Page 82 of Sigma

“We’ll get her back, darling. We will. Just a few more hours. Just till first light.”

I crumple, sagging in his hold. “I can’t, Val. What if he hurts her?”

“He hasn’t. He won’t.”

“What is he doing? He hasn’t asked you for anything else, has he?”

A shake of his head. “I don’t know what he’s doing, but no. No word. I think he’s waiting for us to make our move.”

Sasha exits the vehicle, goes around to the back and opens the hatch. A few moments later, he’s dressed in layers of black and gray, carrying a suppressed assault rifle, wearing night-vision headgear.

“Recon,” he explains. “I make no contact, only look and see what I can see.” He flips the headgear down as he enters the shadows behind the pool of light from the vehicle’s headlights. “Remain here until further word.”

He’s gone then, melting into the shadows.

Valentine turns off the SUV, and when the lights go out, we’re bathed in the near-total darkness of a rural night. The only light is from the countless stars overhead. He leans against the hood and pulls me back against him, his arms around my chest, and we settle in to wait.

* * *

A couple hours later,a patch of shadows detaches from the darkness and resolves into Sasha’s form, flipping the night vision gear up.

“To wait was the correct decision,” he says, leaning his rifle against the hood and wiping sweat from his forehead. “This property is crawling with men. There is a guard hut a half mile down the road, three men in it. They patrol the rows along the road in pairs. There’s another guard hut every half mile, each more heavily fortified and manned than the last. The castle itself is what Lear says to us it is—impregnable. The island Gina held you on?” He waves a hand. “Pssssh. Its defenses were porous. Like a sponge,da? We had many options. Easy in, easy out—only had to kill a lot of guys. Simple.” He gestures down the road. “This?Nyet. He is smart, this one. Very careful. I am nearly caught several times. I would not assault this position without…oh, maybe thirty like us, but I would like fifty. And proper explosives. It would be a war, not only a shooting of bad guys. Many would die. Innocents would die.”

“Shit,” I hiss.

“This is why we’re waiting,” Valentine says. “This is why we’re doing what we’re doing. I’m not going to war—not that I’m not willing to, if that’s what it took to get my daughter back. But it would only end up in Rinna getting hurt. And Harris, Duke, and the guys? They’d die for us, for Rin. But they don’t need to. Baby,everyinstinct I have says to just wait. To go in at first light, just you and me. Like we said.”

I swallow hard, nod. “Okay.” I sniffle, let out a sigh. “I agree. I get it.”

Sasha puts a hand to my shoulder. “It is best, Mrs. Roth.” A rough exhale. “If I thought we had half chance of pulling off this thing, I would be first in line to take all the bullets to get Rin back. I would die to get her back. But…this plan is best.”

“I get it,” I say, suppressing the urge to snap at him. “I just don’t like it.”

“No one does,” Sasha says. “It is all of our natures to go in and shoot the bad guys. But sometimes, discretion is very truly the better part of valor, Mrs. Roth. And this is such a time.”

I turn and lean against my husband, face in his broad hard chest. “And so…we wait.”

“And so we wait,” Valentine echoes.

17

A Game No Longer

Reading is just a pretense for impatiently waiting, and a poor one at that. I read the same page a dozen times without comprehending a single word. Stubbornly, I keep at it. Force myself to read the page, slowly. And the next one.

After an hour or two of this, I give up. Pace the room, from one section of window to another, watching the sun play across the vines. A cloud occasionally floats over the sun, sending shadows dancing and twisting and skirling across the hills.

He has no movie theater, no television. I’ve never seen a single piece of electronics other than his phone.

Bored to death in a gilded cage.

I can’t help but think of him. What else is there to think about? His touch and his words, working magic on my skin, soaking my sex with heated need.

And god, his cock throbbing in my hands. The way he groaned, moved. I had him close, I know. Yet he pulled himself back from the edge. He disguised it with his domineering attitude, but at the heart of the matter, he stopped out of…concern. For me. For how I would feel. For what I want. Or rather, what he assumed I would want.

Sweet and gentle.

He doesn’t recognize the ravenous beast inside me, clearly, if he thinks that’s what I want.