Authors: Lisa Renee Jones
“I’m not giving you anything,” she declared. “You certainly haven’t given a damn thing to me.”
“If even one more of these bullets ends up in one of our soldiers,” he said, “I promise you, I will make destroying you and Taylor Industries my life mission.”
That pale, plastic surgery-created face reddened. “What’s so pathetic,” she said, “is that I believe you. I believe my son would try and destroy me.”
“Your son died years ago,” he assured her. He’d come here for answers and hoped to find the loving mother he’d grown up with, not the enemy she’d become. Jesus Christ, he was a fool. He’d expected Cassandra to give up on her father, and yet he still hadn’t managed to do so with his mother. “Now. Let’s move past the talk. Let’s go to your computer.” He wasn’t about to take her word on anything.
Her eyes went wide. “Why would I do that?”
“Because I want more than the names of who you sold those bullets to. I want every last one stocked in your warehouses.” Alarm slid across her face, and she looked like she might refuse, so he added softly, “We can do this the easy way,
Mother
, or the hard way.”
She glowered, her gaze skittering to the gun and two knives strapped to his hips before she swallowed hard. Without looking at him, she turned on her heels and marched down the hall, turning to the office on the right that had once been his father’s.
He was behind her solid mahogany desk at the same moment she was, standing over her shoulder. She wasn’t doing anything he didn’t supervise. In fact, he reached over her shoulder and punched the HP notebook to life.
“Already logged in,” he scoffed. “I’m ashamed, Mother. You should be more careful.” He pointed to the visitor’s chair across from him. “Sit.” Her lips pursed, but she did as he said.
He pulled his gun and set it on the desk, reminding her how easily he could use it, and started typing. A second password screen pulled up the instant he typed in Green Hornets.
“What’s the password?”
“Michael,” she said, giving him a “go to hell” glare.
He didn’t miss the inference that she’d made those bullets to kill him and those like him. She hated him almost as much as he hated her. He typed in the password.
The information he needed quickly appeared on the screen, including storage location and past shipments, which indicated sales to only one buyer—the U.S. Army, just as she had said. Or those were the only sales documented.
He pushed the phone on her desk in her direction. “Call your security team. Clear Caleb Rain to pick up a shipment.”
“You won’t get away with this,” she vowed.
“Just dial,” he bit out.
The instant she hung up the phone, he snatched his cell and contacted the Renegade team. Purposely, he set it on the desk next to the gun.
“We’ll wait together while they retrieve the bullets,” he told her. “That way you can help me clear up any trouble they might run into.”
He typed in Red Dart, but came up with nothing. Tried several variations. Considered questioning her, but decided that would only make her bury Red Dart deeper before Sterling could find it. He popped in a backup drive. If she had anything on her computer, he’d get it. And he wanted the specs to manufacture those bullets for themselves.
His nostrils flared with the scent of sex again, and he narrowed his gaze on his mother. It was Powell; he could smell him. “Get up,” he said, grabbing the gun. If Powell was here, Michael was going to find him.
Chapter 19
For thirty minutes, he’d torn the house apart looking for Powell—the man who’d taken Cassandra from him the day he’d decided to lock away the X2s. The man who might well give Adam the power to destroy the American dream of a free world if he gained control of the government as he planned. That man had been in his mother’s bed. And knowing that Powell had slept with his mother had sent Michael into a maddening rage. Michael didn’t doubt for a minute that he was meant to know.
“Where is he, Mother?” Michael demanded, standing in the middle of her bedroom that dripped of silk, satin, and sex—with Powell. Or maybe that was just her.
She
smelled like sex. Damn, his sense of smell. This was torture. Knowing she’d been with him.
She sat on the edge of the bed, a smug look on her face. “I have no idea what you are talking about.”
“I’m losing patience,” he ground out between his teeth.
A thin dark brow arched. “And here I thought you were a man of control, like
your father
.”
Michael moved his neck from side to side as he drew a slow, agitated breath. “Make no mistake, Mother,” he said, low, lethal. “I
am
like my father. And we both know what he would have done if someone crossed him, now don’t we?” His father would have found a way to make them pay. Just as Michael intended to do.
If Powell were still here—and every instinct he owned, including his enhanced sense of smell, said he was—he was going to find him. He’d end this now, once and for all. He’d torture him for the location of Red Dart if that’s what it took. Screw digging through the trenches for his secrets. If Michael didn’t drag it out of Powell, eventually Adam would.
His cell phone rang. Michael snapped it to his ear to hear Caleb speak. “We have the bullets. The men are on the outskirts of Sunrise City waiting for us.”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” Michael told him, not about to leave until he was certain Powell wasn’t here.
