Chapter Eight
Ben saw the glint of metal coming from the trees a hundred feet away and shot out of the car. As much as Ian Taggart was a pain in his ass, he wasn’t about to allow Kenzie’s father to die on his ridiculously large front lawn.
Even as he tackled the mass of muscle, he admired the softness of the grass and how well kept that sucker was.
He thanked the universe they weren’t doing this on concrete outside the office building because while the guy was in good shape, there was a reason people his age talked endlessly about their hips and sciatica.
He hadn’t expected Kenzie to come from wealth.
He’d thought she would be one of those brilliant poor kids who had no family and a flexible moral character that all intelligence agencies preferred.
But no, she had grown up on this beautiful compound with two loving parents and a family that rallied around her whenever she needed them.
Unlike his, who asked him not to contact them again. Who told him it was his fault they’d had to go into hiding.
He rolled with the big guy, who seemed to have figured out shit was going down.
“Dad, Ben, get behind the car,” Kenzie called out. “Stay down.”
Thank fuck Kenzie drove a solid SUV.
She would be out of the line of fire if she stayed on the driver’s side. She would huddle down while he found a way to deal with the situation.
Taggart managed to get behind the car. “She wanted one of those clown cars. Like a two-seater that wouldn’t fit most of the guys she’s dated. Hey, sweetie, you’re liking the Bronco now, aren’t you?”
She was silent and Sosa was suddenly with them, and she was smiling like this was the best day. He hadn’t actually seen her smile before. It was a bit creepy. “They think that I am dead. They would never send other girl if I am not dead.”
She wasn’t thinking straight. “Or they sent the other girl to clean up your mess, including killing you.”
Where was Kenzie? She should have crawled back here by now.
Sosa’s jaw dropped. “That is…”
She launched into a litany of what had to be Russian curses.
Taggart sighed and had his cell phone in hand.
“Baby, we did not make it out. Yeah, they’re making house calls now.
She’s in the trees. I might have mentioned the trees were a bad idea.
But don’t worry. Kenz is taking care of it.
The last thing we need is you strapping our grandchild on your chest and climbing on the roof to snipe her.
” There was the sound of a bullet tearing through metal and then a hiss.
“Damn it. There goes the tire. I swear to god I will take Manny Huisman’s heart out and crap on it before I stuff it down his throat. ”
“You should take crap in his mouth before you take heart. He will be dead if you take heart and will not to be caring. Then all you get out of this is clean bowels,” Sosa said like that was a fucking normal thing to say.
Also, what had Taggart said? Kenzie was doing what?
“Yeah, the kid’s right. I need to up my fiber intake, baby,” Taggart was saying.
He had been transported to Planet Surreal.
So yeah, Kenz had been raised in privilege, but she also had to put up with this. No wonder she ended up at the Agency.
Where the hell was Kenzie? Ben pulled the SIG from its place under his jacket and started to ease from behind the SUV. “Kenz?”
Sosa leaned back against the bumper. “She goes after other girl. She is fast in those boots. It’s surprising.”
She went after the sniper who had the higher ground? His heart rate ticked up. He was cold as ice. They literally called him the Ice Man, and here he was freaking out because his girl was trying to take down an assassin dressed in stripper boots and a mini skirt that barely covered her pretty ass.
“I’m going after her, but you should understand that we’re going to have a long talk, Mr. Taggart,” Ben said as he eased around Sosa. “You let her run wild, and that is not going to happen on my watch.”
Taggart nodded, leaning back against the SUV.
That was when Ben realized there was blood on Taggart’s lower leg.
“Yeah, buddy, you go for it. I have a couple of liability waivers I’d like you to sign.
You should also know that I’m willing to send her in with ten goats and a couple of chickens and her gassy dog as her dowry. ”
“How bad is it?” Ben asked quietly since it seemed like everything had gone silent. He had to tamp down his panic because he had wounded.
“I mean you haven’t been around that dog when he gets in the trash. Bud Two can clear a… Ah, you mean my leg. It grazed my calf. I’ll survive, but I’ll need help walking until I stabilize it,” Taggart admitted.
“I will put pressure on.” Sosa pulled the sweatshirt over her head, revealing a white T-shirt she wore. It had a logo on it. Top. The restaurant Kenzie had met him at. After her twin had sent him there.
