13. Zach

THIRTEEN

Zach

"What the fuck was that?" I shouted at my idiot partner.

Kai backed up, prodding his face to check for damage. "Jesus, Zach."

My blood boiled as I stared at him, disbelief and anger simmering beneath the surface, but my lips still tingled from the unexpected kiss. How could he do that shit? What was that even? We were supposed to start a bar fight, not make out in front of them.

I clenched my fists, every muscle in my body tensing with the urge to lash out. "I had it handled, and that shit was reckless, unnecessary."

"I made an operational decision."

"Kai—"

"They were going to take you out back and show you what real men are like, their words, not mine, Red , and I stopped them by laying claim."

"Stop calling me Red." I loomed over him, a head taller, and gripped his upper arms. "And what kind of twisted logic is you laying claim!"

He shrugged. "This way you have the protection of KD Raynes, with his documented backstory of murder, drugs, and sex, Zach ," he drawled.

From the moment I'd met Kai, the smooth, languid cadence of his words—each syllable rolling off his tongue with a soft, melodic drawl—was sexy. Hell, I'd found it sweet and soothing at first—until we'd fucked, and now just the way he said my name made my temper spike. I didn't have to be a therapist to know I had issues and regrets, but his damn voice was reminding me of too many things I needed to forget.

Not only that, but he was talking about protecting me ? From anyone else this short and annoying, it would be an insult to my ego, even if I knew the lethal shit Kai could pull. I'd seen him take down four men in the time it took me to take down one—I'd seen him fight so hard our targets didn't know what had hit them, and through all of it he was the one in control. I admired Kai's skills, but I didn't like Kai. His prickly exterior was a constant source of frustration, his defenses up at all times, as if daring anyone to challenge him. If there was a hate-hate situation outside the mission, then we were the very definition of it. But was that his fault or mine? He'd followed me to find Kerry without question. He had my back in all things. We were a team. It was me who'd messed everything up.

Still, for fuck's sake, I was mortified, turned on, and just plain pissed about it all.

I do not want sex with Kai. Liar.

"I don't need your protection as Kai or KD. I'm here to work comm and stay off the fucking radar." My cover was a visiting environmental researcher. I was in position as Kai's handler, staying in this rented house because I was in town on a fake contract, and working the intel Kai passed to me. I was comm, not some bit player in this half-assed play Kai had come up with. In my mind we took Viper out, but no, he wanted it to look natural, and although I'd reluctantly agreed, my mind raced, trying to make sense of it all. "This was a fucking stupid idea." I scrubbed my eyes. "I don't know why I even agreed to it."

"Because you knew it was a good idea."

"We had a script!"

"We had to take out Viper to get me in to replace him."

"I fucking know that," I snapped.

"It's your fault," Kai said.

"The fuck?"

"I clearly laid out that you were supposed to start a fight with them, get their backs up so Viper got taken out, not break their fragile egos with your gay," Kai deadpanned.

I snapped. Closing my hand around his throat, I walked him backward to the door. "I never once mentioned to them I was gay."

He grinned, as if being pinned by the throat was a good thing. "Yet somehow they picked up on it," he smirked. "So much for being an undercover expert."

Anger bit as I recalled Bulldog holding me, and Viper with his gun. I could have gotten out of it easily, but to endure that shit even for a moment was messed up. "One of them wanted what they couldn't have," I snapped, and then released my hand from Kai's throat, watching the redness fade. I thought I glimpsed surprise in Kai's expression, maybe a hint of him being territorial, but it soon passed.

I was reading my own confused feelings into his expressions, and that sucked balls.

He brushed himself off.

"They were looking for trouble, anyway. And fuck, whatever they thought and did, how does your kissing me help our cover, for God's sake?" I asked, not shouting, but keeping my tone even. The original mission hung by a thread if Kozlov's second, Indigo, didn't go for it, and Kai's impulsive actions threatened to unravel everything we'd worked for.

