"Well hell, and here I was hoping you wouldn't know it was me." Mike's laugh was bitter, filled with anger. "You should have given me that loan I asked for, Caleb. Then I wouldn't have had to do this."

Falcon slipped closer, edging in from tree to tree.

The two Russians behind Mike and the larger abductor weren't nearly as dangerous as the one holding his gun against Summer's temple.

As Falcon moved into position to attempt to draw the lead kidnapper's attention, he found Raeg to make certain his brother was in place to fire a killing shot to take the bastard out.

Raeg was lifting a rifle to his shoulder another guest, one of the Special Forces soldiers Falcon had seen earlier, had handed him.

There were others moving through the trees, silently, no more than shadows as they blocked any attempt to reach the boat waiting at the edge of the swamp beyond the glow of the flashlight Mike held.

"Just let her go," Caleb suggested reasonably. "All of you can walk away then."

Like hell, Falcon thought. Not a single bastard involved in dragging Summer from the house was getting out of there. At least, not alive.

"She's not worth it, Caleb," Mike snapped then, having obviously lost his senses. "She's trouble. She always been, and you know it."

"She's my sister," Caleb reminded him. "My baby sister. The one you tried to rape!" he snapped then. "Did you think I didn't hear that shit? You betrayed all of us. We were family and you didn't give a damn."

"I'm losing the farm..."

"There's no excuse," Caleb snarled. "Now let her go."

"She will die." The Russian pressed the gun tighter to Summer's head. "You will move, or I will kill her now."

"Yeah?" Caleb sneered. "She's the only thing keeping you alive, you dumb bastard. You really want to do that?"

The big Russian grinned as he moved the gun from Summer's temple. Before he could reposition, a shot rang out.

Falcon watched as brain matter exploded from his big head and splattered against Summer's face even as she tore herself from Mike's grip and threw herself to the ground.

That shot wasn't theirs. Neither were the three successive ones that took out the two Russians trailing Summer, and left Mike on the ground, groaning from a shot to his abdomen.

Falcon rushed for Summer, aware of Raeg at his side. Reaching her, they hauled her from the ground as half a dozen male guests followed, surrounding them as they quickly moved Summer from the line of fire while Caleb and his father dragged Mike behind the thick trunk of a nearby tree.

"Summer, baby?" Once within the cover of the trees, Falcon pushed Summer behind a stack of boulders resting against a pine, his hands running over her quickly as Raeg cushioned her against his own body, holding her close to his chest. "Are you okay?"

"Fine." She nodded, her voice shaky, her face bruised. "Who took that shot?"

"Don't know." He shook his head, the vibration of the satellite phone tucked in his jacket pocket drawing his attention.

Jerking it quickly from his pocket, he stared at the display, shock resounding through him before he handed it to Raeg.

Dragovich at the Taggart hunting lodge.-Father * * *

Raeg read the message and knew in an instant who had taken the shots.

"Caleb," he called out.

"Who's taking those fucking shots?" the other man answered.

"Your dad with you?" Raeg called back.

"Here," Cal answered the questioned.

"Cyclops is taking the shots," he called back, knowing Summer's father would connect the codename.

Silence filled the night for long seconds.

"Cy? You out there?" Cal called out then. "Come on now, answer me. Tell me you're not gunnin' for my little girl tonight."

The fact that Summer's father knew things he shouldn't would surprise him later, Raeg told himself as he searched the darkness, looking for the man who had once been a hero, only to turn into a monster.

"She's a tough girl." Laughter filled Roberto Falcon's voice, the hint of a Spanish accent fluid, not at all what a merciless killer should sound like. "Reminds you of a young Leasa, doesn't she?"

The familiarity in the disembodied voice was apparent. Summer's father knew far more than he'd ever let on to any of them.

"She does, Cy," Cal called back. "I need to get her out of here though. You gonna try to stop me?"

Silence filled the night again for long, tense moments.

Raeg could feel his heartbeat slowing, could feel the night filling with a heavy foreboding as he shifted to help Falcon cover Summer further, to keep her from coming into their father's crosshairs.

