Echoes at Dawn

She wasn’t deserving. She wasn’t brave like he was. She didn’t have a fourth of his courage. She had no idea why of all the women in the world, he’d chosen her. But she was savagely happy that he had, and by God, she’d never let him go.

Rio yanked away, his eyes sparking with fury. “Bullshit.”

She blinked and then her eyes widened.

“Deserving? You aren’t worthy of me? You don’t have my courage or bravery? That’s the biggest bunch of bullshit I’ve ever heard in my life.”

Her mouth fell open. Yeah, she’d opened the link but hadn’t considered the consequences of him knowing her every thought.

“Let me tell you something, Grace. I’m not worthy of you. Do you even know the things I’ve done? What’s your worst sin? Wanting to give up rather than face a lifetime of pain and misery and of having the misery of others foisted onto you in an endless cycle? Look at the things you’ve done, willingly or not. You’ve given people a new lease on life. You saved a child who would otherwise be dead right now and you risked your own life to do it because your heart is too soft for you to say no even though it might have meant your own death.

“You have no idea of the things I’ve done, the choices I’ve made. Most of my life has been spent in areas so gray that light had long since fled. Always in the shadows. Questionable causes. Hell, I’m a mercenary, Grace. Which means that if someone pays me enough money, I’ll do the job.

“You don’t even want to know some of the jobs I’ve taken. Your soft heart would weep over some of the things I’ve done and the choices I’ve made. All in the name of the greater good. Fuck that. Good for who? That’s always the question. Someone always benefits and someone always suffers. There’s no way for everyone to be happy or safe or content. I’m a saint to some, the very devil himself to others. It all depends on which side of the coin you find yourself on. So don’t give me this bullshit about how you don’t have#x2019;t my courage or bravery because that’s just going to piss me off. What you have is something I’ll never have. Goodness that goes bone deep. Unwavering convictions and empathy for others. You have a soul, Grace. I lost mine when I allowed myself to die and my parents to be told I no longer existed. I lost my soul when my sister died in my arms because I wasn’t there to protect her.”

Grace silenced him with a kiss. She grabbed his face and slammed her lips over his, feeding hungrily on his mouth. Tears ran freely down her cheeks until they both tasted the slight salt on their tongues.

“Stop, just stop,” she whispered brokenly. “I can’t bear that you see yourself that way.”

He pulled gently away, his eyes bleak as he stood. He believed everything he’d said so passionately. And she hated it.

She scooted forward on the couch, not willing to let him escape. She tried to stand but he wouldn’t let her, and so she pulled him back down until he was on his knees in front of her, their faces just inches apart.

She stroked his face with both hands, smoothing over his jaw and cheekbones, frantic to ease some of the pain and self-condemnation that billowed from his soul.

“Do you want to know what I see when I look at you?” she said around the knot in her throat.

He tried to look away but she held firm, turning his face, refusing to allow him to escape her gaze.

“I see a man who’s honorable. Who gave his everything to a cause he believed in. I see a man who, upon realizing that the path he’d chosen was no longer in keeping with the principles he held close, walked away and re-created himself in a role as protector, savior, leader and, yes, hero. You may not like the label, Rio, but you are a hero. You’re my hero. You’re my savior and protector. Who else would have come for me if not you? Who else would have fought for me, refusing to let me go?

“We all make mistakes, Rio. The mark of a man is how he makes up for those mistakes, and you’ve more than paid your penance.”

He leaned his forehead against hers, and for a moment

they sat there in silence, their breathing the only sound in the room.

“I’ll make you a deal,” she murmured. “I won’t think I’m unworthy of you and your love if you never ever question that you’re worthy of mine. Deal?”

Rio smiled. He kissed her long and sweet, their tongues dueling and teasing. Light touches. Loving touches. His hands were on her face just as hers were on his. Holding. Touching. Caressing.

“Deal,” he said huskily. “Now I want you to sit here while I fix you something to eat. You need to regain your strength for what lies ahead. The others will join us because we have to plan our departure.”

She tried not to flinch. She knew it had to come to an end, this idyllic escape from reality. But it didn’t stop the regret or the knowledge that her entire world could change and she could lose everything in as little as a day.

CHAPTER 31

GRACE was welcomed by Rio’s team members with great enthusiasm. They all gathered to sit at the bar in the kitchen while Rio fried up hamburgers. They spent several minutes grilling her on her condition, how she was feeling and if she was going to be okay.

Smiling, she assured them that she would be fine.

Rio let them fuss over Grace for a period of time and then he effectively put a halt to any lighthearted banter by announcing that they were pulling out.

The men immediately becamer all business.

“What’s the plan?” Terrence asked.

Rio stood over the stove eyeing his team with utter seriousness. “I feel like they’re getting close. It’s a gut feeling and I don’t want to take any chances. My main reason for coming here was to give Grace time to heal. This isn’t where I want to engage Titan. There are some advantages. This our home turf. We know the lay of the land. But we don’t have the manpower necessary, and if Sam sends in Steele or we have all of KGI pouring in here, if Titan didn’t already know where we were, they sure as hell would at that point.”

“Makes sense,” Diego agreed.

“Plus we’re a man short,” Alton said grimly.

“Doesn’t matter,” Decker said. “We’ll get the job done.”

“We’re good,” Rio said matter-of-factly. “But not that good. Against a group like Titan, we’re going to need all the manpower we can get. You can bet your asses they aren’t coming to a fight with only a few good men. They’ll come with the best and they’ll come to win. Which is why we’re going to rendezvous with Sam. He’s calling in all we’ve got on this one.”