Silence. “I’m on the front porch when you’re ready.”
Shock rolled through Michael. Caleb was here. He’d known Michael would need him. That shook him in ways even his mother could not. It reminded him he was bigger than this anger. Bigger than the past. He ended the call and attached his phone back onto his belt.
He eyed his mother with contempt and walked out of the room. He didn’t stop until he stepped onto the front porch and shut the door. He and Caleb stood there side-by-side for several silent moments. “Everything okay?” Caleb asked, leaning on the banister.
Michael crossed his arms in front of him. “Powell is fucking my mother. Pretty sure he was here when I arrived, but I couldn’t find him. I’m thinking he’s underground. Otherwise, I would have found him.”
Caleb’s brow arched. “And you were going to do what if you did?”
“Beat the crap out of him, make him tell me where Red Dart is, and then kill him.” It wasn’t the answer Caleb, who believed Powell would die before he talked, would want to hear, but that didn’t stop Michael from being honest.
“Not exactly the plan we discussed,” Caleb said dryly. “At least with Powell alive, we know who has Red Dart. He’s the devil we know, as the old saying goes. Better than the snake in the grass we can’t see.”
Michael turned and eyed the house. Caleb seemed to read where his thoughts were going and said, “We’ll bring a team back and do a thorough search.” He pushed off the banister. “For now, let’s go unload your anger and some of those Green Hornets on the Zodius hanging out at our front door. We need to know our men are safe.”
Michael nodded. He was all about a little anger management in the form of killing a few Zodius soldiers right about now. It might be the only thing that would keep him from where he really wanted to be—in Cassandra’s bed. And if there was anything a visit to his mother was good for—it was to remind him of all the reasons he didn’t belong there. Yet, if there was ever a time he needed that little taste of heaven Cassandra was to him—it was now.
***
“I told you not to use those bullets until after Red Dart was in place!” Jocelyn shouted the minute she entered the lab where Powell waited impatiently. “He’s connected me to you! He’ll connect me to Red Dart if he hasn’t already!” She sucked in a shaky breath, no longer yelling, but still irritatingly shrill. “I told you Michael would know where they came from. We’ve had this technology for years. He was a stockholder. He saw the reports. My son is ten times more dangerous than his father ever was. He’ll help Adam take over the world. He will. And he’s going to come for Taylor Industries. He’ll take my research. I don’t know why he hasn’t already.”
Holy hell, she was crying. He’d wanted her to fear Michael, to see him as a threat, to use her guilt over the discovery that her dead husband had been a monster and she’d been blind to it, even helped him take innocent lives in the name of money. And it had been easy—she’d wanted a reason to feel she hadn’t wronged her son as well by thinking him a monster, by shunning him for most of his adult life. She’d wanted a reason to do something right. And his plan had worked. Maybe too well. A hysterical female was the last thing Powell needed right now. “Control yourself, Jocelyn, and act like—”
“A soldier?” she screamed. “I am not a soldier. I am the woman you promised—”
He grabbed her, shook her. “Get a grip on yourself, woman. I would not be foolish enough to use those bullets and show my hand before we are ready,” he said. “They were part of our plan. A double hit. Kill or control. Think about what you are accusing me of, Jocelyn, and you will see it’s insanity. Someone deceived us.”
“I thought you made sure that couldn’t happen,” she said and repeated frantically. “You
said
you had ways to make sure.”
Powell needed to think. He set her roughly away from him.
“General—”
“Shut up, Jocelyn,” he barked. Now, he remembered why he hated involving women in important matters. “I cannot think with your incessant chattering.” A look of shock registered on her face, and he turned away before he was forced to endure the tears sure to follow.
He had no time for this. He’d come too far, too close to the realization of Red Dart to falter now. His mind tracked through the possible ways this could have happened.
Powell turned to the bed where West rested. West was the only one who’d had contact with Zodius. The only one who had access to artillery logged in at the base. And the only man who knew what a certain “top-secret” unit contained.
“It was West,” he said, fury forming inside him. He snatched up a letter opener from the desk and walked through the open glass door framing West’s bed. He stopped by the bed and drove the letter opener into West’s leg. West gasped and tried to sit up, his eyes bugging out of his head.
“Oh my God!” Jocelyn screamed. “What are you doing?!” She grabbed Powell’s arm.
Powell stared down at her. “Control yourself before I have you controlled.”
Shock filtered through her expression, and her grip loosened and fell. Powell turned away and yanked the blade from West’s leg whose face was contorted with pain. “You know what I love about a GTECH?” he asked. “All the pain and damage I can cause without killing you. I inflict injury. You heal. I cut some more.” He slammed the letter opener back into West’s leg. And left it there. “I know you gave Zodius the Green Hornets. Why?”