"Go after Dragovich, Cal," a voice called out, the night distorting his location. "Your daughter's safe. For now."

For now.

Falcon hung his head, relief and desolation sweeping through him.

She was safe, for now.

"Move out," Cal ordered. "If you're going with us, we'll meet at my truck. Move it."

Shadows began shifting through the darkness. With a fluid, almost natural flow, they moved quickly back toward the house.

As much as he'd hated the damned parties that had been planned, he gave Summer's family credit for inviting the very type of man needed in the event Summer was actually threatened.

"I'm going," Summer snapped as he and Raeg helped her to her feet. "Don't even start..."

"I would never imagine you wouldn't go," Falcon agreed, and though Raeg agreed too, the thought of having her anywhere where Cyclops could get her in his crosshairs terrified him. "Let's go."

Chapter.

EIGHTEEN.

Roberto Falcone, "Cyclops," had obviously beaten them to the Taggart hunting lodge.

Dragovich lay in the middle of the wood floor, a broken bottle of vodka next to him, the back of his head mixed into the brain matter staining the floors and the blood seeping into the rough planks.

With him were three of his top lieutenants, the worst of his followers. Cowering in a closet was a young woman, bruised, her clothing torn, terrified and in shock.

On the table next to Dragovich's body was a note.

You're welcome, sons. I'll be in contact.-Father He would be in contact?

The bastard.

Raeg grit his teeth, the muscles in his jaw bunching as Summer stepped around the dead to get to the table. She'd changed clothes in the back seat of her father's pickup as they raced for the hunting cabin. Rather than the dress and strappy sandals she'd had on at the party, she wore the black mission outfit she kept in the go bag she'd tossed into Falcon's SUV before they'd left the house.

Falcon had braided her hair, cursing the thin chains her hairdresser had woven through the curls as he plucked them free. Surprisingly, he hadn't damaged a single one of the little trinkets that he'd dropped into her palm.

The long, heavy mass of hair was neatly confined from the crown of her head to the middle of her back, showing off her high cheekbones, slightly tilted witchy eyes, and pouty lips that were thinner now with displeasure.

"What is this?" Lifting her gaze from the note to meet his, Summer stared back at him with a level, demanding look. "And why are we suddenly worried your father's going to kill me, Raeg?"

Her expression was cool, almost knowing, the persona she pulled around herself as Belle, revealing the highly capable agent she actually was. She had the ability to do that, to separate the agent from the woman, to become the cool, deadly powerhouse determined to survive and complete the mission at all costs.

And that was the woman he was facing, Raeg realized. This wasn't the woman he'd gotten used to over the past two weeks. The softer, sometimes emotional, always sensual lover who blew his mind in her acceptance of both him and Falcon.

She was the agent Raeg had refused to accept for so many years because the last agent he'd allowed into his heart had betrayed not just him, but his brother as well, in her attempt to learn the location of a man so dangerous that his own country had feared him. Even now, more than a decade later, his enemies in Spain were still searching for him.

"What is going on?" she demanded when no one spoke.

Her hands held the assault rifle with steady confidence, but as he stared back at her, Raeg could see the anger that flickered in the back of her gem-hard violet gaze.

"Might as well tell her. That secret was never as buried as you thought it was, Raeg," her father told him softly from where he stood on the other side of the room. "You tell her, or I will."

Because she was in danger now. Because Cyclops knew his sons would give their own lives for her, and that alone made her a weakness as far as their father was concerned.

"You knew him," Summer accused her father then. "You knew things about Raeg and Falcon you never shared with me." The promise of a later confrontation filled her face as she shot her father a hard look.

Raeg had a feeling Cal wanted to roll his eyes at his daughter.

"Girl, sometimes a man needs his secrets just to keep his own sanity," her father snorted, the hard purpose in his gaze assuring his daughter he didn't regret his decision. "But now, the time for this secret has come." His head turned, his stare slicing into Raeg once again, then into Falcon. "The time for it came when you made the decision to involve her in that part of your lives."

