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you think I came to you?”
    “Didn’t have a chance to ask, with you trying to scratch my eyes out and all that.”
    Tekla shot a dark look at Jasmine.
    “I can’t do this alone, okay?” She pulled a bottle of water from someplace and handed it to her sister before looking back at her brother, her eyes begging. “You need as much help as Mandy does. We can’t just hang tough. It’s gone beyond that. I can’t fix this.”
    The quiet desperation in her voice touched Gabe’s heart. She’d been surviving with no resources, no support, in a foreign country, trying to save her brother and her sister. And the thing was, she’d done it. She’d taken care of them. Evaded an entire commando team. Risked her life, putting everything on the line when she’d come to him.
    “I’ll help.” Hell, that had been a forgone conclusion probably from the moment he’d caught her on the roof and first faced her spirit and courage, first realized that something might be off with the op. “You turn yourself in to me,” he told Tekla, “and I’ll make sure your sisters will be safe.”
    “Absolutely not.” Jasmine shot to her feet with a look of betrayal on her face. “I brought you here to help my brother escape.”
    “Your brother made some bad choices. He’s going to have to face the music for that, but the rest of you don’t have to get hurt.”
    “You don’t understand anything!” she yelled suddenly, wrapping her arms around her slim body. She began to pace, throwing desperate looks at her brother.
    “Then tell me what happened.” Gabe turned to Tekla. “If there’s a rational explanation for what you’ve done, let’s hear it.”
    “The less you know, the safer you are.”
    “Like your sisters?” he snapped. “Do you know what a miracle it is that they’re still alive? How long are you prepared to gamble with their lives?” Gabe caught himself and toned it down a notch. “If you don’t trust Brent and his crew, I got connections I can call on. I can turn you straight over to the U.S. authorities. The FBI, even.”
    “This thing goes too high. Brent has a backer. Someone in the government.”
    Gabe considered the possibility and the implications. Brent was one of two dozen team leaders at a fairly small private security company that specialized in overseas missions. The contract to retrieve Jake Tekla had come from the government that couldn’t send military force after the man into a sovereign country like Italy. Maybe in the Middle East they could have justified something like that, but certainly not in Europe.
    The U.S. government didn’t want to get local law enforcement involved, at least that was the way Brent had explained it to Gabe when he’d been hired on. A rogue American soldier, a killer loose wouldn’t have inspired much confidence in the U.S. And the Italians were already wary of military presence in their country, especially since the cable car accident a few years back when a U.S. jet flew too low, cutting the cables, sending twenty people plunging to their deaths.
    So sending a private outfit after Tekla and keeping the op under wraps had made sense when Brent had first explained it. But, apparently, Brent and Tekla had a shared past in Lahedeh, and it sure looked like Brent had a private agenda where catching Tekla was concerned. What were the chances that his team just happened to get the government contract?
    Maybe Brent did have someone somewhere, making sure the contract went his way.
    Too many unknown elements. Too much to lose. The op wasn’t entirely right, but Tekla wasn’t innocent, either. Gabe didn’t want the man’s family to come to harm, but he drew the line at aiding and abetting a killer.
    He looked the guy straight in the eye. “I need to know about those three men you killed.”

Chapter Seven

    “How about we step out into the hallway?” her brother asked Gabe.
    Jasmine opened her mouth to protest, but Gabe said, “I think your sisters have a right to