Heroes In Uniform (119 page)

“I know and I appreciate the offer, but this is something I have to take care of myself.”

* * *

The call came well past midnight.

He and Liliana had been discussing and researching various experiments and treatments based on Caterina’s file for a couple of hours.

“Tell me this isn’t a BFD,” he said to Franklin as he answered.

“Sorry,
amigo
, but the camel’s on fire.”

Shit
, he thought, but forced a smile on his face for his sister. He motioned with his head that he wanted her to leave the room, needing privacy for the upcoming discussion.

“I’ll go check on Caterina,” she said, rose from the chair, and hurried out.

Mick closed the door behind her and leaned against it. “What’s the SNAFU?”

“Edwards was way too calm today when I told him I was off the assignment.”

Mick processed that comment, but it didn’t take much to realize why.

“We weren’t the only two he hired.”

“Sorry, man. When I was going through security at the end of the day, I noticed some guest names on their list. Mad Dog paid Wardwell a visit also. I tried to get more info only – ”

“Fuck,” he muttered and raked his fingers through his hair. Matthew Donnelly, aka Mad Dog, was nothing but trouble.

“But you’re not sure that Edwards hired him?” he pressed.

“This is the kind of job Mad Dog would do for free,” Franklin retorted with a rough laugh.

Beautiful woman.

Big challenge.

Possible death.

Definitely the kind of assignment Mad Dog would relish.

“Do you know what Mad Dog’s been up to lately?”

“Private security black ops. Heard he was doing some time in the Middle East, but got booted. Then he headed down to South America on another assignment. Never really wanted to stay in touch with him, if you know what I mean,” Franklin said.

Mick knew exactly. Mad Dog was a sick miserable fuck. Most people wanted to keep off his radar.

“Thanks, Franklin. Keep me posted on anything else you hear.”

He snapped the cell phone shut and took a deep breath as he considered Franklin’s news.

Mad Dog had probably been spreading mayhem wherever he went
, Mick thought, recalling his last mission with the other mercenary. Two innocent civilians had become collateral damage, not that Mad Dog had cared.

Mad Dog had been fired by the large private security firm after that incident and had seemingly disappeared.

Mick had left the firm of his own volition and set up his own agency to deal with different kinds of problems. Not that those problems hadn’t occasionally involved the possibility of death.

But not cold-blooded murder.

What worried him more was that a man like Mad Dog would help himself to Caterina in other ways as well. In her almost-returning-to-normal state, it was hard to ignore how attractive she was in person.

The professional photographs hadn’t done her justice.

But as he had thought in Edwards’ office days earlier, he reminded himself that beauty didn’t preclude violence.

Not to mention that violence had its own beauty.

He was an artist of that kind of beauty.

Raising his hands, he examined them, almost as if they belonged to someone else. They were hands capable of brutality, but not cruelty. Hands which could bestow tenderness, not that he’d had much opportunity for that lately. Hands capable of passion, which he could easily get and give.

Women seemed to be drawn to him or maybe it was better to say they were drawn to the aura of danger around him. Enticed by the prospect of a risky tryst with a handsome man who knew how to satisfy.

That kind of attraction didn’t really make for anything but a passable fuck.

And a sad existence.

Jerking away from the door, he opened it and returned to the guest room where Liliana sat in the comfy chair, laptop on her legs, reading something online.

“You may want to reconsider staying here,” he said, leaning against the door frame.

She looked up, her dark gaze filled with puzzlement.

“You want me to go back to Harrison?”

He strode over to her, kneeled before her, and tenderly took hold of her hands. Strong, capable, loving hands. Hands which could never be violent.

“Someone else has been sent after Caterina. Someone nasty.”

“So? More reason for me to stay and help out,” she said and twined her fingers with his.

“You don’t understand, sis,” he said, shaking his head.

“I get it. He’s the Big Bad, but you’re here. You’ll watch out for us.”

