She soaked up the training like a thirsty sponge. It felt so good to be active again, to feel like she belonged somewhere. This had been her world since she was a child, and she savored every minute she could be active. She found herself laughing more, talking animatedly with the team members, listening to them, and occasionally sharing some of her own knowledge.

Eventually, after nearly a month of nonstop training, it didn’t matter that she loved every second of her life; she still felt the need to walk down the street and breathe in the air. From the rooftops she found herself watching people going about their lives, envying them their freedom. It was Jaimie who suggested the three women go out shopping. Such a simple idea, yet Rose had to brace herself to ask—no tell—Kane that she was going to go out that afternoon.

“What is it, sweetheart?” he asked her, as if he already knew there was something wrong just by her silence.

Rose forced a smile. “Jamie, Rhianna, and I are going shopping. Just the three of us.” She stole a look at his face, those hard angles and planes, and her nerve nearly broke, but she persisted, trying to sound casual. He looked like she’d dropped a bomb. “I need to really get acquainted with the neighborhood, so it will be both fun as well as educational.”

“Fun?” He sounded like he’d never heard of the word. “Rose. There’s a price on your head.”

She dismissed that with a wave of her hand. “I need to do this, Kane.”

She’d forgotten that several of the team members as well as the two women had just finished working out. They appeared quite curious. Paul winked at her. Rose looked around the room. Every member of the team had arrived, as if Kane had put out some kind of SOS call—which he probably had. The men were looking at the three women—at her in particular—as if she’d lost her mind.

“You want to go where?” Kane asked through clenched teeth.

No, he definitely wasn’t happy. Rose sighed. He’d heard her, he wasn’t deaf, but she obligingly repeated herself, knowing he was asking for the benefit of the team members who might not have heard. “The three of us want to go shopping. Maybe to the market and a couple of the boutiques. Not far, Kane, it’s only a few blocks down.”

“If you’re really insisting on going, then we have to go with you.” He glared at Jaimie and Rhianna, as if they were to blame for her wanting to leave. “Jaimie knows she doesn’t go out without an escort.”

Rose refrained from rolling her eyes. “I’m not a two-year-old, Kane. I want to go shopping. It isn’t like Whitney’s going to have a team out there again. He’s been quiet. I believe him when he said to you that you ‘won’ the game. He’s not going to come after me, especially after losing so many of his men.”

“Fine, we’ll go.”

“You have to stay here and watch Sebastian so I don’t worry about him,” Rose objected.

Something dangerous flickered in the depths of his eyes. “Paul can watch him. Right, Paul?” His tone suggested Paul give the right answer.

“No problem,” Paul said instantly, ignoring the way the three women glared at him.

“That’s not the point,” Jaimie said. “We want to do the woman thing. We’ve been cooped up with men long enough. We need some woman time.”

“I don’t like this one bit,” Kane groused. “Why the sudden need to bond?”

Jaimie laughed. “You’re becoming one of those very annoying males, like Mack. You don’t want to be like Mack, do you?”

“Hey!” Mack objected. “I think he’s showing good sense. The three of you ought to be locked up somewhere.”

“A padded cell,” Gideon suggested under his breath.

Jaimie glared at him. “You’re not helping the cause.”

Rose noticed that Rhianna didn’t say a single word. She kept her eyes on Javier’s face. He was in the shadows as usual, barely able to be seen. His face was a carved mask, inscrutable. He said nothing at all, but his fingers tapped his thigh, and the movement was mesmerizing, as if all his pent-up emotion was controlled only by those rhythmic taps.

Rose could feel the burning heat from Kane’s piercing eyes. She sighed and held up her hand. “I realize that all of you are just trying to protect us, but we have to be able to live our lives. I haven’t been out of here in six weeks. That’s a long time. Yes, I’ve been active, but while I enjoy the company, I’d like to experience freedom. I’ve been a prisoner my entire life, and walking through a marketplace is an amazing treat for me.”

She kept her gaze locked with Kane’s. In the end, his opinion was all that mattered to her. He shook his head, and she could see fear there—and determination.

“Damn it, Rose. If something happens to you ...” He trailed off and turned away from her, but not before she saw the burst of emotion cross his face.

“Nothing will happen.” Javier stood up abruptly.

“Damn it,” Kane said again without looking at her. “Gideon, you and Ethan have the rooftops. Stay inside the marketplace. We can cover them easily there.”

“I wanted to go into the little boutique and look at clothes. It’s two blocks down,” Rose insisted. “Kane, I have to feel like I can breathe.”

Kane closed his eyes briefly and swept his arm around her, dragging her close to him. “I know, Rose. I don’t want you to feel as if you’re a prisoner here. I didn’t know you were feeling that way. Jaimie goes out, yes, but she doesn’t have a price on her head.”

“It’s been quiet for weeks; Jaimie said so,” Rose pointed out. “She’s got all the information pouring in. They stopped talking about me.”