"It worked, didn't it?" His defensiveness grated on me, his reluctance to trust anyone but himself a constant obstacle to our partnership. It was as if he saw the world through a narrow lens, unwilling to let anyone in, afraid of what might happen if he allowed himself to be vulnerable and run ideas by me. I mean, what the fuck had he been thinking? I could handle myself, and I didn't need a knight on a white horse riding in to save me.

With a freaking kiss.

I knew there was more to Kai than met the eye. Underneath all the bravado and self-assurance, he was as vulnerable as the next guy after what had happened when he was a kid. He'd didn't let anyone see it. Least of all his teammates.

Words failed me. My jaw clenched, teeth grinding with frustration. Kai's gaze met mine, a flicker of defiance in his eyes, as if daring me to challenge him, and then he yanked at my hand and placed it around his throat again, pressed himself into my hold, daring me to squeeze, daring me to hurt him for whatever twisted scenario he'd just dragged me into.

"Wanna choke me for real? Kiss me?" he whispered, and I shook him off.

He rubbed at his throat and then pouted as if I'd actually hurt him.

"Screw you," I snapped. I wouldn't give him the satisfaction of rising to his shit. Not now. We had a job to do, and emotions couldn't get in the way. But the sting of his kiss, going off-plan, dragging me by the hair, lingered, and it left a bitter taste in the back of my throat.

I swallowed hard and pushed down the anger. I'd focus on the mission, but Kai's actions wouldn't be forgotten, and there would be hell to pay once this was over.

"They wouldn't have let you go," he said. "They'd blame you for the fight, for Viper being injured, so as KD, I had to step in and claim you. It was for your protection and an operational decision."

"‘An operational decision'?" I tried to stay calm, but my jaw clenched, as did my hands. I swear I was going to punch the decision right out of his mouth. "We never once talked about this option."

"Like I said, Bulldog would have beaten you, and hell, Indigo would have put a bullet in your brain for messing with Viper because she lost a pilot."

"And why didn't you mention that when planning this?"

"Even if I thought this would happen, a kiss-and-claim would never be on your dance card," he said.

I balled my hands in fists. "I'm running this op, and you… fucker…" I didn't have the words. My shoulder ached like a bitch where I'd been pushed back on the bar, and it just reminded me that yeah, if everything had kicked off, then maybe I would have been at a disadvantage.

"It was just a kiss. Calm down," Kai muttered .

"I am freaking calm."

Kai shoved at me, twisting and then pushing me back to the wall, his arm across my throat. "This is not you being calm," he said. "I need you to breathe."

I struggled to get away, but not enough to dislodge the one thing I wanted—Kai touching me.

"I am fucking breathing," I wheezed, gripping Kai's arm and holding tight, staring right into his piercing sky-blue eyes.

"Have you looked at any photos of Charlie today?" he asked with a more pronounced drawl, pressing harder as I relaxed.

Charlie had the happiest life with Jax and his partner, Arlo. A safe life. And he was too precious to be mixed up in things I'd done, or hurt by decisions I'd made. I wanted to leave him be, but I couldn't help wanting to know he was okay.

I missed him.

But cutting all ties was the best for him.

"Yes," I managed after a while. After staying with them for that short time, I set up an encrypted app for them to upload photos, sent a letter with details, and hoped they'd let me see my son's progress from a distance.

Charlie had taken his first steps, and there was a short video of him tottering between my twin and his partner, both men grinning and laughing and telling Charlie his daddy would be so proud of him. That was what I'd looked at last, and it calmed me, and Kai knew it did. Hence the question. Sometimes, I could stare at my brother and see me in the photo.

"Okay," Kai murmured. How did he do this? How did he threaten me, but make me feel as though I could lose my shit and still feel safe? I knew he'd kissed me to keep our covers intact, but the way he'd gripped my hair, the way he'd made me kiss him, that was what I'd lashed out over.