Grace’s brows came together in confusion. She put a hand up to massage her temple because this whole thing was making her crazy. Rio made it sound like they were going to schedule a damn war or something. On the count of three, everyone starts shooting. That sort of thing. It sounded…crazy.

“I don’t get it,” she said. “You make it sound so organized. How do we know when or where this happens. I mean, are you actually going to pick a place and start shooting each other?”

She couldn’t keep the horror from her voice. The very last thing she wanted was people to die because of her.

She turned to Rio, her expression pleading, but she used telepathy because she didn’t want the others to hear.

Let’s go away, Rio. Just you and me. Why couldn’t we go someplace where they’d never find us? Why do we have to involve so many people? I don’t want them to die for me. I don’t want anyone to die.

Rio used the spatula to remove the last burger from the pan, then put it aside and walked around the bar to where Grace sat. He framed her face and stared down at her, his eyes intense and sincere.

“This doesn’t just involve you, honey. If it did, then what you suggest might be the best option. But it involves Shea and, by proxy, everyone at KGI because now you and your sister both are part of us. We don’t run from a fight. It’s not what KGI is about. KGI is about family. It’s about protecting what matters the most to us. It’s about never letting anyone take what is ours. You and Shea are ours now, and we’ll protect you with our last breaths.”

“That’s straight-up righteous,” Terrence rumbled out.

Diego, Decker and Alton all nodded their agreement.

Grace shook off Rio’s hands but kept hold of one, lowering it to her lap. It was comforting. Just being able to touch him calmed her more than she could have imagined.

“I’m scared,” she admitted. “Not just scared. Terrified. For the last year, I’ve lived my life day to day, never looking ahead, never knowing if I had a tomorrow. But now…I look to the future. It’s a future I want more than I can express in words. And I’m scared to death to trade someone’s life for that bright shiny future I now dream about.”

”Diego stared at her for a long moment. “If you hadn’t already won my respect and admiration, you would have just now. It’s an unselfish person who can acknowledge that they value someone’s life over their own dreams. But here’s the thing, and maybe you already know this. Nobody made us take this mission. Rio is our leader, yeah, and we follow him. But we do it because we want to. We can walk away anytime. No one owns us. We don’t give our loyalty blindly. It’s earned, and he and KGI have earned ours. And now so have you. So while it’s admirable that you don’t want one of us to sacrifice anything for you, we’d prefer you just shut up and deal with it because we aren’t backing down from this.”

Decker grinned and Alton slapped Diego on the back. Even Terrence laughed.

“You know, Diego doesn’t always have a whole lot to say, but when he does, it’s usually something epic,” Alton said with a laugh.

Rio was smiling when Grace turned back to him, completely befuddled by their reaction.

“See?” he said. “You’re one of us, Grace. We wouldn’t leave any one of us to fight alone and we’re damn sure not going to bail on you. So get used to it. You’re not getting rid of us, and you sure as hell aren’t getting rid of me.”

Relief, light and bubbly, flooded her heart and soul. She smiled, her smile growing bigger and bigger as she glanced around to all of Rio’s men sitting at the bar.

“So when do we leave?” she asked.

RIO made the call to Sam that afternoon. He wanted to give Grace more time to rest, and he put her to bed to ensure she did just that. But his gut was screaming that they needed to move now. They didn’t have a few days to wait for Grace to rebound totally.

She’d made it out of the mountains by sheer grit and determination. She’d basically been a walking corpse. If she could do that, then she could handle what was ahead.

“Here’s the plan,” Sam said. “We’ll rendezvous at the airstrip in Virginia. We’ll take both jets to Kodiak and then boat over to Afognak Island. If they show, we’ll know. We’ll fight on our terms, our turf.”

“And your family?” Rio asked gruffly.

“I’m stashing them at Fort Campbell under heavy guard. No one in their right mind would stage an attack at a U.S. military base. It’s the safest place I can think of for them to be. Shea will be staying behind too. You may want to consider sending Grace to her.”

As much as it went against his every principle to trust Grace’s safety to anyone but himself, he also knew that it was, in fact, the safest, securest place for her to be. She wouldn’t like it, but he wouldn’t give her a choice in the matter. Plus, he’d dangle a reunion with her sister in front of her, and she would have a much harder time arguing with him then.

“We have to make this look good then,” Rio said. “If we’re going to lure Titan to Afognak Island, then we have to make damn sure they think Grace is with us. Otherwise this is a pointless endeavor—they’ll sit back and bide their time and strike when we’ve relaxed our guard.”

“Yeah, I know. I’ve already thought of that. We’re going to make P.J. be a stand-in for Grace. She has a similar build, similar coloring. It’ll kill her to have to get out of her combat boots and lose her weapons, but she’ll do her job.”

“And how do you plan to get Grace from Virginia to Fort Cnia to Fampbell safely?” Rio asked.

“I’ll call in a favor and have a pilot from Fort Campbell accompany us so he can fly Grace back to the base to meet Shea.”

“That’s not enough,” Rio said bluntly. “This isn’t a simple escort. One army pilot won’t be enough if they run into Titan.”

Sam paused for a moment. “What do you want then?”

“I want at least two other men with her. Not cops either. I’m already down a man, but if Steele’s team and the rest of KGI are going, then I can spare two of my team to go with Grace. They’re the only ones I’ll trust her with apart from myself. Terrence and Diego will go with her. They’d die before allowing anything to happen to her.”