“I didn’t do it,” Brock gasped. “I wouldn’t do that.”
“Lies make me want to cause more pain.” He ripped the blade out of West’s leg.
“I didn’t do it! Please! No more! I hate Lucian. I want him on his knees begging for mercy.
I would not help Lucian!
”
Powell considered him a moment. He would believe him about as readily as he would stick his hand in a tank of piranhas. He shoved the blade back into Brock’s leg, reveling at his grunt. Pain would teach him to control himself. “You might think you’ve buried the records to hide what you did, but I will find proof. You’re lying, and I intend to make you pay for it.”
He turned to find Dr. Chin standing beside Jocelyn. “Don’t even consider stitching him up. And leave the blade in his leg. I want it to heal there. A little reminder about what will happen when he crosses me. Otherwise we continue as planned. We’ll use Red Dart to break him.”
He cast Jocelyn a cold stare. He despised weakness. She’d proven today she was best kept beneath him, not beside him. “You just make sure you’re ready with Red Dart when Chin says ‘go.’”
“What about Michael?” Her voice quavered slightly.
He arched a brow. “What about him?”
“He’ll come back.”
“And we’ll be ready,” he assured her. “In fact, we will welcome the visit. If Michael comes to us, we don’t have to hunt him down. I hope he brings others with him. He will be tagged with Red Dart, then broken and controlled, like all the GTECHs. They will become our protectors, not our captors. It seems only appropriate that Michael be the first to fall, considering the hell he made both our lives.” His lips twitched. “His fall will give us another reason to celebrate.” His attention shifted to Chin. “Call me when we’re ready to begin.” He glanced at his watch, calculating the time needed to test Red Dart and prepare before the next nightfall. He didn’t dare delay longer. “You have ten hours.”
Powell walked away, his mind on his plans. The more he thought about Michael, the more he looked forward to bringing that man to his knees.
Chapter 20
Cassandra sat in the soft green recliner between Damion’s and Sterling’s beds, knees under her chin. Finally, Damion was resting. The poor man had been through hell, absolute hell. Throwing up, shivering, and shaking. The same things she’d seen Michael go through, yet Sterling, who had been injured more seriously, had experienced nothing but peaceful sleep.
“Knock, knock.”
Cassandra looked up to find Kelly standing in the doorway. “Hey,” she said, smiling, glad to finally get some time with her. Kelly had been so busy earlier. She’d whizzed in, drawn blood, checked vitals, and taken off again.
“What happened to my order for you to rest?” Kelly asked.
“I’ll rest when you rest,” Cassandra vowed.
“Still as difficult as ever, I see,” Kelly teased, claiming the rolling doctor’s chair. “And no, before you ask, I don’t have your blood work back.”
Cassandra smiled. “I was going to ask.”
“I know,” Kelly assured her. “I still can’t believe you were wearing Michael’s mark for all that time at Groom Lake and didn’t tell me. I would have kept it a secret.”
“I didn’t want to put you in that position,” Cassandra said. “And I always thought we’d come forward. Things just… happened.”
“Things,” she snorted. “That’s a good way of putting it.”
Guilt fluttered inside her. “I’m sorry I dropped off the face of the earth.”
“If you mean Germany and the silent treatment,” Kelly said. “I’m not. You should have stayed there. You were safe.”
“Safe is an illusion as long as Adam is free.” Then she changed the subject, asking what she hadn’t been able to when Kelly had been busy. “The final lifebonding process where I convert to GTECH. It hasn’t changed—right? The eye color change. The sickness. My symptoms all seem like I’m converting, but we haven’t done a blood exchange.”
“And these things are triggered by sex, right?” she responded. Cassandra nodded, and Kelly continued, “Could be that his body evolved, and perhaps now the process doesn’t require the blood exchange. Maybe a few sexual encounters will do the job.”
That wasn’t the answer Cassandra wanted. So, no sex or lifelong bonding—there had to be an in-between. Maybe a condom but… “It’s not sex. It’s orgasm,” she said, remembering the restroom encounter in the hotel.
Kelly tucked her hands in her lab coat. “I won’t ask details,” she said. “But I trust you on that one.” She sat there, thought a moment. “It could simply be that you’re ovulating. If you are, it’s quite possible this is simply your body responding to your mate—a natural need to reproduce.”
Cassandra studied her. “I know you, Kelly,” she said. “Stop with the good bedside manner routine. You don’t believe that ovulation thing for a minute. I
wind-walked
and survived.”
“With Michael,” she said. “There is a physical bond there that, in theory, might have offered some protection.”
