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His voice resonated with pain.
"You loved your wife." Mikayla's voice quavered with the knowledge that someone else had held his heart, and had broken it.
"I loved her." His voice was distant, marked with pain. "But my daughter, Nicolette, she was my life. From the moment of her birth, she captivated me." A rueful smile tugged at his lips for only a second.
"My wife didn't love me or our child as I loved them, though," he sighed. "Her association with a known criminal figure resulted in their deaths." He wouldn't look at Mikayla, but she could see the agony he fought to keep from his expression. "Losing them as I did nearly destroyed me, Mikayla. It tore pieces of my soul from my body when my child was killed." He pulled to a stop at a red light and stared back at her. "If I lost you in such a way, there would be nothing left of me to continue fighting. There would be nothing left to exact vengeance, or to continue breathing. You are a bright piece of innocence that the world should never lose. A part I know will always glow throughout the night. And you expect me to risk that so cavalierly?" He jerked his gaze away from her and when the light turned green pulled out. But the tension in the air only thickened, only grew heavier, with the pain Nik kept locked deep inside him.
"One day, you're going to be out of my life," she said, feeling as though she were suffocating with the pain of the parting to come. "I won't cower in corners when you're gone, and I can't cower now. But I'm not stupid, either. I learn where I can, and I'll stand back where I must. But I won't hide, Nik. If I hide from life, then the lack of it will kill me."
It was so hard to make him understand, so hard to find the words to express how she felt. That she wanted, needed, to prove to him that she wasn't helpless, simply untrained. That she was a woman he could trust, whom he didn't have to protect from all of life's little bumps.
As though a part of her thought if she could prove that to him, then maybe, just maybe, he wouldn't leave when it was over.
"In this case, living could kill you," he stated bitterly as he gave her a hard, brief glance. "And you expect me to live with that on my conscience." And it would do no good to tell him that he couldn't accept the blame. Mikayla battled back the tears. "Take me home." She stared straight ahead. "Or to the shop. I'll wait for you there."
Nik almost closed his eyes in relief. She wasn't angry; she wasn't threatening. Maybe she was beginning to understand what he couldn't put into words. What it would do to him if he lost her because of her determination to accompany him. Martin Kefler was a twin to Anton Vileski, the lover his deceased wife, Tatyiana, had taken so long ago. A two-bit criminal with an organization backing him. Kefler was doubly dangerous for the fact that he didn't have the power or the full backing of the crime family he came from. Just as Anton hadn't had.
Mikayla had no business being around them, no business being a part of this investigation.
Nik made the turn and drove back to her home after making a quick call to Ian. He wasn't leaving her alone, either. She was safer at home with Kira and Ian watching 205
over her than she was with Nik at the Kefler home.
Pulling into the driveway, he saw Kira and Ian's car in the drive and silently sent a thank-you winging heavenward for the unquestioning loyalty Richards showed the Elite Ops. This wasn't a formal mission; the man could have turned his back on Nik. Mikayla didn't speak as she and Nik moved from the vehicle to the front porch where the other couple waited.
Nik noticed Mikayla avoiding the other two's eyes, the way she kept her gaze straight ahead as he opened the door. He and Ian went in first, the other man covering part of the house while Nik went through the other part.
He listened closely for any conversation between Mikayla and Kira and heard nothing. Mikayla had shut down after asking to return home, and Nik could think of nothing but her warning that something vital between them could be destroyed if he went to talk to Martin without her.
What she couldn't understand, what she didn't want to understand, was that there could be nothing lasting between her and Nik.
He'd signed his life away, and he hadn't done so lightly. The fact that in two years the contract with Elite Ops would be over didn't mean that the identity the Ops had created was over. That identity would never go away, and he would always have enemies because of it. Enemies more deadly than Martin Kefler could ever hope to be. Enemies Nik could never fully escape.
As Kira moved across the living room to meet her husband, Nik moved closer to Mikayla.
"Kira's going to stay with you," he told Mikayla as she lifted her somber gaze to meet his. "She's fully qualified to protect you."
Mikayla shook her head, and Nik knew to stop then. She didn't want to hear about protection. She didn't want to hear about him leav
ing without her.
"Be careful," she whispered as her hand lifted, silken fingers touching his cheek.
"If something happened to you, because of me, then it would be no different." No different than losing her would be to him.
The statement was unfinished but well understood.
He wanted to do so much more, but rather than doing what he wanted, what he needed, Nik gave a sharp nod and stepped out of the door onto the front porch. He waited and in less than a minute Ian followed, the door closing behind him. Nik stared into the darkening skyline, fighting back the overpowering urge to turn around, retrieve his woman, and take her along with him.
Possessive. It was that core of dominant possessiveness she'd awakened within him. He had no idea it existed there, and now he had no idea what the hell to do with it.
"Know what you're doing, bro?" Ian asked as he drew beside Nik.
"Bro?" Nik lifted his brow. Hearing the word coming from a forty-year-old man was damned strange.
Ian grinned. "Mr. Steele, do you know what you're doing to my friend?" he amended.
"No." He might as well be honest about it. "I have no fucking idea." Moving down the steps, he made his way quickly back to the truck as Ian followed behind.