Her trust in him warmed a long lost piece of his soul and yet . . .

“You didn’t think that before. When you said – ”

“That you weren’t my hero. I was angry. I wanted to lash out because . . .”

She looked away from him, but it wasn’t enough to hide the tears shimmering in her eyes.

“Because why, Lil?”

She sucked in a shaky breath and bit her bottom lip. “Because for months now I’ve been losing control of my life. I was angry about that.”

He cupped her chin and urged her to face him. With a proud smile, he said, “You are a beautiful and amazing woman. One who can take care of what she needs to do.”

One lone tear spilled down her cheek. She braved a watery smile and said, “Then trust that I can handle myself now. That I can help you with this assignment.”

She was his blood and they had overcome a great deal of adversity together. The early days when they had first arrived from Mexico and everything had been scarce. As children they had faced the challenges of being in different world. Survived the near ruin of their family’s business several years earlier.

He wouldn’t dismiss her abilities when he needed them the most.

Recognizing that she needed to be here and involved to regain what she thought she had lost, he said, “Watch your back when you’re coming and going. If you see anything that seems suspicious, you call me and head to the nearest police station.”

“Copy that,” she said and shot him a playful salute.

Gesturing to the laptop, he said, “Get anything else out of there?”

Liliana’s smiled firmed and broadened.

“You bet I did.”

Sins of the Flesh: Chapter Sixteen

Mick nudged the door open and walked in, looking fresh and well rested, but Caterina knew he had spent the night in the chair by the bed again.

Whenever she woke from a sleep packed with fitful images, he had been there, alert as well. Offering comfort. His dark eyes seeming to register every little facet of what was happening, as if to catalogue the events for further analysis.

He had even released her once during the course of that uneven night, escorting her to the bathroom so she could relieve herself. This time he had waited outside the door, sparing her the embarrassment of the day before.

Back in the room, he had tied her back up again, but not as tightly.

Had he come to believe I'm not a threat?
Caterina thought.

As Mick approached the bed, Caterina wondered how he could have reached such a decision when she herself still doubted.

The images that had come to her during the night had been violent. Horribly so. A slideshow of blood, destruction, and death. Vividly real in her mind, but with enough gaps that it made her memory inconsistent.

Through every nightmare he had been by her side, providing stability and comfort.

“Good morning,” he said, walking to the foot of the bed. He released the bindings, but didn’t re-tie the restraints.

At the headboard, he did the same, freeing her from her bondage.

She rubbed at her wrists, not that they were sore. She had stopped fighting against the restraints last night after supper, realizing that this man and the young woman didn’t intend to hurt her.

Not like she had struggled at Wardwell.

Wardwell.

She remembered now the name of her captors. Remembered that Dr. Wells hadn’t necessarily been all goodness and light, although he had befriended her.

“They used to tie me down,” she suddenly told Mick.

A flicker of emotion darkened his almost impenetrable gaze as his eyes met hers.

“Edwards?” he asked, seeking confirmation.

She nodded. “Wells, too. And Dr. Morales.”

He plopped down into the chair, but leaned forward, his elbows resting on broad powerful thighs. His fingers loosely laced together.

“Morales is their assistant.” His tone seemed to seek confirmation of that statement.

Caterina searched her brain, trying to remember more about Morales. The name had popped into her recollection last night as she forced herself to try and recall what had happened to her.

Nothing came to her about Morales. She shook her head. “I can’t remember.”

“Dr. Morales isn’t a physician. He’s a geneticist from what we could gather from your files.”

She again tried to place the name. In a burst of intense powerful images that nearly blinded her, he flashed into her mind.

She closed her eyes and pressed her hands to her temples as if that might keep her head from exploding as the visions pounded at her.

A dark-eyed little man.

A thin smile as sharp as the instruments in his hand.

Burning pain in her veins from his needle.

The images came over and over interspersed with agony so real, she needed to escape it. She surged forward, but encountered a hard chest. Buried her head there as he wrapped his strong arms around her.