“Kelly,” Cassandra warned. “Shoot straight with me. Tell me what I need to know, not what you think will make me feel better.”
Kelly pursed her lips. “You’ve had the mark for two years—which I still can’t believe you kept from me, but nevertheless—Mother Nature has a way of finishing what it begins. And as I said, Michael may well have evolved beyond needing the blood exchange. There’s no denying he has skills with the wind that the other GTECHs do not. Of course, I have no idea why. He refuses to give blood. I think he’s afraid we’ll find out he’s like Adam or something crazy like that. Like we even know what Adam is to compare anyway.”
“Because he’s X2 like Adam,” she said. It wasn’t a question.
“Yes,” Kelly agreed. “But if he didn’t turn aggressive and join the Zodius movement while he was undercover, then after all this time he’s not going to. And if he’d let me take his blood—maybe we’d find out he isn’t X2. Maybe the test was an error. Or maybe he has something that offsets the X2 violence. I can help him get answers if he lets me. He won’t.”
Michael didn’t do anything he didn’t want to do—except bond with her. Panic began to form in Cassandra. She did not want lifebonding forced on her. Or on Michael for that matter. It should be like a marriage—a choice. “If seeing each other again has somehow bypassed the blood bond, can it be stopped if we stay away from each other?”
“Why would you want to do that?” Kelly interrupted. “You love each other. Cassandra. I really don’t believe the X2 gene is a danger to you. If Michael—”
“It’s not that,” she said quickly. “It’s complicated. Too complicated to get into right now.”
Kelly considered a moment. “If you like, tomorrow we can sit and talk. I’m here if you need me.”
Her heart warmed. “I’m really glad I found you again, Kelly.”
Sterling moaned and rolled over, bringing another question to mind.
“Why does Damion have the healing sickness and Sterling doesn’t?”
“I wish I knew,” Kelly said fretfully. “The more developed the GTECH’s evolvement, the more enhanced the healing sickness. And the worse their vitamin C deficiencies as well. A good portion of the men now have to inject themselves daily with high doses of C.”
A sudden tingling sensation trickled down Cassandra’s spine.
“Michael,” Cassandra said a moment before he appeared in the doorway, filling it with his broad shoulders and dominant presence. Dominant. Everything about the man darn sure dominated her senses. His hair was tied back, his face brushed with a light shadow of masculine stubble. His dark eyes seemed to spiral endlessly through her soul. The man stole her breath. She should be mad at him for being such a jerk earlier. Instead, she was simply relieved he was safe. Near. There were things to say, things to understand between them. Now they had the chance. Now they were together.
“Did you get the bullets?” Cassandra asked.
“Not only did we get them,” he said, “we put them to good use on the Zodius soldiers who’d camped out near our entrance. They’re gone. We sent them home to Adam with their tails tucked between their legs.”
“If I never see another one of those bullets in one of our men, it will be too soon,” Kelly said, rolling her chair so that she brought them both into view. “I was just going to find Cassandra a place to get some rest. We took some blood and hope to have some answers tomorrow.” She hesitated and then, “It would help to have a sample from you too, Michael.”
Seconds ticked by, his jaw set in a hard line, his expression indecipherable, before he said, “Where do you want me?”
You could almost hear Kelly’s jaw hit the ground before she jumped up to offer her chair to him, and in the process, cast Cassandra a discreet wink. “Let me get supplies,” Kelly said. “I’ll be right back.”
Kelly thought Michael’s agreement to give blood meant something—though Cassandra didn’t know what. But her stomach was fluttering wildly as Michael walked into the room, nearing her with that overwhelming presence of his and claiming the chair, his eyes locking with hers. “How are they?” he asked.
“Damion has been horribly sick, but it seems to have passed.”
“How are you?” he asked gently.
Better now that he was back, she realized. “I’m okay.” She tilted her head, studied him. Those dark eyes flickered with some unidentifiable something that made her return the question. “Are you?”
A long pause, and then in a barely audible voice he said, “I don’t know, Cassandra.”
Shock charged a path through her body. He’d never said anything like that to her before. Never. She doubted the man had ever said anything like that to anyone. He needed her. She sensed that, and suddenly all her doubts and worries paled in comparison.
Kelly returned, armed, and ready for action. “Okay. Let’s get this done so you two can get some rest.”
Michael’s eyes clung to Cassandra’s for another moment before he turned and offered his arm. Kelly drew the blood—two more tubes than she had drawn from Cassandra—and then packed it all in a pocket. “All set. I told Cassandra I’d have preliminary results in the morning, but really I’d like to keep her for a few more days.”
