nothing had ever been this good in his life. nothing else had ever filled him, fulfilled him, as chaya did.

"i love you," she whispered at his ear. "god help me, natches, i love you so much."

and those words, they completed him.

nineteen

natches moved the nauti dreams from her berth beside his cousins' houseboats and pulled her into a spare slot at the other end of the marina. to preserve the illusion, he had told chaya. his expression was still, too still and too quiet, as though he were with her in body only.

chaya leaned against him as he maneuvered the craft from the second-floor control room. he sat back in the custom leather captain's chair, guided the huge craft into the empty slot, and watched as two of the marina's part-time workers secured her to the dock.

it was dark; clouds rolled over the moon and blocked the stars as a cold wind whipped around the glass-enclosed control room.

"when this is over, we'll find a house," he said as he stared off into the mountains surrounding them. "i think a baby needs a real house."

chaya pressed her lips together and found the ache and the panic building inside her at his voice.

"a baby just needs a home, natches," she told him softly. "and two parents."

what he was getting ready to do wasn't without an element of danger. chaya had read dayle mackay's marine file. he had been a mess cook with control issues. he used his fists indiscriminately, not caring who he hurt, or how he hurt them. but he was proficient with weapons, namely, a knife. his hand-to-hand skill rating was high, and from everything else she knew about him, he didn't have a conscience.

but it wasn't the thought of the physical danger that had him staring off into the distance; it was who he was going up against. what he was going against. the man who should have been his father.

"i was seven the first time he locked me in the closet," he said. the lethal throb of cold determination in his voice had her hands tightening on his shoulders from where she stood behind him.

"he kept me in there until i thought i was going to die," he said.

"almost two days. no food, no water. when he dragged me out, i was almost senseless with fear. after i managed to get cleaned up and he gave me a drink of water, i lied for him, just like he wanted me to do before he put me in that closet. and he told me, 'loyalty, son. that's all i want from you. just be loyal.' "

natches couldn't even remember what his father had needed him to lie about at the time. something inconsequential. it always was. just something to prove his loyalty.

"and what did you want?" she asked him.

funny, he could hear the ache in her voice for him, just that easy. as though he were that much a part of her, that he knew how much she ached as he talked.

he had never felt another person the way he felt chaya. the way he had always felt chaya.

"i caught faisal's transmission the day they brought you into that camp," he said instead of answering her question. "i checked the area, desperate for a place to hide you, because i just knew i was going to pull out a mess when i went in for you. the caves were a no go. it was the first place they would have checked. there was no other cover, no other place to hide but a hole."

chaya felt her heart clench as he caught her hand and pulled her to his lap, surrounding her with warmth when she wanted to surround him with it.

"i made that hole. i was going to shove you in it and try to find cover above you. i hate closed-in places, chay. dark, small places. that was always my weakness."

his cheek brushed against her hair.

"you were in that hole with me," she whispered.

and he nodded.

"i couldn't leave you in there by yourself. you were all but blind, hurt. when i killed nassar later, chay, i think i scared myself, because i enjoyed it. i saw you, so brave and strong, and trying so hard to fight when you should have been leaning against me, crying, doing something other than storing your strength in case you had to go down fighting. and you would have gone down fighting."

she felt his heart beat beneath her cheek and held on to him, because he had forced himself into that hole with her.

"i was losing it," she told him then. "before you pulled me out of there. i was ready to break, natches. and in that hole, when i heard them coming for us, i was screaming in my head until you kissed me." that kiss had pulled her back, it had saved her. "you made me strong. because of you i was able to run. you held me up, you almost carried me. and because of you, i was able to stand the darkness in my own mind, and the fear that they were going to hurt me again. i didn't want to hurt anymore. and when i lost beth. you kept me sane. with your touch, with your kiss, with all the wild pleasure you poured into me that night." she stared up at him, seeing his somber expression, even in the dark, her heart breaking for the man who had forced himself into that hole with her, and was now trying to face his own nightmare. alone.

his expression was shadowed, dark, but his eyes were alive. and they brought tears to her eyes. fierce, shockingly determined. he would do whatever he had to do to make sure dayle mackay never hurt anyone he loved, ever again.

"clayton winston called while you were in the shower earlier," he said. "he got to talk to christopher. then dhs called him back. they've arranged transportation through a private broker to d.c., where he can see his son in a supervised visit."

chaya closed her eyes, thankful cranston had followed through with that.

"clayton's dying," he said. "doctors don't think he'll see the year out. he needed this before he passes on."

"and what do you need, natches?"

it felt like an epitaph, the way he was talking, as though he wouldn't return to her, and she refused to consider that.

"come on." he lifted her from his lap and drew her through the doorway into the bedroom. there, he closed the door to the control room and locked it with a flick of his fingers.

