“I can feel her. She’s very upset. I’ve tried to reach out to her mind, but she isn’t answering me. Whatever is happening, she doesn’t want me to know about it.” Ken’s voice was strained. “And if she doesn’t want me to know about it, something bad is going on.”
Jack automatically touched his mind, as he’d been doing since they were toddlers, just as Ken knew he would. Ken was prepared and kept his shields high. It wasn’t easy keeping Jack at bay; they’d been shadows in each other’s mind for as long as either could remember, but both had worked hard to build shields once they became aware others had psychic power as well—and the practice paid off.
Jack didn’t need to know just how close to cracking he was. In that moment, Ken didn’t care about the other women, or even any innocents working as techs, researchers, or guards. If Mari didn’t let him know she was all right very soon, he was going in after her, and God help anyone who got in his way. He felt murderous, not cold and unemotional. Discipline was going out the window fast.
“Ken, you think I don’t know how you’re feeling with her locked up with madmen?” Jack crawled into a better position, his gaze sweeping the route the guard had taken.
“Whitney went after Briony because she was pregnant; he wasn’t stripping her na**d and laying her out on an exam table for some perverted doctor to photograph. Damn it, Jack, I could feel him touching Mari. He wasn’t acting like any doctor I’ve ever met. And Whitney has men in there willing to rape a woman if she isn’t cooperative.” The knots in his belly tightened into hard lumps that threatened to climb higher and choke him.
“You have to step back, bro,” Jack said, keeping his voice steady. “We’ll get the intel and get the women out as soon as possible.” Ken didn’t answer, and Jack sighed and glanced over at him. “You know I’ll go in with you and pull her out if anything goes wrong. Tell her that, give her something to hang on to.”
“If I told her that, she’d freak on me. She’s willing to sacrifice herself for the other women. She considers them family and she’s not going to willing come without them.”
“Then we make it work,” Jack said. “I wouldn’t leave you behind. We can’t ask her to do something we wouldn’t be willing to do ourselves. She wouldn’t be able to live with herself.”
Ken bit back a retort. He hated it, but he knew Jack was right. He wanted to go in and haul Mari out over his shoulder and lock her somewhere safe, but he couldn’t do that to her—at least not right now. She wouldn’t be able to live with herself if something happened to the other women, so that meant getting them all out before he went off the deep end and took her out without her consent—which would make him nearly as bad as everyone else who had taken her life away from her. He had to give her time and the opportunity to get those she considered family safely away.
Mari was a woman who wanted control of her life—deserved control of her life. He was a man whose entire being demanded that he be the one in utter and complete control of those around him. He knew it appeared to people that Jack seemed the dominant twin, always in the lead, but Ken had realized early on that Jack needed to feel in control, in much the same way Mari did, and he had stepped back, watching over his brother carefully, always protecting him, providing the environment Jack needed.
Ken tried to remember when he’d first made the decision to be Jack’s front man in social situations—it had to be right after their father had been killed. He had cultivated a smooth smile and quick intervention. Jack, like Ken, was a dead-on accurate shot. It was a gift both had been born with. They worked well as a team, each looking out for the other, Ken allowing Jack whatever he needed to be able to survive. But to do the same for Mari was impossible. He needed her to be safe. He needed that.
“We came in using the river to avoid detection, but our team will need to use high altitude, low opening parachutists,” Ken said. “You know they aren’t going to look up unless they hear something, and they won’t hear a thing if our boys come in using HALO. Our team is trained, and I’d rather use them then people we’re not as familiar working with. We can pull a few strings and cancel a commercial flight at the last moment. There’s enough regular air traffic over the area that no one’s going to perceive a threat if we take the commercial flight path and altitude. Whoever is doing the monitoring will never suspect a thing.”
Jack nodded. “Definitely the best plan. The guards are not alert. Nothing’s shaken them up in the last couple of years.”
“Ryland’s men can back us up, but call in Logan and tell him we want our unit for this one.”
Jack nodded in agreement. “That’s a given, Ken, and already done. The men know it’s personal to you, and they’re already assembled and waiting for the intel. They’re not going to let you down.”
Ken knew Jack was right, but it didn’t unravel the knots in his belly. “I’m checking the doctor’s house. He just went in.” He indicated the small bluff overlooking the cottages. “I’ll work my way down to that point and go in from there. You cover me.”
“Checking the doctor’s house for what?” Jack asked. “You can’t just go in there and blow this for us.”
“He took pictures of her.”
“That’s his job. He had to have left them in the laboratory.”
“I’m making certain. And I’m going to find out where in the laboratory he left them.”
“Damn it, Ken. You can’t take a chance on tipping anyone off to the fact that we’re here. Just stay put.”
“He’s got pictures and he knows where the other pictures are. He touched her, Jack—when she was helpless and he was supposed to be examining her impersonally—he touched her.”
Mari had toned her emotions down, had even pulled away from him, but not before he’d caught the distaste, the feeling of utter helplessness, the mixture of sorrow, despair, and impotent rage that he knew intimately. He couldn’t get Mari out of there and away to somewhere safe in that moment, but he sure as hell could pay the doctor a little visit. He might never be able to give Mari all the things she deserved—like a stable, easygoing partner—but he could hand the pictures—and her dignity—back to her.
Jack rubbed his mouth to keep from protesting. Nothing was going to stop Ken and Jack couldn’t blame him. If it was Briony, the man would already be dead. For the first time in his life, Jack feared for his brother’s sanity. Mari was an unknown, but she was his wife’s twin sister and his brother’s chosen woman and that made her both important and a threat to his family’s well-being.