* * *

“Easy, Cat. They’re just memories,” Mick said softly.

She grabbed hold of his t-shirt, her hands fisted tightly into the fabric as she keened like an animal. Only the press of her body against his was very human and very womanly.

Too much so
, Mick realized, fighting his visceral reaction to her proximity.

“Why is this happening?” she murmured against his chest, rubbing her head there as if by doing so she could erase the images.

He cradled the back of her head with immense restraint and tenderness, sifting his fingers through the thick curls. “They gave you small doses of LSD in addition to a bunch of other hallucinogenic drugs. It may take a little while for all that medication to work out of your system.”

“What’s a ‘little while’,” she said and wagged her head more forcefully, as if trying to dislodge the visions.

As he glanced down, he realized she had gone all camo on him again. Her hands were the color of his dark blue polo shirt and the rest of her was beginning to blend into the rust brown of the over-sized t-shirt he had offered her to wear.

“A couple of days or even weeks. It’s hard to tell with LSD, but try to focus, Cat,” he urged, recalling the mantra she had used the day before to regain control.

She listened to his command. She repeated the word over and over and as the tightness left her body, so did the color, but not before she caught a glimpse of herself in her altered state.

She released him and raised her hands. Held them before her and examined them while her skin slowly faded back to normal.

“What am I?” she asked, puzzlement in the stormy ocean blue of her eyes when her gaze skipped to his.

He could have lied. Tempered his words with tenderness, but he had a limited quantity of that and holding her had expended most of it.

“A science experiment,” he said, released her, and returned to his spot in the chair.

Her eyes narrowed as she considered his statement. The soft curls of her hair bobbed back and forth with the motion of her head as she said, “They were supposed to help me.”

“You’re not blind anymore,” he reminded, although he wasn’t sure she would consider that a worthwhile trade-off to becoming someone’s lab rat.

He wouldn’t.

She leaned back against the headboard, raised slender elegant fingers to her temples and rubbed tiny circles there. “Toward the end, when I was sick, I couldn’t see. But it was the pain in my head . . . ”

Meeting his gaze directly, she said, “It was the pain that stole the music.” Tapping a spot above her heart with one hand, she added, “
My
music.”

The passion in her words was unmistakable.

He understood it. Admired it.

He couldn’t allow those sentiments to change what he had to do. “Someone killed Wells. Do you know who?”

“If I did, don’t you think I’d tell you so you’d let me go?” she shot back.

“Not if you were the one who did it,” he replied calmly, barely controlling his smile at her show of spunk. He liked feisty Cat much more than the mewling weak Cat the drugs had created.

She threaded her fingers into her hair, pulling it back off her face. Releasing the long locks to fall back onto her shoulders as she said, “Why don’t you turn me over to the police? Let them decide.”

He shrugged and intentionally kept his tone neutral. “Because I’ve been paid to return you to Edwards.”

Her skin paled for a moment before a bit of the t-shirt’s rust color leaked onto her body.

Fight or flight
, he thought again.

“You’re afraid of Edwards. He hurt you?”

“Morales. Edwards,” she admitted, looking downward at the sheet covering her body. Plucking at the folds of it nervously before she asked, “Are you going to give me back to Edwards?”

“Do
you
think that’s what I’m going to do?” he said, perversely intrigued to hear her initial thoughts about him.

She slowly lifted her head and tilted it at a slight angle. She examined him intently, but the look wasn’t one like he generally received from most women. This one reminded him of the look from one of his elementary school teachers.

Exasperated described it best. That brought a disappointment he didn’t understand, so he arched a brow and said, “Well?”

She raised her chin a defiant inch. “I think that if you were going to do that, you would have done it already.”

Her slightly rebellious response roused his smile once again. “So what do you propose I do?”

Her chin shot up another tiny bit, but there was nothing tiny about the determination in her voice.