Rose went still. She didn’t turn her head but remained tense, her hands gripping his wrists as if to pry them from the slight swell of her belly. “Kane?”

He felt the tension coiling in her, not rigid and tense, but the coil of a snake about to attack. “I’m here, honey. No one wants to hurt you. Just stay still, and we’ll sort this out without anyone getting hurt.”

“I won’t go back. He can’t have my baby.” The statement was delivered in a quiet voice, but he believed her. Rose might look like a little Asian pixie, but she had a spine of steel. She had thwarted Whitney each time he’d sent a man to impregnate her. She’d fought until they feared they might kill her, and she was a vicious fighter. More than one man had been in the infirmary after a round with her.

“Our baby,” he corrected, and the rightness of it took some of the knots out of his belly. “You want to tell me why you didn’t look pregnant? How did you manage that?”

“I’m not without my own skills. I can camouflage when I need to. I felt all of you the moment you got close. Whitney isn’t getting my baby. He doesn’t know for certain yet that I’m pregnant, and I’m keeping it that way.”

“Whitney didn’t send me after you. I don’t take orders from him. We reported his experiments, and he’s gone into hiding. I’ve searched for you ever since you disappeared.”

She had begun to relax, but at his words she tensed again.

“To help you, Rose,” he explained hastily. “I was the one who helped you escape, remember? I’m not about to hand you over to the enemy.”

Kane didn’t make the mistake of letting go of her. He knew Gideon had a high-powered rifle on her and was all too aware that Gideon would protect him first. He wanted her away from the window, but that might trigger Mack to send in Javier. It was a very fragile line they were all walking, and one wrong move could result in disaster.