When they'd made the decision to become her lovers. The accusation, though unsaid, came through loud and clear.

"Cal's right," Falcon breathed out roughly as he stood behind Raeg. "But now isn't the time to explain it."

Not here where Summer was less secure, where the stench of blood and death permeated every corner of the room, Raeg thought in disgust.

Not here where the proof of Cyclops's icy competence was more apparent than ever before and where he had to stare at his father's efficiency in eliminating anyone or anything he deemed a threat.

God, how he'd fought not to become a part of the "shadow world," as he called it. Falcon had tried to stay out of it too, but the fiery, adventurous nature he possessed had responded to the pull of the secretive, dangerous life both of them abhorred.

That was the reason Falcon had opened the security agency, Raeg knew. A way to be a part of that life, but separate from it. To pick how deep he stepped into the shadows, and what secrets he'd come away with.

Raeg had denounced it completely, yet, he'd ended up working for two shadow agents who were even more adept at hiding in plain sight than his parents had been. Davis Allen and Margot Hampstead.

He worked for them, he reminded himself, he wasn't one of them. That thought remained with him as they began searching the room while one of the Special Forces agents contacted his commander to request cleanup and transport to a clinic for the young girl sitting still and silent on the other side of the room.

This wasn't something the world needed to know about. The assassination of a top Russian mobster related by blood to the Russian Ambassador to the United States could have serious political consequences if it wasn't handled just right.

Once Cal and Caleb Calhoun determined there was nothing in the hunting lodge that could possibly tie any of them to the Russian's death's, he left two soldiers to wait for cleanup and gave the order to load up and head out.

The fact that he didn't want Summer or his sons there once cleanup arrived was more than apparent. The world might not know what happened, but someone within that shadow world would receive a report, and having his children's names in that report wasn't something Cal wanted, and Raeg couldn't blame him.

The shadows were filled with rogues and monsters in disguise. He and Falcon knew that one from experience, and evidently, Cal was well aware of it too.

They weren't going to explain a damned thing to her, Summer thought as she pulled on soft lounging pants and a matching camisole several hours later.

Unwrapping her hair from the towel she'd put around it, she tried to still her anger at the thought of everything they were hiding. All the time that they'd spent in her bed, that they'd bound her heart to them, and still they had no intentions of telling her why they couldn't stay.

No, why they wouldn't stay.

The story Steven had related to her was terrible, she admitted, and she understood their fears to a point. But just to a point.

The agent who had deceived Raeg in an attempt to learn his parents' whereabouts had deserved to die. She knew Raeg and Falcon had a sister no one ever saw. Margot had told her about the girl years ago. Summer knew herself how protective her own parents were of her and Aunjenue. They would kill anyone threatening their children to that extent, in a heartbeat.

By betraying any information she could have learned while sleeping with Raeg, that agent would have endangered his sister's life and placed her in a possibly fatal position. She could understand his father's decision to ensure that threat was eliminated.

Her daddy would decimate anyone determined to hurt her, no matter who they were. But, if his sons were involved with the person intent on such deceit, he'd go to them first. He'd try to make it right with his boys, because he loved them too, and he respected their intelligence and family loyalty.

He wouldn't just eliminate one of their lovers, then allow them to believe that any woman they cared for was in danger.

And it was possible, Summer thought, that she didn't have all the facts. Because she did know her brothers and because she did know the nature of strong, stubborn men, she knew Raeg and Falcon may well have set themselves up for someone just as determined and hotheaded to make such a threat.

From what Steven had told her, that was highly possible.

And they'd walk away from her rather than trying to fix it. They'd leave her there, her heart shattered, without a care, rather than let go of their pride enough to deal with the situation and with the man causing it.

Men would just cut their own noses off to spite their faces, she remembered her mother saying often. And this was a perfect example of their ability to do so.

Finishing her hair, she picked up the bracelet Steven had given her earlier and ran her fingers over the silver, gold, and crystal elements, frowning at the display of light and color in what were supposed to be fake diamonds.