Sanctuary 02 - The Only Easy Day (CMS) (MM) (9 page)

"So why is it that Robert, this nephew, wants to roll on the senator and his brothers?" Joseph wasn't a great believer in the purity of a soul. There had to be an angle somewhere. No one answered him, and blinking, he looked up from the photos to see Morgan's expression of discomfort. "What?" he said quickly. What wasn't being said? It was Dale that finally answered.

"Robert was Elisabeth's boyfriend." 

Nik drove him back to his Jeep, but they didn't exchange much in the way of conversation. Joseph had to get his head around everything that had been told to him.

Elisabeth had never mentioned Robert in any of her emails; well, those that got through anyway.

"The offer of a room still stands," Nik said as Joseph climbed out of the car. He stopped and took a few seconds to consider then looked back in.

"I work best on my own," he offered. He was lying; he worked best with the team around him that he trusted with his life. These guys he had met tonight weren't his team—they were nothing more than a means to an end.

Morgan too vulnerable, Nik way too focused on Morgan and Dale… Hell, he was like tinder in a dry storm waiting to ignite.

"For Morgan's sake…" Nik's voice trailed away, and he closed his eyes briefly. "I've kept him safe from them. Please don't kick the hornet's nest and bring all the shit down on him."

Joseph frowned and stood away from the car. "What is it you think I am going to do?"

"I'm not an idiot, Joseph. You would do what I would do for my family. Just… remember there are other people involved."

"Nik—"

"What is it you SEALs say? The execution of my duties will be swift and violent?" Joseph's stomach turned.

That sentence on its own was harsh and black on white. Nik missed out the rest of the sentence about SEALs being guided by the very principles they served to defend. Joseph wasn't going to add it. "We need to get this family through legal means." Joseph bristled.

"I can't—"

"Promise me you will stop and think how this impacts others."

He didn't answer. He couldn't promise anything.

Morgan meant nothing to him beyond any other civilian he needed to protect. Not only that, he had information to share with Dexter and Fuentes.

New names for the list.

And one in particular. Robert Bullen.

* * * *

Dale had had enough. He wasn't stopping to listen to any more of Morgan's conviction that Joseph
freaking
Kinnon needed to be anywhere near this case. A trigger-happy SEAL on furlough had created the situation that ended in three people dead and him leaving the service.

First on scene, Dale had been the newbie sent in to control the situation. PTSD had been the label attached to that bloodbath, and it had been far from pretty to see. The beginning and the end of Dale's Navy career had been in that single room. Still he knew SEALs had their place.

Hell, all of these special ops's plausible deniability crap was necessary. A country fought fire with fire and needed those willing to go past the point of no return, but that didn't mean the US of A needed them on home soil.

Morgan had tried to stop Dale from leaving tonight.

But, after Nik had returned from taking the sailor where he needed to be, Dale was exiting the building. He knew where Joseph was. Like all Sanctuary vehicles, Nik's truck had a tracker, and within twenty minutes, Dale was outside Joseph's building with Nik's warning to leave it all the hell alone ringing in his ears. There was no proof that Navy had left the Hotel or that he was inside.

He wasn't planning on covert entry—he was an ex-SEAL not a ghost—and in seconds, he was in the lobby of the night-darkened building. He pushed back an instinctive yawn and a small part of him craved his bed. Flashing his credentials, which weren't exactly official or in any sense real, he asked which room the guy who had just returned was in and had a reply in the time it took for the young desk clerk to check the screen. No sense in using the name Kinnon to describe the thorn in his side. Who the hell knew what name he was using?

Bypassing the elevator, he took the stairs two at a time and was outside Kinnon's door in less than a minute.

He knocked and waited, then when the door opened to let him in, he took a step inside to stop the door closing on him. Kinnon was already sitting at the small desk, with one hand resting on the desktop. Dale catalogued the gun in the other hand.

"Should have just saved yourself the time and driven me back," Kinnon said as he inclined his head. Dale shut the door and leaned back against it. His expression was inscrutable and unyielding, and Dale wondered just how far he was going to have to go to get Joseph to back off from this whole situation.

"This is your last chance," Dale said succinctly.

