crew.
It happened sometimes. To get what he needed, he had to use electronics that were sometimes easy to sweep away. He’d thought he was safe with the lightbulb camera, but the cleaning crew had changed the bulbs as well.
It should have been simple, should have been easy to sneak back in and replace the bugs. Except they never fucking left the apartment. In three days, not once had they ventured out, and his employer had called daily.
Orion knew better than to let that son of a bitch rush him. This was the same reason Jansen Clay had fucked up and ended up dead, because he had allowed this man to rush him, to force him into readjusting his schedule. Jansen had paid the ultimate price for allowing himself to be bullied.
Orion had almost paid it.
Hell, he was too old for this shit. He should have retired six years ago instead of waiting. No, what he should have done was killed the son-of-a-bitch partner Jansen Clay had for being so stupid. He wouldn’t have had to make that hit six years ago, and he wouldn’t have had to take this job, either.
Because the only man who knew his identity would have been dead.
CHAPTER 12
FOUR HOURS LATER, Risa was still unconscious. Micah sat beside her bed, watching her closely, gauging the time as the monitors tracked her vitals.
Jordan was at the foot of the bed. Outside her private room the rest of the team was placed in strategic positions to watch the door as well as anyone who entered the clinic.
Noah, Jordan, and Nik had been several cars behind them. With the confusion that had ensued when Micah and Risa’s vehicle had been run off the road, they had been back too far for immediate help.
They had been close enough to see Orion, though. Dark glasses that covered most of the upper face, dark hair, broad build, older. It wasn’t a lot to go on.
Beneath Risa’s nails had been torn flesh, though, enough that Micah was confident they could collect the DNA from it.
He ran his hand wearily over his lower jaw before rubbing at the back of his neck and continued to watch Risa closely.
This was the first time a victim had escaped from Orion. How long she stayed under and how she awoke would answer some important questions for them.
Micah had lied to her when he told her that he wanted Orion because a friend’s mother had died. It hadn’t been a friend’s mother; it had been his own. It wasn’t a friend’s father who had thrown himself at a suicide bomber. It had been Micah’s. And it hadn’t been a friend who had managed to track Orion to that freighter. It had been Micah. And there he had learned Orion had friends. Somehow information had leaked from the Mossad to Orion, and the bastard had been waiting for Micah.
Orion’s bullet had grazed his head as he threw himself from the freighter into the waters off Israel’s shores. He would have drowned if a SEAL team hadn’t been practicing in those waters and heard the gunshot.