She felt it snag on skin. He hissed through his teeth and grabbed for her arm. No way was she going to let that happen. Instead, she used his power against him and as his arm whooshed past her, she countered with a block, just as she’d learned as a student of Krav Maga, the discipline of Israeli martial arts her father practiced and had taught her, his only daughter, from the time she could walk.
The memory and discipline of her training settled into her bones, eclipsing the need for conscious planning. They merged, becoming one fluid series of spins, kicks, jabs and blocks. McCaffrey gave as good as he defended himself, employing a dangerous combination of lightness and power that spoke of a background in mixed martial arts. For every lock and strike she issued, he countered with a punch or kick, but she was able to finally create a pocket of space to swing the shiv out. She brought it down hard and stabbed him square in the thigh.
Grunting in pain, he stumbled back, gripping his bleeding leg.
She turned her attention to finding her fallen gun. She didn’t see it on the ground, so it had to be somewhere near the driver’s seat. She’d nearly reached the car when Logan grabbed hold of her waist. She was no match for his strength. He twisted her elbow behind her, then body slammed her face-first into the side of the car near the rear wheel. Painfully.
He pulled her back, then slammed her into the car a second time. His gun found her neck again. “Give me a reason to squeeze the trigger.”
Her mouth went dry. There was more than patriotic duty or irritation that she’d temporarily bested him behind those words, which had dripped with hate, anger. But why? She’d never seen him before, so what could he have against her on a personal level?
Besides the shiv she still held in the hand he’d twisted behind her, she had a hell of an arsenal strapped to her body under her clothes, none of which she could use at the moment. So she waited and tried to ignore the piercing pain in her twisted arm. Patience, patience...
“Got her,” he said low, as though speaking into a phone or earpiece. He rattled off their coordinates.
She gazed down the side of her leg, checking out his stance, calculating how much room she’d need to create so she could slip sideways enough to take control of his gun arm. His right knee had her leg pinned against the car. The shiv had been removed from his leg and, though the pants were torn and bloody, the blood wasn’t spreading or dripping. She must not have caught him all that deep.
She was contemplating her options to get him to loosen his hold when she spied an edge of black peeking out from beneath the cuff of her pants.
Her ankle holster.
“Roger that,” Logan said, his tone indicating he was still on the phone. She glanced over her shoulder as he pocketed the phone.
He narrowed his eyes at her, so she made a show of glancing at her ankle, as if she was considering making a play for the gun. He took the bait, following her line of sight.
“Loaded down with firepower, hmm? I’d expect nothing less. I bet you want me to squat down and get it, make it nice and easy for you to kick me in the face from that position, right?”
“A girl can dream.”
His gun scraped over her shoulder, then her back as he repositioned it between her ribs, aimed at her heart. “How about you get it, nice and slow, then drop it on the ground. I’ll stay here with my finger on the trigger.”
This guy was good. Too good. For the first time, a flutter of nerves started inside her. This was going to be harder than she thought, especially with no crew backing her up. John’s image flickered in her mind. Guess it was too much to ask for him to surprise her with a well-timed ambush.
No.
This was what she wanted—to work alone. She didn’t want to be rescued, especially by the man she’d once dreamed of spending the rest of her life with. Even now, the thought of him made her chest ache. It was stupid, pining for a man who’d conspired to kill her. But even as she thought the words, they felt hollow. Did she really believe him capable of that? The same nagging doubt she’d fought for twenty months to ignore came creeping back into her consciousness.
No. She didn’t have time for doubts and heartache, not with Rory on the loose and herself in a battle of wits with a highly trained ICE agent.
She shoved her wayward thoughts aside and gave an exaggerated squirm. “You’ll have to let go of my arm for me to get that gun.”
His hand slid to her wrist, loosening the twist, but he didn’t release her. With his mouth near her ear, he whispered, “If you try anything clever, I have no qualms about hurting you.”
She didn’t doubt it, given the way he’d threatened to pull the trigger of his gun earlier. “You must have some qualms or you wouldn’t have said that. In fact, I think you’re pretty damn offensive. You would have never said that to a man. Don’t be such a sexist pig.”
He let out a sardonic chuckle. “I couldn’t give a damn that you’re a woman. Truth is, you’re a worthy adversary, and I would’ve loved to have you on my team. It breaks my heart a little to have witnessed your fall from grace.”
There were so many questions that sprang to her mind from that comment that she didn’t know where to start. His team? She’d already figured out that he was no run-of-the-mill ICE field agent. He had the sophisticated moves and toughness of a black ops agent, which begged the question, once again, of why she’d never heard of him before today.
At a slow, deliberate pace, she bent and stretched her right hand down toward her gun. “What’s your real job with ICE?”
He tsked. “I’m sure you’ve already guessed the answer to that. You want me to tell you, anyway?”
She tugged her pant leg up, then ever so tediously unbuttoned the strap holding her backup nine millimeter in place. “Why don’t you go ahead and spell it out for me what you’re doing here and why you had a front row seat to my so-called fall from grace?”
“Did you think the need for a black ops crew disintegrated when you and your team did?”
Honestly, she hadn’t given much thought to ICE since they forced her to go on disability leave. Just thinking the term made her temper catch fire and gave her a fresh surge of adrenaline.
Closing her eyes, she visualized the position of his gun-holding arm, his stance and his height and breadth, calculating exactly how she’d need to move and strike to gain the upper hand. Then she dropped the gun between her legs, the barrel propped against the top of her right foot.
“What’s your plan with that move? Are you going to kick it up and grab it from midair?”
“Something like that.”
“It’d almost be worth letting you try that, but how about instead you shuffle it behind you.”
“I would, but I can’t move.”
He lifted his knee away from where he had her leg pinned, so she slid the gun back just as he’d asked, biding her time. She gave a start as she felt his hands on the bare skin of her waist where her shirt had pulled up from her pants. He must have spotted the belt she’d strapped to her ribs under her shirt. She remained doubled over and let him look.
“I wasn’t going
