Samurai Game (GhostWalkers #10)(57)
Author: Christine Feehan

“You always act as your brother’s bodyguard?” Ryland asked.

“Yes. Eiji insists as well, although, like Daiki, he’s far too valuable to the company. I like to think I’m as important as my two partners, but sadly, I don’t contribute the way they do. I’m the most expendable.”

Sam’s fingers tightened around her wrist in protest. Her tone told him she was telling him the absolute truth as she saw it.

“Our company is small, but the people working for us are ours. They depend on us for their livelihood. That means Daiki and Eiji must continue to keep moving us forward. Both are innovative and they have amazing ideas for the future.”

Ryland leaned back in his seat and regarded her steadily. “How do you know that your people can be trusted? You believe in them, I can see that, but it would be impossible to ensure that more than a tight circle of people would be loyal.”

Azami shook her head. “None of my people would betray us. I would trust them with my life.”

“Would you trust them with your brother’s lives?”

For the first time she hesitated. “I don’t trust anyone with the lives of my brothers,” she whispered. “They are all I have.”

Sam felt rather than heard that uncertain note in her voice—Thorn’s voice. The child who had been so carelessly thrown away by Whitney.

That is no longer the truth. You have me whether or not you have accepted me. I will always come for you, honey. I will be your family. Sam found it strange that things he’d never say out loud, he was perfectly fine with sending into her mind. There was an intimacy that transcended embarrassment when sharing the same mind. I mean what I say, Azami. You will always be able to count on me.

Sure, it was too fast. He knew Ryland was trying to keep him from falling, tumbling off a high cliff into a deep abyss, but Sam had already willingly stepped off the cliff and he had no desire to go back. She was worth the fall. If, in the end, she couldn’t make that commitment to him and she shattered his heart—well, he knew the cost before he’d made the jump.

Azami shook her head. Even that slight movement was graceful, all that silky hair sliding around her like a halo while long strands fell artfully down the back of her slender neck.

Ryland sighed loudly. “This is getting us nowhere. No orders have come down to the effect of our unit—and specifically Sam—heading to the Congo. The general gives me leeway to pick my own team best suited for a mission. I know their specific psychic skills. We no longer document when a skill shows itself. Lily develops exercises to strengthen them and as a team we practice drills, but even the general doesn’t have specific knowledge of what we do. It would be extremely unusual for the general to order an individual into the field. Especially … ” He broke off.

“Sam,” Azami finished for him. “I’m aware that the general was responsible for Sam’s education.”

“He gave me a home just as your father gave you one,” Sam clarified.

She pressed her lips together and ducked her head, her mind closing off to him abruptly. Sam glanced at her sharply. There was something wrong, something she wasn’t willing to share with him. Azami had been honest with him almost from the beginning.

“Our orders don’t work like that,” Ryland reaffirmed. “I pick my own team.”

“It is easy enough to wait and see just how the orders come in,” Azami murmured.

Ryland glanced around the table at his men. “Have any of you heard that Senator Freeman died? Or that his life support was pulled?”

“You’ll hear it soon,” Azami assured, her voice confident. “They’ll put a great spin on it, one sure to gain the grieving widow the most sympathy possible. If Whitney’s grooming her for the White House, you can bet he’ll use his friends and those who owe him to position her for election. That has to be his plan. He wants that kind of power.”

“He wants to continue his experiments in peace,” Ryland said. “He doesn’t give a damn about the White House.”

Kadan suddenly leaned back in his chair, the creaking of the chair drawing Ryland’s attention. He had remained quiet, as they all had throughout the interrogation. Kadan rarely spoke, but when he did, everyone—including Ryland—listened. “She’s right, Rye; we know he was grooming Senator Freeman for the presidency. He threw money and his friends behind the man and gave up one of his gifted women in order to control the man. He wants the military backing. In a way, it would be good for us, because whoever our enemy in the White House is at present—and remember, Violet had thrown in with them—wants us out. Whitney having a friend there ensures we don’t get sent on suicide missions.”

Azami stirred, but Sam gently tightened his fingers.

“Whitney has to be stopped,” Kadan added. “He’s out of control. Any man willing to do the kind of experiments he does on human beings is a butcher. He’s lost all contact with reality and humanity. If he pairs up with Violet, we’re in real trouble.”

“I think it’s happened,” Azami said. “According to my informant, she went into that hangar cold and distant and came out flirtatious and animated with Whitney. I’ve studied the woman. She despised Whitney and all he did. She saw Freeman as a way out of the GhostWalkers and she took it and protected her husband as best she could. She tried to move heaven and earth to keep him alive and find a way to bring him back. The last thing she would want to do was to crawl in bed with Whitney again, yet there’s no doubt, that’s exactly what happened.”

“Figuratively,” Ryland said. “I don’t think he likes females or males.”

“But he’d sleep with Violet if that cemented the relationship and gave him power over her,” Kadan pointed out. “Rye, as much as I hate to admit it, I think Azami is right about this. It’s what Whitney would do.”

Ryland rubbed the bridge of his nose. “Seriously, we had enough problems when Violet and Whitney were opposed to one another. If they get together, we’re in for a rough ride.”

“And what about the men who shot me?” Sam wanted to know. “Did Whitney send them after all?”

Kadan sighed. “That gets a little complicated, Sam. I don’t believe they were after you. I think, again, Azami was correct when she said they were after her brothers.” He drummed his fingers on the table. “The Iranian soldiers came in via Mexico. The word we got was they were led into the United States through the drug tunnels the cartel has. These tunnels are elaborate and even heated in places. The mercenaries acquired the helicopters and Jeeps. The soldiers were taken to small planes and we tracked them to a small private airport.”