But Mark couldn’t be objective when it came to John Callahan’s killers. He would see this as an opportunity for vengeance, and emotions rather than intellect would direct his actions. A Mark Callahan guided by his emotions might not be the best champion for the woman set to star in a snuff film later that night.
Matt knew it, too, which was why he’d had a plan ready to put into place by the time Rad’s man found her ‘‘unconscious’’ on the lawn.
Sorry, Mark.
Annabelle finger-combed her hair and said, ‘‘I have a helicopter on standby. Let’s get you out of here ASAP. I can take you straight to Honolulu and you can be out of the Islands by dawn. You and Callahan can face off another time when the odds are more in your favor.’’
Margetic frowned and looked at Rad. ‘‘What about the film?’’
Everything hinged on this moment and Annabelle tensed as she waited for Rad to respond. Finally, he said, ‘‘Call for the helicopter, Annabelle. Petar, call your cousin. Tell him to . . . cancel . . . the film and get to Honolulu.’’
Cancel the film or kill the girl? When Margetic reached for his cell phone, Annabelle gripped his arm. ‘‘Wait. It would be a huge mistake to make an unsecured call right now. Callahan is an electronic spook. He has access to all sorts of secret government gadgets, and he’ll be intercepting every call. You place that call and you’re inviting trouble. I have a better way.’’
She lifted the hem of her gown all the way to her thigh, where she removed a pen from her garter. While the men stared at her leg, she clicked the pen, then said, ‘‘There. I have gadgets, too. The helicopter is on its way. Where is this person you want to contact? If he’s close, we’ll just stop by and pick him up on our way.’’
Rad and Margetic shared a significant look. Then Rad said, ‘‘We’ll call him once we’re away from here.’’
Damn. Annabelle made a show of shrugging. ‘‘If that’s what you want, fine. But I don’t know how he’ll be able to hear you. It’s loud in a copter.’’
Petar Margetic said, ‘‘She’s right. Besides, it might be best if I assist my cousin in canceling the film. I’ll make sure it’s done right.’’
Rad pursed his lips, considering the idea, and when he nodded, Annabelle jumped in. ‘‘Where should I tell my pilot to drop him off?’’
Rad gave an address, and in her ear, Matt Callahan said, ‘‘Bingo. Good job, Annabelle.’’
Minutes later, she heard the
whop whop whop
of a helicopter. ‘‘That’s it. Be ready. We want to do this as fast as we can.’’
Matt said, ‘‘Sophia has almost reached my boat. I imagine Mark will be headed your way in minutes. You will be between his position and the landing area, so you should be able to get out of there before he reaches you. The pilot’s name is Russell. Just keep a close watch. Don’t let one of those goons shoot my brother.’’
‘‘All right,’’ she said to both men. ‘‘Let’s go!’’ With her skirt hiked above her knees to make it easier to run, she led the way toward the copter, well aware that they were attracting a crowd—especially since Rad’s men ran with their guns out. The entire way she braced herself to see Rad go down. While it wouldn’t be a total disaster if Mark shot him at this point—they did know now where to find the girl—it was better for everyone if Rad escaped and her cover remained intact until Paulo was able to act on the information she’d pilfered. That way they stood a better chance of bringing down Radovanovic’s sexual-slavery operation and Mark wouldn’t be facing a murder charge in Hawaii.
But when they bounded into the helicopter, she could see her husband running toward them, his arms and legs pumping like an Olympic sprinter’s. Then when it became obvious he couldn’t catch them, he stopped and took aim at Rad—until Annabelle put herself between the two men.
As the helicopter lifted off the ground, she elbowed Rad’s bodyguard to keep him from taking a shot, then finger-waved to her husband. Moonlight illuminated the impotent fury that exploded in his expression as he stared up at the helicopter.
She sucked in a breath.
Whoa.
Ordinarily, she would not feel safer inside a helicopter filled with murdering Eastern European gangsters than she would down on the ground with her husband. But then, nothing about tonight had been ordinary, had it?
Annabelle grinned.
Chapter Three
Mark held his peace for a good eighteen hours. He popped peppermints rather than speak after he rendezvoused with Luke and they made their way to the rocky beach where Matt had grounded the Zodiac. He maintained his cool when Annabelle’s local team informed him that they had rescued the hostage, a seventeen-year-old Russian girl found naked and bound in a vacation home rented by Radovanovic for a month. Mark even kept the lid on his temper as he and his brothers escorted Sophia back to their beachfront suite at the Kahala Hotel on Oahu, where they all caught a nap before they put Sophia on the red-eye for the overnight trip back to Dallas.
