Blindsided (17 page)

He swallowed down the frustration. “You’re going to have to trust me, Aria, despite your misgivings. I’ve already promised to keep you as an unnamed source.”

She threw him a mocking chuckle. “Byron’s my twin brother, how are you going to do that?”

“Byron’s dead, remember?” he answered, pointing out the irony. “What we have is a rogue Viadal of unknown origins.”

Her eyebrows rose. “And when he’s caught?”

Teigan gave a shrug. He really didn’t plan on him being caught, or at least not brought in. “Unless your parents registered Byron’s DNA in the government database at some point, I don’t see that you have a concern. Did they?”

She scoffed. “I doubt it. Not unless it’s hidden somewhere I haven’t thought to look. But it hardly matters. I told you before. I won’t take the risk. I’m not going to put myself in the hands of a government that would purposely break their own soldiers.”

Teigan looked to Garret. “What is she talking about?”

Garret’s brow scrunched together. “I don’t know...” He looked at Aria. “Unless you’re talking about Spanski.”

Her shoulders lifted and fell, shifting apart the lapels of the stiff white blouse so the inner curve of her breasts was exposed. “He’s a good example, though not the only one.”

Garret frowned.

“Who’s Spanski?” Teigan asked.

“Spanski was another V-10. He went berserk during a week of heavy training exercises and had to be put in a, uh, care facility.”

“What sort of training exercises?” Teigan demanded.

Garret shook his head.

Aria was more than happy to provide him with the answer. “They routinely test their soldiers, studying, analyzing, searching for a weakness. When they find one, they exploit it. Using whatever means they feel necessary to make sure the weakness won’t cause their soldier to break at an inopportune moment. Once a year, at least, the V-10s are put through week-long test sessions. No sleep, no food, the bare minimum of water; dream therapies that exploit the perceived weakness, hallucinogenic drugs. If a soldier can’t complete the training exercise in a satisfactory manner…” she shrugged.

“Is this true?” Teigan asked Garret.
 

Again Garret hesitated in answering and Aria stepped in. “The truth is, a Viadal can have no weaknesses. Not if they hope to stay out of a padded cell.”
 

No wonder she was so scared. Not only did she fear she’d be under constant monitoring and surveillance as Garret was, but she thought the government might try to break her in a pre-emptive strike. Well damn. How was he supposed to combat that sort of fear, other than to reassure her yet again?

“I promise that won’t happen, Aria.”

Her brow creased and she shook her head. “No. I’ll have Willis bring the information to you by tomorrow night. That should be plenty of time for you to analyze the data and see if it can aid in Byron’s capture.”

“
Should
be.” He paused, letting the uncertainty of her own words sink in. “Garret turns thirty in ten days.”

Her head jerked back toward Garret. She started and hesitated a few times before saying, “Most of the killings occurred within a day or two of the target’s birthday.”

“True,” Teigan agreed. “And one soldier was killed almost three weeks before his birthday. Byron might not be coming for Garret for another week, or…”
 

She wrung her hands in front of her, her teeth worrying her bottom lip. Garret was giving him a funny look, probably wondering what he was doing.

He hadn’t clarified that it would be
his
ass in danger. For some reason, she hadn’t seemed to clue into the fact yet that
he
was the bait, not Garret. Most likely she chalked up their initial meeting to queer circumstances, a case of mistaken identity and his treacherous nature. Besides, it looked like playing up the danger toward Garret was a quicker way to prick her conscious. At this point, Teigan thought she might jump up and do splits if something were to happen to him.

He looked at his brother. Garret sat still under Aria’s sightless scrutiny, his face void of any emotion. Something stirred within Teigan, a ping, a twist of empathy.
Garret didn’t expect Aria to care enough to come to his rescue.
Well, he was betting Garret was wrong.

“How would you feel, Aria? What if you waited and Byron made his move now, today. Are you really willing to risk Garret’s life?”

