He lay over top of her, still staring into her eyes. A slow smile lit the dark intensity of his eyes. "I forgot the condom."
She didn't look away. "You don't forget things like that. I do. You don't."
His smile widened into a grin. "That's true."
"Gino, you haven't even lived with me yet."
"What do you think we've been doing, princess?" He brushed kisses over each eye. "We've been living together. I'm sure. Aren't you?"
"Yes, but I want to be with you for a little while before we bring someone else in. I need time to do research on parenting and homemaking. I need time with Nonny."
"No, baby, you don't need any of that. Nonny's wonderful, but she isn't you. I want you exactly as you are. If you like to research those things, just for fun, go ahead, but you don't need to do it for me. Our home is about us. You. Me. Eventually our children. What you learn online isn't how it has to be. It's how you feel."
She loved him even more for that. "I don't want to do something wrong, Gino. Not for you." But really, she was beginning to have much more confidence in them. They fit. They could do anything together. She wasn't as weak a link as she had first thought. That knowledge was growing stronger in her every day with him and the others. "You can't go." Just thinking it, let alone saying it, sent panic skittering through her.
He kissed her again. Long. Hot. Wet. Taking away the anxiety. He kissed her until she forgot to be afraid of anything and there was only the two of them, locked together in the privacy of his room. When he lifted his head, she chased him, one arm hooking around his neck to pull him back down to her. She kissed him, teasing with her tongue, stroking along his until he was growing in her again, stretching her until she felt tight and he felt hot and hard. He rocked in her, sending little tremors spreading through her body like a building wave of pure heat.
"You make us a home, Zara," he said, "however you want that home to be. I want to come home to you. If you're there, it's going to be perfect."
"I don't know things," she reminded.
"Then we'll have fun doing them together. Furniture hunting, decorating. I want our home to be yours, baby, and whatever that is, it will be perfection."
He suddenly pulled out of her, flipped her over and brought her hips back to him so he could surge deep. The contrast between his gentle and his rough sent her careening right over the edge. That didn't stop him. He pistoned into her, pulling her hips back into him with every stroke. She couldn't think. Couldn't breathe. Only feel. Over and over, until she was lost in him and everything was gone from her mind. Every worry. Every silly detail that had been looping there, making her fear she would disappoint him.
There was only Gino and the way he made her feel. Beautiful. Perfect. His. Made for him. Then there was only their bodies, soaring together, his hoarse cry mixed with hers. He collapsed over her, pinning her to the sheets, both of them trying desperately to catch their breath.
The love she had for him was stronger than anything she'd ever known. She was better for being with him. She knew that. And she knew he would be better for being with her. There was that cold, dark place in him he could disappear into. It was dangerous there. The more he went, the easier it was to get lost. He would be in that place when he hunted Zhu. She knew it just as she knew he slipped in and out of it more easily than any human being should.
She closed her eyes and took long, deep breaths, trying to find a way to make him understand it wasn't worth risking his going after Zhu. Gino had gotten too comfortable with that side of himself. It had probably saved his sanity. Trauma had pushed him there when he was a child, and Ciro Spagnola had deliberately grown that coldness so Gino could better protect his son, his business and himself.
Very slowly he rolled over and then slid up to the headboard. She rolled over as well and lay looking at the fan.
"I don't want you to go, Gino."
"He's a loose cannon, princess, and he hurt you, neither of which I am willing to tolerate."
"He's sick. Demented. He likes hurting people, and he wants you to follow him. He's probably waiting for it."
Gino shrugged and reached down to stroke a caress over her breast, his fingers lingering, and then his palm covered her in a claiming hold. "Doesn't matter."
"It does though." She sat up slowly and crawled up the bed to him. "Gino, you don't have to mete out vengeance because he hurt me. I'll admit that in the beginning, I wanted to be with you because I knew you were probably the only man capable of going up against him and coming out alive ..."
"That's not true. I might be the only one who won't kill him fast, but any member of this team, or one of the others, is capable of killing Bolan Zhu. Don't for one moment think they aren't."
"That's exactly what I'm talking about," she said. "They would kill him fast implies you wouldn't. Sit up on a roof with a rifle. Shoot him from a distance. Does it matter how he dies?"
"It matters to me. He took something from you."
She knew what he meant. Her feeling of safety, but she'd never really had that, not even with Whitney. She knew Whitney terminated some women. He put others into a breeding program. He sent them out on dangerous missions. "You gave it back to me." He had. Gino had made her feel safe almost from the first moment he had come to rescue her.
"I'll be home soon."
She shook her head. "Just tell me you'll kill him from a distance."
"I can't give you a promise like that, baby. I don't even want to kill him from a distance. That bastard hurt you. He tried to permanently damage your feet. He'll never stop."
