Page 79 of Her Ruthless Protector

“It’s the folks in the VIP boxes. They’re perfectly placed to take shots at the stage. We’re going to have to check them, double-check them and then check them again, because that’s our real vulnerability. But I have something up my sleeve.”

“Like what?”

“I just did a solid for the airport manager. Hopefully by tomorrow morning, we’ll have one of the airport’s baggage scanners.”

“Really? But how?”

“They just were building out the new terminal. When they did that, they were upgrading some of the things in the old terminals, which included baggage scanners. They haven’t started the process, but he’s going to remove one now, and get it sent over. I just don’t know whether we can get an appropriate power source set up for it.”

“Oh, I’ll make it work,” she said grimly.

Her mind started whirling a million miles a minute.

“I’ve released the genie from the bottle, haven’t I?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean our little heart-to-heart is over with and now kick-ass A.J. is back and you’re going to go out there and start getting shit done. That’s what I mean.” He reached over on the little dinette table and picked up a rubber band that was in plain sight. He pulled the useless scrunchy out of her hair and sifted his hands through strands of red and gold. Kane gently pulled her hair into a ponytail and wound the rubber band around it.

God, the man would be the death of her.

* * *

Kane crawledin under the rafters with a backpack. Dawn was peeking over the horizon and it was supposed to be cooler than it was yesterday, but it still felt like an oven in here. There didn’t look to be anybody around, but he could feel eyes on him. Damn, Hunter Diaz was a ghost. Kane waited.

“Please say the water in your backpack is a little bit cold,” Hunter said as he crawled out from the shadows.

“Ten minutes ago, I shoved some ice in the CamelBak so we could switch you out.”

“I’d say I owe you my left arm, but I already do for saving my brother,” Hunter said as he switched out his almost empty hydration pack with the full one that Kane had brought him.

“So why are you here delivering water, any grunt could have done that,” Hunter asked.

“I’m guessing that you’re keeping an eye on our patrols up top.”

Even in the dim light he could see Hunter’s white smile. “Of course I am. I cut out a wedge of ceiling so I could monitor them. We don’t need men who are complacent up there. If I see something going wrong, I’ll let Ed know.”

Nine of the ten men up top belonged to Ed, the tenth man was Nick Hale. Despite that, Kane was still glad to know that Hunter had his eyes on the group. Nick had only been a SEAL for two years, while Hunter had been through the shit for almost ten. Then there was the fact that none of Ed’s men had access to the comm equipment because there hadn’t been enough to go around.

Kane peered out across the Sultan Qaboos Sports Complex to the main stage. There were at least a hundred people crawling all over it getting things ready for the night’s performance. A.J. had said that because it was the semi-final, they expected only thirty-thousand fans. The nice thing was that the majority of the fans would be in the stadium seats, and only a few hundred would be cordoned off in front of the stage.

Kane took out his binoculars to check out those seats. He pulled out his phone.

“A.J.?”

“Yeah.”

“Anybody noteworthy going to be in the chairs in front of the stage tonight?”

Hunter was listening in, so he put it on speaker.

“Define noteworthy. Unfortunately, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor are going to be here on Saturday night. Now that’s fucking noteworthy, so get this shit straightened out before then, will you?”

Hunter pretended to rub his jaw, but he was really covering a grin. Kane couldn’t blame him. His A.J. was a spitfire.

“Agatha, calm down and concentrate. Tonight, anybody we should know about?”

Hunter mouthed the word ‘Agatha’ and this time it was Kane’s turn to smother a grin.