Michael glanced in Cassandra’s direction as if he expected her to argue, but she didn’t. She was too tired to object. “I’ll have to figure out how to contact my father and make up an excuse for being gone that he will buy.”
Michael arched a brow at her in surprise.
“You gave up your blood,” she said softly. “I’ll give up my time.”
Understanding flashed in his face before he cast an accusing look at Kelly, his tone gently chastising. “I see you’ve discussed my distaste for your needles.”
“It might have come up,” she said slyly.
His expression turned darker. “What’s happening to her, Doc?”
Kelly’s gaze shifted between the two of them. “What’s supposed to happen. I think you both know that.” She let her answer linger and then added in her more official tone, “As for the biology of it all… well, we’ll see what the tests say. As long as you are together though, I suspect your bodies will continue to try to complete what has started.”
“Which means being apart is the only way to stop it,” he said.
It wasn’t a question, but rather a statement, and Cassandra had the instant sense that it was something he’d been thinking on his own. Unbidden, those words ripped through Cassandra and twisted her in knots. There had been no good-bye last time. He’d just disappeared. She couldn’t live through that again.
“If it can be stopped,” Kelly replied, tugging Cassandra out of the wildfire of erratic thoughts. “I have my doubts. But I could be wrong. As I told Cassandra, this could be something as simple as hormonal fluctuations that fade when you two are apart. There certainly are scientific reasons not only to want to understand what’s happening, but to need to do so. Others will experience this same thing. I have no doubt. We need to know if bonding can take place without a blood transfer. We need to know what bonding ultimately means for the couple. We’ll try and find out everything we can as fast as we can.” She shoved her hands in her lab coat. “I’ll go get the testing started and then catch a few winks myself.” Her attention shifted to Cassandra. “I’ll talk to you tomorrow. We can grab coffee between me poking and prodding you.”
Cassandra smiled. “Sounds good. Well… the coffee part.”
A moment later, Kelly departed, and Cassandra was alone with Michael, her heart pitter-pattering against her ribs in a wild, bluesy kind of beat that said heartache was coming.
Michael rolled the chair around to face her. “Ready to get out of here?”
She swallowed hard and nodded. “Yes. I’m ready.” He held his hand out to her, and she tentatively settled her hand against his. Warmth spread up her arm, across her chest. He opened his mouth to speak and shut it. She chose not to press. Not here. Not now. She wanted to be alone with him.
To be with him
. God, she wanted to be in his arms more than she wanted her next breath.
Hand in hand, they walked through the sparsely populated hospital and exited a door to a narrow electronic conveyor that traveled through a high cavern. Flickering florescent lights clung to ceilings and walls and seemed to travel onward forever.
Michael pulled her close, his big body surrounding hers, his hands tangling in her hair before lowering his forehead to hers. “My mother,” he whispered. “I confirmed she’s a part of all this.”
She pulled back, brushed wayward strands of his hair from his face. “Oh God. Michael. I was hoping it wasn’t true. I’m sorry. Did you see her? Talk to her?”
He inhaled a labored breath, and she settled her hand over his heart, feeling the pounding vibrating through her palm, urging him to calm down with her touch. Finally, air trickled from his lips. “I saw her. She lied and said she sold them to the military.” His hand went to hers on his chest. “I expected you to do what I couldn’t. Give up on your father. I knew what my mother was, but I still went there tonight wanting her to prove me wrong.”
She wanted to cry. The pain in Michael seeped through her skin right to her heart. “Michael—”
His hand tightened over hers. “Hear me out, baby. Please.”
She nodded, instant understanding coming to her. Listening was the most important thing she could do for him. “Of course.”
“I need to tell you I’m sorry. I’m so damn sorry.”
Her free hand went to his jaw. “I’m sorry for both of us.” Their eyes held and locked. For long seconds, they were transfixed, entwined together in past and present, in the anticipation of what lay ahead.
The spell was broken by a buzzer sounding the warning for the end of the pathway. They turned and walked off the conveyor and into the most amazing place Cassandra had ever seen in her life. It was a city underground. Quaint little stone buildings with a red brick path. Stores and restaurants, little outdoor tables and chairs.
“Oh my God,” Cassandra said. “How is this even possible?”
“Money and a lot of care,” he said. “And Caleb wanted this place to feel like home to those who live here. A safe place that wasn’t like a prison.”
“Is this what Zodius is like?”
“Our city is much smaller,” he said. “Zodius City exceeds our population by thousands.”
“How did the Renegades afford all of this?”
“Private money from people like myself and Damion, who had it to give. Caleb struck a funding deal with the government as well when we agreed to support them. We’ve invested with what we have.”