"So shoot him if you have to, but don't get close. He's dangerous. I know you're good at what you do, but you're underestimating him, and that could get you killed." Worse, if he went to that cold, dark, dangerous place, he might not come back from it. She couldn't say that, because she didn't know how to put it to him.
"It's going to be all right, Zara," he murmured, gathering her to him.
She crawled onto his lap, feeling as small as Bellisia, wanting to melt into him, to share his skin, to keep him with her. "I'm so scared, Gino." She lifted her gaze to his face. "Really, really scared. I don't want to have to live without you. In my entire life, I never thought I'd have a man for myself, let alone a man like you. I really didn't. You seem like such a rare gift. You've somehow made me feel it's okay to be me, that there's nothing wrong with me. You make me feel beautiful and extraordinary and loved. You're all those things to me and more."
"Zara, you're not living without me, but you are living without the threat of Zhu hanging over your head. If I don't go after him now, when we have children, you're going to be worried sick."
That was true. But ... "I'm not trading having children for you. I'd rather spend all my days with you alone, Gino, then have you go after him because we're worried about what he might do when we have children. I want them, but I want you more."
He kissed her. She loved when he kissed her. He had stolen her soul with kisses. She snuggled her head under his chin, breathing him in. She loved his scent. There was something wild and undefined she could never put her finger on. Gino might have companies that belonged to the modern world. He might have all the money in the world, but there was something very feral and predatory about him.
"Zara, you need to hear me. Really hear me. Nothing is going to happen to me. We're the last soldiers Whitney experimented on. We don't get brain bleeds. We don't need anchors. We don't have any of the problems some of the other GhostWalkers have experienced. He gave us all the enhancements as well as enhancing our psychic abilities. Zhu has no idea what's coming for him. It's like taking a lamb and dropping it alone in the middle of a wolf's territory."
She liked that image--the team a pack of wolves hunting Zhu. She chewed on the end of her finger. "How can you catch him alone? He's probably locked up in Cheng's fortress right now."
He took her hand and turned her finger up to his mouth for kisses. "Leave that to me, baby. I have a plan. I'll take care of Zhu and
come straight home to you."
"Cheng ..."
"Is a vengeful asshole. I know that. But he'll check to see where I was, where you were. The plane we're flying in on is a regularly scheduled flight to Shanghai. I have never once been on it, nor will I be on it this time. He won't know who killed his brother. Most likely it will cross his mind and he'll check, but we'll look as if we never left Louisiana. He'll think it has something to do with the club Zhu likes to visit."
"Club?"
"It's a vile place, baby, not a real BDSM club, but a place where sick fucks can get off hurting or even killing others. It appeals to very wealthy men and women who fly in from all over to visit. They pay big money to participate and the club provides men, women and children of all ages for their clients to hurt."
"That's truly horrible."
"Very demented." He tipped her chin up and kissed her again. "I'm going to have to go. I'm on a timetable here, baby. I have to make that plane before it leaves."
There was no winning this battle. She drew a long, deep breath and pressed closer to him. "How long will you be gone?"
"I don't know." He kept her face tipped up to his, forcing her gaze to meet his. "Know I am coming back. Nothing will keep me away. I'll get back to you, Zara, even if I have to break out of hell to do it."
She wanted more than that reassurance. She wanted to know he'd come home still Gino, not some dark, twisted version of him. "All right, honey," she whispered. "Just know I'm right here waiting for you."
"Lie down for me. I've got seven minutes and I'm out of here."
"How are you getting to the airstrip?"
"Helicopter. Trap has a couple of them. I can see we're going to have to have our own plane and at least one chopper."
He lifted her off his lap and back on the bed, his hands on her shoulders urging her to lie down. She did, but only because she knew nothing she said or did was going to stop him from getting on that chopper and she wasn't going to send him off with her being a sobbing baby. She could wait until he was gone to do that.
*
The club Razor's Edge was located in the red-light district of Shanghai. The GhostWalkers stayed away from the streets and alleys, moving instead on the rooftops. They used signs and fluttering wires to stay above the garish lights. The deeper they went into the streets lined with strip bars and clubs, the seedier the establishments.
They could have easily followed the dark-tinted windowed vehicles bringing elite clientele to the club. Too many, as far as Gino was concerned. They'd discussed going in as rich patrons, an easy enough thing to change faces and fingerprints, but they didn't bother. They were there as hunters, and they didn't need to blend in with their prey.
Flame, Wyatt's sister-in-law, had sent them quite a file on Bolan Zhu. Between Jaimie, Lily, and Flame, they had gathered a tremendous amount of intelligence on him. All three were very good at hacking and they seemed to know where to get information. Bolan Zhu was born Bolan Allen Cheng. He was Cheng's younger brother by nearly twelve years. He had been a sickly child and his father had hidden him away, embarrassed at having a son he didn't deem good enough to share his blood.
