Chapter 4
K ane eyed the spread of food on the table in Beth’s brightly lit kitchen like it was a strategic battle plan. Should he group all the snowman-themed dishes together or intermingle them with the Santas, reindeer, and gingerbread men? And what about the lone angel dish?
The security system signaled movement at the front door. Kane checked the video feed. A few moments later, Nic sauntered into the kitchen, a grin on his angular, too-handsome-for-his-own-good face.
“Channeling your inner party planner?” Nic set a case of beer on the counter. “I met one last week I could persuade to help you decorate.”
“Screw you, Romeo. Where do you think the angel should go?”
He tapped his sweater. “By the gingerbread men, of course, so she can get some action tonight.”
Linc pushed Nic aside and stalked into the kitchen. “Who the fuck cares about angels and gingerbread men?” He eyed the cake sitting on the black countertop. A small Christmas tree decorated with scarlet, silver, and gold balls sat next to it. “That doesn’t look like the stolen property on the surveillance feed.”
“It’s a replacement.” The video Nic procured from the shopping center showed a man coming out of the bakery and placing the stolen cake on Beth’s hood. His face was obscured, and the black sedan he’d climbed into had bogus plates, but at least they’d gotten something to work with.
Linc shrugged. “Looks just as sparkly, like this whole damn house. Where are the plates? I’m starving.”
Kane slapped his hand away from the divine-smelling crab dip that bubbled with gooey melted cheese on top. “Don’t touch the food until Beth gives the okay.” The aesthetic of the spread didn’t matter to Kane, but it did to Beth.
Linc held up the bottle of amber liquid in his hand. “I did my job. I brought my cousin’s moonshine that I can’t drink in case we’re needed to take care of whoever fucked with Beth. I deserve some damn food.”
Adrenaline surged through Kane. While the missions they’d completed so far were the get in, get out, quick kind like in Mexico, they could be assigned to protection duty, like the public thought they’d been established for.
Nic waved him off and looked at Kane. “How is she?”
“Shaken, but she won’t admit it.” Kane set the angel down next to a snowman. “Maybe she’ll feel better knowing you got him on video.”
“Piece of cake, pun intended.” Nic snickered at his own joke as he opened a white cabinet and found a glass. “I sent the surveillance footage to Ryan. He’s examining it to see if we can learn more about the mysterious cake stealer before he comes over.”
“Good.” Kane trusted Ryan Bradley, VIPER’s new chief information security officer. He had been instrumental in helping recover Scarlett from her kidnappers. “Did you tell anyone about what happened?”
“Scrooge over there.” Nic nodded toward Linc as he grabbed a can of soda from the refrigerator. “And Chris. He promised not to say a word to Scarlett.”
Beth’s security system beeped another alert. Kane checked the video feed and smiled as he Chris lead his bride-to-be through the front door.
Scarlett took off her coat as she waved from the threshold. “Where’s Beth?”
Kane directed the slim genius in the pretty red dress to the stairs.
She lifted to her toes and kissed Chris’s cheek. Something heavy settled in Kane’s gut as Chris wrapped his hand around her long, blonde ponytail and kissed her like she was the sustenance he needed to survive. The boulder in his gut grew heavier as he watched Chris track his fiancé up the stairs with a lethal blue gaze. With her safety still at risk from the terrorists who tried to kidnap her, Chris didn’t let her out of his sight. When he deployed on missions, a VIPER support team member was assigned to protect her.
How did Scarlett and Chris smile, fuck in the shower, and enjoy life, knowing happiness could end tomorrow?
He thought of Jenna’s last words to her husband.
“No regrets.”
Kane knew from experience regret could consume even the strongest person. Once it gnashed its poisoned teeth into a heart, drank from its soul, and spit it out, nothing but a shell remained.
Chris strode into the kitchen. “Whoa! That’s a lot of Christmas creatures.” He reached for a cracker with his steel hand.
Linc slapped his arm away. “Don’t touch that. The party- planning elf upstairs made Kane her bitch. He’ll have a hissy fit if you touch the spread.”
Chris flipped up his middle finger. “Where’s your Christmas spirit?”
“Left it back home in Alaska with the rest of Santa’s Eskimos.”
“Santa has elves, not Eskimos, you bah humbug.”
“Whatever.” Linc headed for the living room. “Let me know when we can eat.”
Nic followed. “Fucking moody pilots.”
Kane watched his two brothers sit on the couch and stretch out their super legs. Two on Linc and one on Nic. Four deadly limbs in total when you counted Nic’s arm. While Kane didn’t like that the cake stealer knew where Beth lived, the asshole wasn’t getting past those two.
Or any of them.
He may have one super leg, and Chris only had one super arm, but they were plenty deadly, even when their weaponry wasn’t activated. He’d only need the enhanced strength engineered into his body to neutralize a threat in an instant.
A smile tugged at Kane’s mouth as he rubbed the seam on his hip where steel met flesh. He knew it sounded childish to refer to their cybernetically engineered appendages as super. Scarlett usually rolled her wide green eyes when they said it, but the weapons seamlessly melded into their bodies were scientific miracles. They had every right to call themselves and their awesome-as-fuck appendages whatever they wanted and to use humor as a coping mechanism, considering the trauma that preceded their arrival at Project VIPER.
Their wounded warrior status also came in handy when they went out for a drink after a long day at VIPER headquarters, at least for him and Nic. Now that Chris was engaged, he went home to Scarlett. Since meeting Beth, Kane had ditched the bar scene too, but for a very different reason. And when Linc decided to join them for a drink, he typically sat in the corner with a scowl on his face.
Kane turned to Chris. “Linc’s moodier than usual.”
Chris stared into his bottle of water. “Can’t say that I blame him.”
Neither could Kane. He knew what happened to Linc in the Middle East during the holidays. The Alaskan with the spiky platinum hair and glacial blue eyes that matched his bristly, cold demeanor had every right to want to ride out the season piss drunk on his cousin’s moonshine, but he abstained for Beth because he considered her family.
The reminder that Kane should consider her family too should stop visions of sugarplums from dancing naked in his head. So should the glares she’d been sending his way each time they’d been in the same space since their not-quite-date.
As if on cue, the sugarplum floated into the living room. This vision didn’t look like a sweet fairy though. She looked more like a lush strawberry with decadent whipped cream on top in her red, sparkly miniskirt and white fluffy sweater. Wondering how sweet she’d taste hardened his cock quicker than it took Santa to get down a chimney.
The security system beeped as guests approached the house. Kane glanced at the video feed on his phone.
Chris eyed the device. “Dare I ask why you have access to Beth’s security system?”
“Nope.” He wasn’t even sure of the answer himself other than the fierce need he felt to protect a woman he didn’t want a future with from a threat he knew nothing about.
“She’s vulnerable, you know.”
“I know.” But vulnerable wasn’t a word he’d use to describe Dr. Beth Parker. Contagious energy, like a burst of positive, glittery vibes, detonated when she walked into a room. Whatever scars she had, she hid them well, but he’d endured enough trauma in his life, the worst of it before his leg had been blown from his body, to recognize the signs in someone else. And tonight, he’d seen the gun in her hand when he’d tapped on her window. “Are you ever going to tell me who she’s afraid of?”
“I’ve already told you; it’s her story to tell. And don’t go turning on the wounded warrior country boy charm you wield like a superpower. She’s off-limits.”
“Got it.” As much as his body wanted to argue the point, he couldn’t. He’d witnessed the pain and fear that clouded Beth’s eyes. She needed someone stable in her life. Not a human weapon made to kill or die trying.