He raised an eyebrow. I hated when he did that. One day I'd drug him and shave off those damn eyebrows. I inhaled and then lowered my shoulders, lessening the tension. Finally, he let me go.

"You kissed me," I repeated. Why was he not sorry? Why wasn't he apologizing for being an asshole? I wiped at my mouth as if I could remove the taste of him. "Like I was some kind of…"

"What?"

"Possession."

For a second, he was confused, as if he didn't know any other way. "Viper and Bulldog? Those guys? They don't understand any other language." He had a point. "It might not help at all, but it got us out of trouble."

A familiar frustration coiled inside me, but I sighed because Kai would do whatever Kai needed to do, and whatever my feelings about him, he was my partner.

It wasn't his fault I wanted him to kiss me , push me against a wall , and freaking claim me. The thing was, he wasn't thinking this through.

"You realize you've put a spotlight on me, and now you're vulnerable because they have leverage."

Kai examined his nails as if he didn't care, but I knew him well enough to see the tic in his jaw and the regret in his eyes. "I'm pretending that I'm fucking you. It's not like my cover says I'm a guy who actually gives a fuck about you, or indeed, anything."

"Well, not giving a fuck is true," I muttered.

He rolled his eyes. "I'll say it was one and done, and I'll whine about how shit you were in bed." He winked at me.

I had to curl my fingers into a fist to stop myself from hitting him again. "You… I… this…" I didn't have the words.

He shrugged. "I won't apologize."

"Of course you won't. Why change the habit of a lifetime?"

He winced again. "I reacted to the fact that unless I offered a connection to you, then you were a victim of a beatdown, dead, or worse."

I snorted. "What's worse than dead?"

He crossed to the table where I had my research organized and pulled out one file, opening it to the front photo and shoving it at me. I winced. Lucas Fraser.

He was part of the reason we were here, the final straw for a mayor on the edge who called in Shadow Team through the dark web. Lucas Fraser—twenty-three, a mechanic in his dad's garage, lost to drugs, and tortured by someone at Kozlov's enterprise, fingers gone, a hundred slices taken out of him, flayed, and left for dead in the middle of Main Street, much to the horror of the mayor and indeed any civilian who'd come across him. He'd been a warning, not subtle, and yeah, that much torture, that much pain, probably had had him begging for death.

"You think they wouldn't have done that to you if they thought they could get away with it?"

"I'm a lethal freaking Navy SEAL," I defended. "They wouldn't have got the drop on me."

He turned on the desk chair and straddled it, resting his chin on his hands and staring at me.

"Tell me you wouldn't have taken the beating to keep your cover intact, Mr. the-mission-is-everything-and-I-have-a-death-wish."

He had me there, and my temper subsided. "You fucked up," I snarled in one last rage at him, and then I slumped to a chair "You kissed me."

"I branded you, so you didn't get killed," Kai muttered.

"You don't get to do that."

"I made it clear you were mine. Got them to back off. So that's how we play it."

"That's not what we planned."

"Yeah, but it's the cards we have and?— "

I shoved him again, harder this time, feeling the resistance as he slipped off the chair, righted himself, and his back met the wall. He could have slipped away, but something inside compelled me to hold him there, to make him understand how far he'd strayed outside the lines.

Confusion and frustration swirled within me. What the hell was I doing? I wanted to punch him, to unleash the fury burning inside, to show him how much his actions had fucked us both over. But in that split second, something shifted as our eyes locked in a tense standoff.

A surge of conflicting emotions took my breath. Anger, yes, but also a gnawing uncertainty. This wasn't how things were supposed to go. We were supposed to be partners, working together to accomplish our mission. Yet here we were, at odds with each other.

I'd killed my child's mom.

I'd had to leave Charlie.

None of this was on Kai.

But it was him who was taking the brunt of my frustration.

And worse was that when I was in his arms, it didn't feel wrong.

It felt a lot like something right.