She hated the tension between them. Kane’s easy smile was gone, and his fingers dug into her hip as though he could tie them together through sheer physical contact. She didn’t try to pull away from him, afraid he would think she wasn’t happy. She was. She loved her life with him, everything about it, but she had to take the next step and go out into the world. If she couldn’t, then how could Sebastian?

Kane shook his head again. Rose laid her palm over his chest, right over his thundering heart. She looked up at him, willing him to look down at her, into her eyes, and see that she loved him beyond all else. This wasn’t about their life together, but about needs. The need to walk through a crowd of people or go into a store and shop for her own clothes—things she’d never been able to do. She wanted those things for herself. Maybe she was being greedy, but it mattered that he understood.

“You know the team has to go with you.”

“Around us. Not with us,” Rose corrected. “We’re trained soldiers, Kane. Civilians aren’t going to hurt us.”

“They’re the worst because you don’t expect it,” Kane corrected. “I should be with you, Rose, close, the first time.”

She sighed. “If that’s what you need to do, Kane.”

“For God’s sake, Kane,” Javier hissed. “She’s got Rhianna with her. What the hell is going to happen to her with Rhee beside her the entire time?”

Rhianna looked more shocked than anyone else. Her gaze jumped to Javier’s face, but it was impossible to read his expression. He never so much as glanced at her.

“I didn’t think of that,” Kane admitted. He looked rueful, raking his hand through his hair. “Sorry, Rhee. I know you can look after her.”

Rose suppressed the urge to stomp her foot. Rhianna had obviously earned their respect out in the field; she hadn’t. “We’ll be fine, Kane. The three of us can kick some serious butt if we have to, and with Gideon and Ethan on the rooftops, nothing can happen.”

“I’ll be in the street. Lucas too,” Javier pointed out, some of the tension easing from his voice. “Lucas can blend. He’s a freaking ghost out there.”

“This is the way we have to live, isn’t it?” Rose said.

“We’re used to it,” Jaimie said. “This has been our lives since we were little, Rose. We practically lived on the streets most of the time, and we had to look out for one another. It just feels normal after a while.”

“And right,” Rhianna said. Again she glanced at Javier and then looked away. “Being alone is no fun when you know no one has your back. Looking out for one another is what family does, and we’re a tight family.”

Rose looked around the room at all the faces. They weren’t her sisters, the women she’d grown up with, but they were offering her a home. A real home. She found herself smiling. “I think I can live with knowing I’m always surrounded by people willing to help me. I hope you know I would do the same for you.”

She looked Kane right in the eye when she said it. He persisted in thinking she was a fragile little flower that needed protection.

I know better, baby. It’s just that you’ve become my world. When a man’s had nothing, and he finds that one woman who owns his heart, it’s damned hard not to lock her away from any danger.

But you know better.

Logic doesn’t enter into this, he denied. “Go then, Rose. But Rhianna, you don’t leave her side. Not for one damned minute.”

Javier stirred, drawing attention, but he subsided when Rose shook her head. “That’s not fair, Kane, and you know it. Rhianna is not less than I am. We’ll all look out for each other.”

Rhianna burst out laughing. “We’re going to the market, Kane, not to a war zone. We’re highly trained professionals. They’re freakin’ drug dealers. Sheesh. Have you all lost your minds? Come on, Rose. Let’s get out of here.”

Gideon and Ethan rushed up the stairs toward the rooftops. Lucas left the room. Rose put Sebastian in Kane’s arms.

“You can do this, Kane. I’ll sometimes have to watch him while you go out without me. You have to be comfortable knowing the team will look after me, just as they look after you.”

“Damn it, Rose.”

She laughed. “You seem to be stuck on that little theme.”

He caught her chin and kissed her hard, kissed her until her heart was pounding and her knees were weak.

“Just come back to us,” he demanded. “And for your information, it’s bullshit for me to be relegated to babysitter when you’re putting yourself on the line.”

She raised an eyebrow. “For your information, it isn’t called babysitting when it’s your own child. Sebastian is far more at risk than I am.”

“I don’t think so, Rose, not anymore. I think Whitney believes I won his game by stopping him from taking both of you. But he wants you back.”

“If you really can’t stand this, Kane, then we’ll do it your way,” Rose capitulated.

Kane was far too distressed for her to try to prove a point. Sebastian would be safe with Paul. She trusted him. If it meant that much to Kane to guard her back, then she needed to concede to him this one thing. Over time, when nothing happened, he’d mellow out—she hoped.

“I really can’t stand it.” Kane jumped on that, knowing she expected him to reassure her that he would be fine staying at home. “I need to be out on the street watching over you.” No way in hell was that going to happen. She could think it all she liked, but if she walked out that door, he was going to be shadowing her every step of the way. If she really knew him, she would have known that.

Rose made a face at him and turned away without arguing, which, in his opinion, she should have done in the first place. It would have saved a hell of a lot of time. What kind of man did she think he was? He protected his own. She was his woman, and when she put her life at risk, he was going to be guarding her precious little ass whether she liked it or not.