Chapter Ten

Garret studied the carton of storage data in his hands as if it was Pandora’s Box. Contained inside was the hope that they could stop a mad man, but there was danger within as well. Not disease and misfortune, but evil, or the potential for it, was not a far stretch. The political repercussions alone could be vast if the nations Aria had hacked into ever learned of the breach. Not to mention the tracking program, included within, that enabled her to find Byron. With it, anyone could be found anywhere. There would be no hiding, no privacy. Not that there was much in this day in age, but this program was beyond anything he’d ever seen—every feed, every com screen, every computer in every country.
 

The woman who’d given this information to them would be in the greatest danger. He still wondered why in the hell she’d done it. What was she getting out of this? The answer was absolutely, fucking nothing.

He’d thought, there in the library, that Teigan had blown that last hand. Why would Aria Octavia Idyllis, multi-billion dollar heiress, company CEO, publicly loved beauty—and that was just a smidge of what she stood to lose—give a rip about what happened to a government owned ex-V-10?
 

It certainly wasn’t because she’d fallen head-over-heels in love with him. Yeah, he’d tested her, wondering if she just got off on the idea of being with a fellow Viadal. Since the revelation of Teigan’s true identity, there had been a distinctive shift in her responses to Teigan, and the subsequent amity she’d shown toward himself had made him suspicious. But after his little test in the library, he was sure that was all her friendly advances were: an offer of friendship, a sense of camaraderie because of their less than auspicious beginnings in a test tube. She had no more interest in him than she would to, say, another blind woman. The only link being the feelings of kinship such life altering attributes held.
Yet that was enough for her to risk her freedom for me.

“What the hell was that anyway?” Teigan burst out, aggressively steering their car around a shuttle.

Talk about a distinctive shift in attitude. Whatever was eating at his brother had started back at the house. The moment they’d left the library, Teigan had been giving him the proverbial cold shoulder, which may have been a step up from patient/overprotective big brother, but…

“What’s
that
?” Garret craned his head around, meeting Teigan’s hard gaze. Funny, he hadn’t thought blue eyes could look like fire, but he supposed when someone was riding as white hot as Teigan was now, anything was possible.

“You,” Teigan snapped, and whipped around another vehicle, “putting the moves on her.”

“What are you talking about?” Garret knew very well what Tegian was talking about, but for some odd reason he was enjoying his older brother’s wrath. He certainly liked it better than the let’s-play-nice-together mentality Teigan had been using since he’d proclaimed they were brothers, and therefore were going to
be
brothers. Garret had no qualms about giving this whole brotherhood crap a go, but there was no way in hell he was going to be molded into Teigan’s idea of a sitcom family.
Take me or leave me as I am, bro.

“In the library,” Teigan explained in modulated tones through clenched teeth. “When I came back, you were practically all over her.”

Garret shrugged, guessing his blasé attitude would get Teigan riled quicker than a round in the ring. “I was putting a book back on the shelf.”

“And that’s all you were doing?”

“Yes,” Garret lied with such skill he didn’t doubt he would’ve passed the government polygraph test. He must have passed Teigan’s too because his brother gave him a quick, questioning glance before facing forward again, brow furrowed in thought.

“I don’t think she saw it that way,” Tegian said after a good five klicks. “She was completely fixated on you the whole time we were talking.”

Garret laced his hands behind his head, leaning back in the captain-chair. “Yeah, she seems to have the hots for me.”

Teigan glanced at him sharply. Garret winked, giving him a careless smile.

Garret knew the exact moment when the fight-or-flight instincts kicked in. Adrenaline bumped through big brother’s system and existed through his pores. Oh, this was getting interesting now.
Let me have it, bro.

Teigan took a deep breath, blew it out. Garret hated when he did that. “Listen. I have no right to tell you who you can and can’t pursue.”