To toughen his son up, he turned him over to sadistic teachers, men who taught him to fight. To condition his body. To use weapons. To become a weapon. He trained night and day, frequently yanked from his bed to go work. He was caned when he didn't take down his opponents or if he made a sound when being punished. He grew strong enough for his father to claim him, but by that time, having a son he could use as an executioner that no one knew of was too good to pass up.
Zhu excelled in his service to his country, interrogating prisoners and keeping his men in top shape. They were the elite sent on impossible missions. He had his own army now, a private army of men loyal only to him, pulled from the ranks of the soldiers who had followed him. They traveled with him as a rule, and many of them were frequent visitors of the same club Zhu preferred. Like him, none were married. It was whispered even Cheng feared him and his army.
The GhostWalkers spread out, Ezekiel and Malichai taking the roof of the building to the left of the club. Mordichai and Trap took the roof to the right of their target. Gino, Rubin, Diego and Draden waited in the shadows, just outside the back entrance where bodies were brought out. Three bored guards smoked and paced, occasionally exchanging words. Clearly, they'd seen it all and weren't in the least caring about what went on inside the building or how many were killed in a night.
Twice the largest of the three men nearly stepped on Gino's hand where he lay in the ditch at the side of the building. Diego stood upright, pressed into the corner, blending in with the tawdry colors splashed on the siding. Rubin was above the door, lying prone on the roof, his eyes the only thing in sight. Draden, even Gino couldn't spot. That was Draden, the male model who had graced so many elite magazines, a dangerous predator there in the darkness.
Two men on the roof. Both armed. They mean business. They aren't like the guards you're facing. These have to be two of Zhu's men. Ezekiel reported in.
I'm looking at two roaming to the front of the building, Mordichai said.
Two roaming to the back, Trap said.
Zhu's guards number twenty-five when he comes to this club. He likes his show of force and he gives some the privilege of participating in club activities, Ezekiel said. Count it down so we don't miss any of them.
Cover us, Gino said.
Like a lizard, Rubin moved over the roof until he was looking down at the two guards in the front. The men paced back and forth, meeting briefly in the middle of the street, but not acknowledging each other. They continued walking part way down the road, turned and walked back, their pace unhurried, their semiautomatics very much in evidence and their eyes moving restlessly, scanning the entire block, roof to ground.
The problem was, it was too big of an area to cover for two men. They were good, but they had established a pattern and that allowed for movement. Rubin signaled to Diego, the soft moan of the wind, and Diego waited until the three guards had their backs to him and then he was gone, sliding into the night to get into position.
Gino had to take out the two men on the roof of the club without being seen or heard. Rubin and Diego would take care of the roving guards in the front of the club, and Draden and he would take out those to the rear. No one could move without the snipers on the roof gone first.
He rolled back to the darker shadows that took him to the side of the building between the club and the bar beside it. A man had a woman pinned against the building not more than five steps away from Gino when he entered that three-foot space. The two were going at it so hard, neither saw him as he climbed to the roof without a sound.
He was strong, unusually so, and he used only his hands, pulling himself up fast, not taking a chance his foot might scrape too loudly or push debris loose to fall on the couple doing their thing. He pulled his body up high enough to allow him to see the roof above the club. It was long and flat. The two guards went from one side to the other, and they were very systematic. He stayed still as the guard walked away from him. Had Gino wanted, he could have shot him, but this had to be silent work. He pulled himself all the way onto the roof.
He froze right over the thick railing, remaining very still. The other guard walked toward him in the same cross pattern the guards on the street maintained. Gino had to time it perfectly. He needed the first guard to keep his eyes forward, scanning the rooftops of the other building, while the one he stalked, coming at him, examined the left side. As the guard passed him, missing his prone figure by no more than two inches, Gino rose up, slammed his knife through the base of his skull, his hand over his mouth to muffle any sound. He caught the heavy weapon and lowered both man and gun to the roof.
He moved to his right, already having picked the darkest parts of the roof. He didn't crawl, but walked fast, coming up behind the second guard. Something must have alerted the man because he began to turn his head to look over his shoulder. It was alre
ady far too late for him. Gino repeated the same kill, slamming his knife home, lowering man and weapon to the rooftop.
Eyes on roof taken out. That's one and two, Gino reported.
It's a go, Ezekiel gave the order.
Gino moved fast to get off the roof and down where he could do the most good. They had to take out all guards in seconds and then get inside to find Zhu and the rest of his men before someone inside tried to contact one of the dead guards.
The moment Gino gave the all clear, Rubin and Diego went to work. Gino slipped back into the alley, noting the man and the woman were walking back. He was just a little ahead of her, walking quickly, making it plain he didn't consider her anything but a whore he paid for her services. She didn't seem to mind or notice, she chattered away, trailing after him. The moment they rounded the corner to the front street, he ran down the alley in the opposite direction.
I'm in position, Gino, Draden said. I'll take the one facing north. He's within a few steps of me.
I'm in position, Gino echoed. I've got the one facing south.