Should he leave his maybe, probably future father-in-law with the chick who’d tried to blow up his car yesterday? Damn it. Kenzie was getting her ass smacked.
Could he spank her for essentially doing her job?
“It’s fine,” Ian assured him. “She’s not a bad kid, and she knows I’m going to be more helpful to her personally alive than dead.”
“I will not be hurting anyone,” Sosa assured him. And then sat up straight. “Mr. Ian, do you still have cell phone?”
“Yours?” Kenzie’s father pulled it out of his pocket. “You know I think it’s a bad idea to call base. Right now they can’t be sure you’re not dead, although your friend in the trees will tell them.”
She shook her head. “No base. I think I know who they will send, and she will not tell them. I am not supposed to know this number she uses, but I do. I have small group of friends. We try to make things not so bad for each other.”
Taggart handed her the phone.
Ben eased his head around the left side of the SUV, trying to figure out where Kenzie had gone.
A bullet hit the ground not an inch from him.
So many spankings. How long could he go? He worked out. As exercises went, the motion was probably one he could keep up for a long time.
Sosa dialed a number and put the cell to her ear.
Then dialed again. And a third time before someone picked up.
“Gabby, it’s Sosa. No, I am not dead. Like he could kill me.
No, I find the target and he turns out to be nice man who wants to help us.
Like we always talk about. He is spy with many contacts, and his wife is one of us.
Not one of you because you are actually French, but she know about us and wants to help.
Also, his daughter is Bratz doll, and she’s stalking you now.
Come out of tree. They have the Pop-Tarts and you can have all the bread you want, and they have many streaming channels. ”
Ben sighed. His life depended on traumatized girls who wanted to escape a low-carb diet and binge watch some shows.
“Hey, tell her I’ll take her to Costco and she can buy out the bread section,” Taggart snarked.
Sosa’s eyes widened as though he’d offered her the world. “Yes, he say he has Costco card.”
Then there was a scream and Ben no longer cared someone was going to shoot him. He stood and started running for the tree line. Kenzie couldn’t be hurt. He wouldn’t even think about her being dead.
Kenzie had someone on the ground and they were tussling. “Zhalkiy gadyonysh. Lezhat’, a to budet khuzhe.”
The other girl was on her belly, and there was a sniper rifle about three feet from her hands along with a backpack that had obviously fallen since it had spilled out across the grounds.
He was pretty sure Kenz had climbed up that tree and hauled her prey down.
Damn, she was hot when she was fighting. Also, he was pretty sure she still wasn’t wearing underwear.
The young woman Sosa referred to as Gabby’s head came up, and a flash of hope hit her eyes. “Mister, please help me. I was bird watching and this crazy Russian woman is trying to kill me. My friend Sosa is here. She will tell you.”
Ben holstered his gun since it looked like Kenz had this one. “Her name is Gabby, babe, and I don’t think she speaks Russian.”
“No, she is not smart enough.” Sosa was suddenly beside them, and she was allowing Taggart to balance against her shoulder.
She’d tied her sweatshirt across his injured leg.
“She only to be speaking French and English. Her Russian is not good. French is bullshit so we use English, which is also bullshit, but it wasn’t English man who sells me out so here we are. ”
“They told me you were dead.” Gabby’s English was way better than Sosa’s. “Could someone tell the Bratz doll not to kill me?”
Kenzie’s eyes held a deeply enraged flame that he hoped never to see again. His baby could only be pushed so far. He needed to calm her down.
“You are not a Bratz doll, baby. You are the sexiest fuck toy ever created. You’re Spy Barbie, and I will give up all my secrets if you let that one go,” he said in a soothing tone. “Although you look hot like that. Damn, baby, you are fierce.”
“Like a model?” Kenzie asked, her eyes narrow.
“Like a psycho,” Gabby complained.
“Like you could be on Vogue right now,” Ben replied.
He was dealing with a gorgeous beast. He thought he’d seen this part of Kenzie before, but that had almost always been her twin.
So much so he’d questioned if Kala was always the one to do the dirty work and Kenzie handled anything that needed a softer touch but no, here she was.
There was a part of this woman who relished the kill when she thought it was justified.
Which it wasn’t here. She would feel bad later. “Baby, she’s a kid.”
Gabby frowned. “I am not a kid.”
Ben pointed to one of the items that had fallen to the yard when their tussle had taken them out of the trees. “Then why do you carry around a teddy bear?”