"You need to leave. Go back to Oceana with your sailor buddies and let us deal with this." There. That was the best he could do without pulling out his gun and threatening the guy with physical harm. 

Kinnon tapped the gun against his knee and, for a brief second, gave the impression he was actually considering leaving. Concentration made his gray eyes narrow, and he leaned back in his seat.

"Do you have family? A brother? A sister?" he asked instead. Dale was thrown for a second, and his mouth gave an answer before his brain was fully in gear.

"My sister. The ADA you met."

Kinnon whistled and leaned forward in the chair."

Your sister is the hot woman who gave me fuck all to work with?"

Dale wasn't sure what gripped his gut harder, the hot comment or the fuck all comment. Either way his barely held together temper rose another notch. This wasn't like him to lose control so quickly, and he couldn't for the life of him see what it was about Kinnon that pressed so many buttons. Counting backwards from ten, he held his tongue, made even harder when the other man leaned back in his chair and chuckled.

"Leave my sister alone," Dale warned. He realized he was coming across like a big brother warning off a new boyfriend, but the words were from his heart. He didn't want this trained killer anywhere near the only family he had. Kinnon uncurled himself from the chair and placed his Sig on the desk, then hooking his thumbs in his dark jeans, he pressed every single button Dale had where his sister was concerned.

"If you were in my position what would you do?

What if there was a bad guy and your sister got in his way.

He hires a shooter." Joseph took a step closer, and Dale saw heat in his eyes. "Your sister has pretty brown eyes. So would you let this guy live if he made her kneel and then put a bullet through one of those eyes—"

Dale reacted instinctively. In seconds he was in Kinnon's space with his fists curled and anger so red hot in his blood he could imagine it burning his skin. He twisted his fingers in the shorter man's dark shirt, spitting words at him.

"Leave my sister out of this."

Kinnon used some kind of move that left Dale with his back against the wall and Kinnon's arm across his throat. He felt the strength in the other man who held him still, even as he struggled hard to escape the grip.

"Tell me what you would do."

"Stay out of this. Go the fuck home."

"Tell me." Kinnon's face was mere inches from his, and his gray eyes were brimming with barely constrained threat. 

"No."

"What would you do if I killed your sister?"

Dale pushed with every single curl of energy inside him, and Joseph staggered back with a look of surprise on his face, which quickly morphed to anticipation. Dale didn't stop. If he gave the sailor an inch, it would be Dale sitting at the end of a gun. Instinct pushed through calm, and Dale let loose with punches, at least fifty percent hit target. The satisfaction of skin and muscle impacting his fist pulled a primal kill urge from deep inside him and he was lost.

Kinnon's face was replaced by the SEAL who had killed that family—the ex-wife who had dared to remarry, the new husband, and their new child, no more than a few months old, killed by an accurate bullet. Dale never had the chance to ask why death had been the only solution when the SEAL turned his gun on himself. And now… it was his face, then it was Joseph, then it was his sister, and the rage fell upon him like fire.

Kinnon allowed a few punches. He rolled with them and, at one point, staggered back at the sheer body weight advantage Dale had over him. Only a few inches, but where Joseph was slim and spare, Dale had the upper body strength of a man who worked out on a regular basis.

Satisfaction flooded Dale at the look of surprise on Kinnon's face.

Words tore from Dale's throat. Guttural and raw, they impacted the air around him like explosions of hate.

"I'd kill for her."

Kinnon was losing. Kinnon was backing down and instinct forced his hand. He pushed this advantage, primal noises coming from him with each punch. Rational thought was wiped out in an instant of red mist, and he reeled as Kinnon ducked and threw a punch that caught him on the side of his ribs, followed by a punch to the face and a kick to his knee. Fuck. The pain burned like acid, and the breath was forced from his body. He no longer knew why he was beating on this man as his body desperately clawed for oxygen. He only knew he was fighting for a win, and he put everything behind the push for final contact. Except, suddenly his fist was forcing its way into thin air with his entire body mass behind it, and shocked, he found himself sprawled on the floor in an ungainly, non-breathing heap.

Where the hell had his SEAL training gone? He was like some pathetic civilian.

