Deadly Game by Christine Feehan

“If you so much as twitch, I’ll kill you.”
    She turned to look at him, forcing a smile when she wanted to scream with pain. “Maybe you’ll be doing me a favor.”
    Something dangerous flickered in Jack’s eyes. “You don’t want to play games with me, Mari. I don’t know anything at all about you. Briony is my world, and if you are in any way a threat to her, you’re gone.”
    Briony. She couldn’t think about Briony. Her twin was somewhere in the world, far away from all of this insanity. She was safe and happy and had a husband who adored her, not a stone-cold killer with silver slashing eyes and without a single shred of mercy in him.
    The doctor moved in close to her. It took a moment before she realized just how humiliated she was going to be. He was removing the catheter with both men in the room. She wore little beneath the thin cover.
    “Take a breath,” Ken advised. “We don’t exactly have a choice here, and in any case, we’ll be seeing to your needs until you can walk again.”
    “How long did you have someone helping you with bodily functions after they chopped you into little pieces? Did they remove all of you or just parts?”
    The soft snick of the gun was loud in the suddenly quiet room. The doctor gasped and studiously avoided looking at Ken. It wasn’t hard for anyone to imagine just what body part she was asking about.
    Mari would have given anything to be able to take back the words the moment they left her mouth. She was lashing out in embarrassment, trying to hurt him, trying to get some reaction from him. It was petty and beneath her. She didn’t care about his scars, although she had to admit she did wonder if they had cut him everywhere. She couldn’t imagine a sadist like Ekabela—a man capable of genocide—not doing as much damage as possible to another man he hated and feared.
    That drove out every other thought— Ekabela had feared this man —yet she was deliberately provoking him, prodding a coiled viper with a stick, digging into a predator’s wounds just to cover her own humiliation. She looked up at him, uncaring that the room seethed with tension and his brother wanted to pull the trigger. The two men were very connected. Jack must feel a stab of pain cutting as savagely as the knife that had cut his twin each time he looked at Ken. She would feel it if someone had tortured Briony and left visible evidence behind.
    “Take the catheter out, Doc,” Ken said, his tone mild. “And don’t you think it’s a little dramatic to hold a gun on her, Jack?” He sighed and brushed more stray strands of hair from her face. “Jack likes to shoot first and ask questions later. I’ve sent him to a couple of psychiatrists, but they always send him back and tell me there’s no help for him.”
    She couldn’t apologize, couldn’t say the words in front of the others. She could only look up at his carefully expressionless face and wish Jack would pull the trigger. She doubted Ken allowed himself to be hurt by much, but her barb had gotten to him. He didn’t show it at all, but Jack had and that seemed worse. As if her thoughtless comment had gone so deep Ken couldn’t show his reaction.
    He was her enemy. She repeated the words over and over as the doctor removed the IV and catheter. All the while she kept her gaze locked with Ken’s, seeing every detail, the perfect bone structure, the heavy dark lashes in contrast to his gleaming silver eyes. There was latent sensuality there, but she knew those grid patterns on his face were all most people were ever going to see.
    “What did my sister say when she saw you?” She whispered the words aloud, needing to know, knowing the question would be misconstrued, but it would tell her the truth, tell her things she needed to know in order to keep going on her course. She had to be right about Briony’s character.
    “Damn you,” Jack hissed, taking an aggressive step forward. “Shut the hell up, before I do it for you.”
    Ken