Only after the Callahans returned to the Kahala, with the intention to order dinner and enjoy a real night’s sleep before heading home the following day, did Mark judge that the time had come to have a . . . discussion . . . with his brothers. He followed Matt and Luke into their suite, tossed his wallet, his Oakleys, and the rental-car keys on the Queen Anne coffee table, then declared, ‘‘You assholes.’’
His brothers shared a look that signaled they each had something they wanted to say, too. As the eldest, Matt took the lead. He rolled up the sleeves of his light blue sport shirt. ‘‘Excuse me? Did the numb-nuts who kept secret from his family the fact that he’s been married for four years make a comment?’’
Luke’s tone dripped sarcasm and radiated anger as he braced his hands on his hips and sneered. ‘‘Yes, Matt. The very same numb-nuts who also neglected to tell us for years that he’d had a wife and baby who died just called
us
assholes. Nervy bastard, don’t you think?’’
‘‘Don’t try to divert my attention,’’ Mark snapped. ‘‘You let Radovanovic escape.’’
Luke lifted his chin belligerently. ‘‘Damned right we did. You weren’t thinking clearly.’’
‘‘You’d have done the same goddamned thing if you had a chance to kill that bastard.’’
‘‘Not at the risk of the operation,’’ Matt fired back.
‘‘And you let him take Annabelle with him!’’ Fury surged through Mark’s veins and his chest went tight. ‘‘He could have killed her.’’
Matt folded his arms. ‘‘It was the right thing to do and if you would think instead of just react, you’d know it. Once she told me she had been part of your unit, I knew to listen to her, and I’m glad I did. Her strategic planning on the fly was brilliant. You didn’t see it because you were thinking with your dick instead of your head.’’
‘‘That’s bullshit.’’
‘‘Oh? Then why were you copping a feel in a closet?’’
Mark’s fist caught him on the jaw and sent him sprawling. Luke wasted no time to defend his older brother and his fist plowed into Mark’s face. A moment later, all three men were tumbling across the floor of the luxuriously appointed suite.
Grunts. Groans. An elbow to the gut. A fist to the belly. They rumbled and rolled just like in the old days, bumping into furniture, knocking over a flower vase, and sending a porcelain figurine crashing to the floor. Somewhere deep inside himself Mark realized he needed the physical outlet, and he wallowed in the pleasure of the pain.
Then the suite’s door opened and a pair of drop-dead-gorgeous women stepped into the room. Wearing a Hawaiian-print halter dress, redheaded Maddie Callahan shifted her toddler daughter Catherine from her right hip to her left and said, ‘‘Oh, for crying out loud. Thank God I gave birth to girls.’’
Luke’s head came up at the unexpected sound of his wife’s voice, and Mark’s fist caught the distracted man right in the eye. Matt paused in midpunch to stare stupidly at his wife.
‘‘I didn’t know fighting-about-football season had arrived already,’’ Torie Callahan wryly observed, her hand gently patting the back of Catherine’s sleeping twin, Samantha, who had a handful of Torie’s blond hair in her fist.
‘‘Larry, Curly, and Moe,’’ Maddie said, her tone partially amused, partially disgusted.
Matt dragged his hand beneath his bloody nose. ‘‘Sweetheart, what are you doing here?’’
Torie settled the toddler onto her stomach on the sofa, gently untangling the girl’s hand from her hair. She tugged at the bodice of her sleeveless green sundress, then slanted a look at Maddie. ‘‘Sounds just like a boy with his hand caught in the cookie jar.’’
Luke’s green eyes widened with worry. ‘‘Is something wrong? Is there a problem at home?’’
‘‘Everything’s fine at home,’’ Maddie replied.
Torie flashed Mark a cat-in-cream smile that he recognized as a warning. ‘‘We decided to come meet our sister-in-law.’’
Mark groaned aloud, dropped flat on his back, and banged his head against the lush carpet. ‘‘Christ. It hasn’t been twenty-four hours. What did you do, Matthew, call her from the boat?’’
‘‘Hey, I had some downtime. I missed her.’’ Matt held out his arms to Torie, winked, and said, ‘‘Aloha, Shutterbug.’’
Luckily for Mark, at that point Samantha woke up and started crying just as Catherine took note of the huge orange flower that had fallen from the spilled vase and decided to eat it. Maddie went into a minor is-it-poisonous panic as she snatched the flower from her daughter while Luke and Matt attempted to soothe the crying Samantha. Mark used the distraction to grab his shades and sneak out the door.