Then Kinnon was there, pinning him to the floor with a hold that he couldn't escape, and he really was fucked. He focused on the blood that trickled from the victor's split lip, and a certain male pride washed over him that he had done that to a serving SEAL. It didn't matter that Kinnon had probably allowed that to happen to control the whole fucking thing.

"Finished?" Joseph said tiredly.

"My sister—" Dale started with renewed anger.

Kinnon wasn't letting him speak though. "Is on the list of people I protect, you asshole. What do you think I freaking do for this country? Go around hitting on and then murdering women?"

"I was never assigned out of the US, but I know what the fuck you do."

"Are you done?" Kinnon tightened his grip, and Dale couldn't help the exhalation of air at the pain in his side.

"Jeez, Kinnon, did you break my fucking ribs?" he managed to force out.

"Hell no, I took it easy on you."

"Fuck if that was easy." He peered up at the man currently sitting on his stomach. There was a definite smirk on his face, and Dale groaned at seeing that look. Freaking frog and his crazy skills in hand-to-hand combat. "Seems private bodyguards have moves too you know," he offered, and Kinnon narrowed his eyes at that. He released one of his hands and experimentally touched his lip. Dale swore Kinnon winced.

"I can see that. Just proves even an ex-SEAL remembers some of the shit he was taught." He added the last almost conversationally. The realization that Kinnon had somehow found that he was an ex-SEAL in the space of the few minutes since leaving the safe house was just an indication that someone was backing Kinnon's play on this.

Probably his entire team at Oceana. He was right though about remembering the training—BUD/s was ten percent physical and ninety percent mental. Dale's body might be less than at its peak, as it had been then, but he was still in freaking good shape, and mentally he was doing okay as well.

"Once a SEAL…"

Dale didn't need to finish that sentence. Violence might have pulled the red mist around Dale, but he wanted to take advantage of the feel of the tight muscled physique of a man pinning him to the ground. His dick was certainly into the whole situation, filling and swelling and only inches from where Mr Hero was sitting on his stomach.

Great. Only he would pop a boner after being put in his place by a man who was a freaking SEAL. It didn't help that Joseph was so gorgeous—all dark hair and tanned skin and muscle. Add to that those seriously beautiful gray eyes and long eyelashes and Dale couldn't have stopped the inappropriate reaction in his body if he'd tried. Jeez. If he wasn't careful, the freaking frog would dial into his kink of being held down damn quickly. Bastard.

"Why did you get out?" Kinnon asked, and Dale pushed at him experimentally.

"Let me up, asshole."
Before you feel how hard I am
getting and I either insult your sexuality or jump your
bones.

Kinnon moved off him. Dale clambered to stand by pulling on the bed, and the rush of blood to his head had him grabbing at the quilt. He refused Joseph's help; it was a pride thing.

"Why did you quit?" Joseph repeated.

Dale's first reaction was to turn around and tell Joseph to go to Hell, but something in Joseph's curious expression made him pause.

"It's no secret really. First out of the box, new to my team and even before my first deployment, I was told to bring in Lieutenant Christian Harris." He didn't have to say anything else. Understanding flooded Joseph's face quicker than ice melting in the sun.

"Shit." Every SEAL knew about Harris and what had happened that day. The SEAL had arrived back in the US after being a POW and found out his wife was with another partner and they had a new baby. "Was it you…"

"I tried to stop him, and we struggled for the gun, but he shot me point blank. I was wearing my vest but…"

"Yeah." Joseph rubbed at his own chest in sympathy. Wearing a vest might save your life, but getting shot at close range hurt like a bitch.

"He gunned down the ex-wife, the new husband, then turned the gun on himself."

"I remember." The two men sat in silence for a while. Dale considered apologizing then realized he still didn't like Joseph that much. Kinnon, to give him his due, didn't ask what had happened next or ask Dale to verbalize why he left the SEALs and took the out he was given as soon as he could. The sideways step into Sanctuary was exactly what he had to do.

"I'm not him, you know," Kinnon finally said. "I'm not a murderer like Christian Harris. I have control." Dale dismissed the words with a shake of his head.