Page 26 of Delta Force Defender

“I thought you were someone else.”

The man’s voice was surly, and Caradine studied the parts of him that she could see now that he was glaring straight at Isaac. He had a flat buzz cut that showed off that extra, angry roll to his neck. It made her think of steroids. And of sitting in church, a thousand years ago, looking at the necks of the men who sat with her family as they rose around her like a red wall, angrily displayed above their Sunday collared shirts.

But this was no time for a trip down memory lane. Especially when, though she knew whatkindof man this was, she really didn’t know him personally.

Is that a relief or a letdown?she asked herself. And found she didn’t have an answer for that, either.

“Who did you think I was?” Isaac asked, as if this were a casual chat with one of his buddies—which made her want to reevaluate every actual casual chat she’d ever seen him have. “Do I look like a friend of yours?”

“What you look like is a dead man,” the man replied, with a snarl. “If I were you and I wanted to live, I’d back away from this situation.”

“You’re in my house, friend.” Isaac sounded cheerful. “And I’m the one with the gun, remember? Yours took a swim.”

The man growled. “You don’t want the kind of trouble you’re bringing on yourself,friend. You hear me?”

“Convince me,” Isaac suggested. Cheerfully.

The man in the chair studied him, and Caradine could see his deep-set eyes narrow. He sat back in his chair, one hand on his thigh like he was in control. Like he was lounging there, holding court.

Not for the first time, she wondered how anyone could look at Isaac and imagine that he was something other than a predator. A warrior at the very top of his game.

The red-necked man was nothing but a garden-variety thug. She’d known dozens of him back in the day, but even if she hadn’t, it was stamped all over him. How could a man like that, who had to be cunning enough to survive as long as he had—to his midforties, by the looks of it—actually look like he was relaxing when faced with an ex–special ops master of warfare? Isaac was so much more powerful and dangerous than a penny-ante thug from Boston that it was almost laughable.

But she’d seen it happen again and again. Isaac smiled, used that friendly voice, and everyone believed it.

She reminded herself that she never had.

“Let’s just say that I represent certain interests,” the thug told him grandly. “You had some moves out there, I grant you. You got the drop on me. Kudos. Then it turns out that you and me, we don’t have the business I thought we did.”

Isaac smiled again. “You mistook the rug I was transporting for a body.”

The man nodded, his eyes still narrow. “A misunderstanding, like I said. It can end right here, or it can turn into a bigger problem. For you.”

“From where I’m standing, I don’t have any problems,” Isaac said idly. “Can’t say the same for you.”

“How much of a problem you’re going to have depends on what you do right now,” the man said, his voicegetting harder. “Shooting me would be a mistake. A huge mistake.”

Isaac didn’t look convinced. “Would it?”

“You’re already skating on thin ice, buddy. And me, I’m a forgiving guy. I’d be inclined to let it go. But the people I work for?” The man shook his head. “They don’t let anything go.”

Isaac’s head tilted slightly, very slightly, to one side. “What makes you think I let anything go?”

And Caradine watched, holding her breath, as it occurred to the guy in the chair that he was dealing with something a little more treacherous than a trained and unusually well-armed homeowner. He dropped that hand from his thigh. He went still.

“Who are the people you work for?” Isaac asked.

To Caradine’s ear, he didn’t change his tone of voice. He sounded the same as he had this whole time. But it was suddenly obvious who he really was, because the thug before him looked uneasy.

“You think you’re a tough guy?” the man in the chair demanded, getting loud, no doubt to cover that unease. “You don’t want to know what happens to tough guys.”

“Let me guess,” Isaac said. “You dispose of them. But that’s not where this is going.Buddy.”

And then, the way he had when he’d taken her gun away from her, Isaac moved so fast that Caradine almost wasn’t sure she’d seen him move at all.

She had the impression of explosive action. His hand reaching out.

Her brain told her that he’d hit the guy in the chair, but there was no sound of impact. And the man didn’t shake, the chair didn’t fly backward, or any of the other things she might expect to have happen if a man as strong as Isaac actually hit something.

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