"you didn't answer me." she turned to face him in the darkness of the room. the drapes had been drawn that morning and the room was almost pitch black now.

he turned on the low lamp by the bed and turned to face her.

"you're coming back to me," she whispered, her breath hitching. "don't you look at me like that. you're going to be covered, and you're coming back to me."

and tears filled her eyes, because she couldn't imagine anything less.

"i'm coming back to you," he promised her. "one way or the other, i'm coming back, chay. but how will you see me, how will our child see me if i come back with blood on my hands?"

his father's blood. she could see it in his face, his uncertainty that he could leave dayle mackay alive.

"bullies are weak," she told him huskily. "you get what dhs needs and they'll break him. i swear to you, natches, they'll break him and they'll put the rest of that group away for good. you'll win."

she knew they would. she was the interrogation specialist, but she only interrogated subjects of interest, she didn't interrogate suspects, nor did she interrogate suspected terrorists, homegrown or foreign. there was a division for that, men and women who made her worst nightmares seem like a picnic in the park.

he nodded. the confidence, the sheer knowledge in his eyes that he would do whatever it took to protect what belonged to him, humbled her. he tried to be a shield between the world and those he loved, always trying to protect them, to make certain danger never touched them. and he never expected, never asked, for the same, though he knew dawg, rowdy, and ray mackay had always been there for him. he had never asked.

"we're good to go then." he nodded before moving to her, his lips settling on hers like a promise. a gentle, forever promise, as sweet and heated as a dream.

"we're good to go." she nodded, and she pushed back the fears. she would cover the angles, she would create a bubble around him that could do nothing less than protect him from any outside forces.

but inside that bubble, natches had to face the knowledge that he wasn't just betraying a monster. he also had to confront that last glimmer of hope, that the monster had a soul.

monsters didn't have souls though, natches assured himself as the meeting with his cousins and alex jansen drew to a close.

not for the first time, he found himself amazed at chaya's knowledge, and her ability to find workable solutions to the problems that were going to face them when it came to executing the plan they had conceived.

illegal wiretapping was nothing new, and cranston wasn't above using it to make certain a plan was coming together. a call had been made to dayle mackay by one of the men watching the mackay cousins, informing him of the division between natches and his cousins over an old picture, evidence against a citizen of somerset in the stolen missiles case, and natches's refusal to give the authorities pertinent information where that citizen was concerned.

and dayle had been interested.

natches listened to the other man's voice on the digital recording alex had slipped in to him. the smug certainty in dayle's voice-that, finally, blood had thickened in natches's veins and become more substantial than water.

he turned his back on his cousins as the recording played, kept his expression calm. this wasn't a mackay he was going after; it was just another monster. just as it had been in the marines. it wasn't a person. it was a target, nothing more.

"moving the nauti dreams was also noted," alex told them all softly and switched to the recording of another call. natches's phone call to another marina and the arrangement of transportation for his houseboat was given as well. with each call, dayle became more confident, more certain that his son and cousins were finally making the split he had been waiting on.

"that's my boy," dayle mused softly, smugly. "i knew it wouldn't take long."

"what about the woman? the agent with him?" the voice on the other end questioned him. daniel reynolds was one of the men in the photo, one of the fanatical leaders of the future revolution.

"women are easy to get rid of," dayle snorted. "an accident, a few little drugs popped into her drink, and she does the bar on a saturday night. natches'll drop her."

"she's still an agent."

"and she doesn't have the information he has," dayle pointed out. "no doubt, that relationship will terminate soon enough, on its own. i'll call him soon."

"are you certain about this?" the other voice pushed determinedly. "we can't afford to mess up."

dayle laughed at the question. "trust me, daniel, i know my son. i knew it was just a matter of time. the boy's a killer. he was a killer in the marines, and he'll always be a killer. that kind of cold only adheres to its own kind. he'll come in."

"very well," daniel agreed. "arrange the meeting and contact us when you've finished."

the sound of the recorder disengaging flipped a switch in his mind. cold. hard. yeah, he was a killer. he turned slowly to meet his cousins' eyes.

"chaya, do you still have those files?" he knew she did.

"they're upstairs in my case." she moved for the staircase but not before she cast him a suspicious look.

as she disappeared upstairs he looked at his family. his cousins and the man he called friend.

"this might not go as easy as she thinks it will," he told them quietly. "if anything happens to me, you take care of her and my child." he looked to dawg and rowdy. "give him what uncle ray always gave me, and make it stick."

dawg and rowdy glanced at each other.

"man, this is going to be a walk in the park," dawg protested. "alex has point, your woman has your wire, dhs in the van, and me and rowdy in place. nothing's going to happen." dawg's gaze sharpened. "unless you do something dumb. you gonna do some-thin' dumb, natches?"