He wandered aimlessly around the resort, his thoughts scattered, his emotions in turmoil.
You stupid ass
. He should have realized he’d have to answer to the girls. It was bad enough that his brothers knew about Annabelle. Maddie and Torie wouldn’t let him hear the end of it.
Dammit to hell and back. Maybe he shouldn’t stop with escaping the hotel suite. Maybe he should escape the island. The state. The United States.
Wonder if I could buy a bunk on the space station.
The idea did have some merit. Watching his brothers with their wives, witnessing Luke cooing over his kids, was more than he needed to see right now. Not with Annabelle on his mind. Thoughts of his wife invariably gave rise to thoughts of his child—his own sweet baby girl, Margaret Mary, who had died before he’d ever had the chance to meet her.
Mark slumped into a wrought-iron bench in the garden area of the hotel grounds and stared out at the blue Pacific. She would be eighteen years old now, probably headed off to college. She would have been beautiful like Carrie, her mother, smart as a whip, and full of dreams and aspirations.
Instead, little Maggie was dead, killed in a car wreck along with her mother before she’d turned a month old. Because of Branch Callahan. Because Mark’s interfering, thinks-he’s-God father decided to take the baby away from Carrie while Mark was deployed during Desert Storm.
And Mark had spent the past eighteen years hating his father and running from relationships because of it. It hurt too much.
‘‘Hey, handsome.’’ Torie took a seat beside him, and clasped his hand. ‘‘Fancy meeting you here.’’
Mark slipped his sunglasses over his eyes. ‘‘Are you the designated interrogator?’’
‘‘Yes, but don’t worry. I left my thumbscrews in Maddie’s diaper bag.’’ She pulled his glasses off and looked him straight in the eyes. ‘‘We love you, Mark, and we’re worried about you. What’s going on?’’
He stared out at the ocean where the sunset painted the sky in hues of orange, crimson, and gold. Then he shrugged. ‘‘It’s no big deal. Really.’’
Torie hooked one arm of his sunglasses over the neck of his T-shirt and said, ‘‘Marriage is a big deal. Really.’’
‘‘Well, this is no real marriage.’’
‘‘Tell me about it.’’
He closed his eyes and surrendered, giving her a brief, censored account of the events in Las Vegas. When he finished, she stared at him, her eyes glittering with shock. ‘‘Let me get this straight. Did you get married because you were drunk?’’
‘‘I wasn’t drinking that night.’’
‘‘Okay, then. Had you been secretly been in love with her for years?’’
‘‘No!’’ The very idea of that made him shift nervously in his seat. ‘‘It was just a spur-of-the-moment deal for both of us.’’
No way would he tell Torie that Annabelle had a thing against premarital sex, and that, in combination with the make-out session in the closet and close proximity to a wedding chapel, had led to a marriage license signed with both their names.
‘‘So, what . . . you just left Vegas and went about your separate lives pretending it didn’t happen?’’
‘‘Not exactly. We got together every so often for a while. It worked for us.’’ He closed his eyes and recalled those stolen days. The thrill of anticipation. The excitement of watching her arrive—he’d always made a point to get there first. The laughter they’d shared. The sex. God, the sex.
For a little while with Annabelle, he’d let down his guard. He’d begun to think that maybe, just maybe . . .
Of course, that sort of thinking bit him in the ass. ‘‘Until it stopped working.’’
‘‘Why did it stop working?’’
He shoved to his feet and stuck his hands in the pockets of his cargo shorts. ‘‘I need to walk. You want to walk?’’
‘‘Sure.’’ Torie rose and strolled beside him on the path that wound through the hotel gardens.
She remained quiet, her question hanging on the air between them, while Mark attempted to put his thoughts into words. He liked that about Torie. He loved both his sisters-in-law deeply, but he and Torie clicked. Maybe her photographer’s eye allowed her to see him, to understand him, in a way that even his twin didn’t. Because he honored that connection, he chose to answer her honestly. ‘‘Annabelle decided she had that clock thing going on.’’
‘‘Clock thing?’’
‘‘Kids. She wanted kids.’’
‘‘Ah. The biological-clock thing.’’
Mark nodded, knowing he wouldn’t need to say more. Torie would get it. She knew about Carrie and the baby and the car wreck. Though Matt and Luke had established a relationship of sorts with their father, he had not. He would not. Torie understood and didn’t pester him to forgive Branch for his culpability. Without his saying another word, he knew that Torie would also understand that fatherhood wasn’t for him. Not again.