Garret wasn’t sure whether Teigan’s conduct was admirable at this point, or just plain annoying. Would Teigan really be willing to sacrifice his potential happiness in favor of little brother’s?

“Damn straight,” Garret said and closed his eyes.
Them’s fighting words. Come on, Teigan, pick up the gauntlet.

Grind, grind. Grind, grind. Big brother did that a lot. At that rate Teigan was going to need dentures inside of a dozen years.

“Aria may know what you are,” Teigan began with the patient tone, “but think on this, would it be fair to put her in danger like that?”

Teigan was trying to scare him off now. Better. The sickening self-sacrificial shit was beginning to grate.

“In danger? How am
I
putting her in danger?” Garret asked innocently, figuring one last nudge should do it.

“She’s a silent source. Her agreement to help us is based on Whitesman not learning about her.” Teigan jabbed a finger toward Garret. “If you start dating her, given how closely they watch you, don’t you think you’d be endangering her autonomy?”

Huh. Teigan was genuinely worried about Aria, and he had a damn good point. However, the same point could be made in reverse, which kinda sucked; there was definitely something there in Aria-Teigan land. Maybe he’d tormented big brother enough. “Gee-zuz, Teigan. Wake up and smell the pheromones.”
 

Teigan cast him a suspicious glance. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means the woman practically creams her panties whenever you enter the room.”

Teigan slammed a fist against the wheel. “Don’t be a jackass. I get enough crude comments from John. I don’t need you testing the boundaries of my tolerance, too.”

Garret crossed his arms, raised his brow in challenge. “What you going to do? Fight me? Tell Whitesman I’m not playing nice?”

“Fuck you, Garret.” There was no real heat in Teigan’s voice, just a resigned kind of exasperation.

Garret smiled, adding fuel to the fire. “Now who’s crude?”

Teigan all but growled.
 

Garret laughed. “So, this is what brothers do.”

Teigan was obviously not amused. Garret sighed. “I’m sorry I was crude. Aria is a good woman. And if it wasn’t for the fact that Whitesman keeps almost as close tabs on his agents as he does the V-10s, I’d say she was perfect for you.”

Teigan’s blue eyes zeroed in on him again. “But not you.”

“Nope, bro. Nothing there. Which, like you said, is good.” He gazed back out the window. Thousands of buildings, millions of people. Men, women. Couples, children… families. “I can’t afford any attachments.”

The silence stretched out. Long minutes passed, the only sound the measured beat of wipers and pattering of light rain tinkling down the side windows. He shouldn’t have taunted Teigan like that. He’d wanted Teigan to stop treating him with kid gloves and more like a real brother. But that wasn’t possible. Garret wasn’t normal. Fake sitcom family was the best he was going to get. And he’d even managed to fuck that up.

“Well, you got one.”

It took a second for Garret to realize Teigan had broken the silence. Garret looked over at him in question.

Teigan met the look steadily. “You got me.”
 

Teigan’s gray-blue eyes—falsely lighted with contacts—deepened with sincerity and it hit him: Aria, a woman who didn’t even know him, might have been willing to risk her freedom, but it was Teigan who’d maneuvered her into it, and Teigan who was willing to risk his very life to protect his younger brother. Talk about a dysfunctional family.

Yeah. But it’s
my
dysfunctional family.

This time Garret didn’t have to force the smile. He didn’t fight it either, as he normally would’ve done when something tugged him enough emotionally to draw out such an expression. And as he let it come, spreading wide across his face, Garret felt something strangely close to warmth creeping into his chest.

***

“You’re fucking kidding me.” John’s head shook back and forth, back and forth in a sign of pure disbelief.
 

As soon as they’d gotten back to the house, Teigan had requested a closed room session with John, Carthridge, and Garret. He would’ve preferred to not include John and Carthridge at all, but given the new information Aria had given them, he was going to need both men’s expertise to devise a workable plan. Not to mention he doubted that either wouldn’t have figured it out on their own.