Retrieval (31 page)

If Micah came through for her, she’d owe him big time. As it was, he was fulfilling a life favor to her. She’d saved his life, and he was returning the favor because Sebastian and her sisters were her life.

When she’d seen Micah storm into the condo in Chicago along with her father’s men, his presence had startled her. He’d changed, and she knew that it was much more than the DNA splicing he’d undergone at the hands of her father. He was now much harder than the young soldier she’d saved on the side of the road years ago.

He owed her a favor, and he had a connection to Sebastian she hadn’t known about. They’d been buddies for a long time and with his undercover work on Smythe-Ward he had the opportunity to throw her father off her family’s scent at both ends.

So Micah would get her family out of Idaho and somewhere as far away as he could lead them. He’d signed off by laughingly telling her to make sure she survived because he’d probably need her to save his life again once Sebastian found out about his perfidy.

Sky hadn’t laughed. She knew how deeply Sebastian’s anger would go, and she’d accepted that no matter what happened, whether she lived or died, he’d never forgive her.

The sand and wind around her pummeled the earth, and in a rare fit of demonstrative rage, Sky sent the lead SUV up off the ground and tumbling back over the second and third vehicles. She knew her father was in the fifth SUV and therefore not susceptible to injury from her pique. He’d be pleased with her show of power and anxious to get out and talk to her.

He thought he had natural barriers to her, but the only way he’d ever had of protecting himself was the end stop he’d programmed into her DNA. If she hurt him she would feel the pain also and by extension anyone she was linked with. She was strong enough that by keeping her sisters and Sebastian from the vicinity she was eliminating the chance that they would perish with her when she went for the kill-shot. They would feel her pain, she couldn’t help that, but it would be muted and death wouldn’t be an issue for anyone except her. She harbored no illusions she wouldn’t die taking him down.

After the SUV came to rest upside down on top of the fourth SUV, Sky stopped the storm raging around her, and an eerie silence fell in the desert wilderness.

Nothing moved, and it seemed even the sun tried to hide behind the clouds that suddenly manifested in the sky.

“Sky?”
Sebastian’s dark, seductive voice echoed through her mind.

Surprise shot through her, leaving her cold and frozen in place for a split second.

“Leave me now, Sebastian. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“No matter what happens, I’m coming for you, do you understand me? No matter where you go, I will be coming for you.”

It seemed a dire warning, but Sky heard the unspoken plea, and it broke her heart.

“I’m severing the bond, Bastian. I meant what I said … I love you.”

“No—”

She’d left the pathway to him intact because she hadn’t had the emotional strength to abolish that. Pathways could be permanent, but threads could be severed easily. Like power lines running down an interstate, the lines themselves were the weakest links. The pathway of stable poles would remain, but the lines, or threads, could be cut. She could no longer risk him inside of her mind. He couldn’t know what she had planned.

She located the thread between them and effectively sliced it in two. She’d severed their line. She didn’t want to think about the pain he was experiencing because of her. His head would more than likely feel like it was splitting in two, and if he cared for her at all, that pain would be magnified by of the loss of their surface bond.

She
felt the severance like a tsunami wave of razor-sharp knives shredding her soul into tiny pieces. Its loss rippled through her taking her breath, stealing her mind with the most horrible pain. It was funny how quickly she’d grown dependent on his presence in her head. Piper’s little device earlier had nothing on this pain. For her, the void left by the loss of his presence in her mind was a wide, black chasm that would never be filled unless somehow, someway they made it back together again.

Her father climbed out of the fifth vehicle. The other cars opened and approximately fifty men in black suits swarmed around him like bees to honey.

She was tempted to sweep them all out of the way but decided that discretion was wise for now. There was no sense in giving him too much to salivate over, and if she were to take out his men in one fell swoop it may put him on closer guard. She wanted him complacent.

Vehicles pulled up behind her. She laughed softly at their pathetic illusions of safety in numbers. If she wanted, she could bury them in this sand, and no one would ever find them.

“Do it,” her father called out to her, reading her intent in the narrowing of her eyes.

She turned her gaze to his, and his eyes widened. She knew she looked just like her mother. All of the sisters did, but only she and S2 were almost identical replicas of the woman who’d donated the initial egg for their conception.

“My God. You’re stunning. Daughter, do not be afraid of me. I have waited your entire life for this moment. Please be calm, and let me come toward you.”

His nasally voice was like sandpaper to her frayed nerves, but she allowed him closer, and by her stillness gave him permission to venture within feet of her location in the middle of the road. He was treating her like a wild animal, and if he only knew what she was capable of, and that this was the beginning of the end for him, he would turn and run in the other direction.

He was sweating, and she could make out rings around the armpits of his dark blue suit. It was fitting considering the pig she had made him to be in her mind. He held out a hand, and off to his right she could make out her good old nemesis Warren Goolsby. He licked his lips when his eyes landed on her. For effect, she shuddered. A wave of revulsion flowed through her, into the hot tar. The ground rippled, sweeping the bastard off his feet.

He sputtered and muttered something to her father who shot him a look of contempt before once again turning his pale green eyes on his daughter.

“That was childish and beneath you, Skylar. My friend Goolsby has searched years for you, daughter. It has been his wish to find favor with me by bringing you home.” Smythe-Ward admonished her.

“That’s so sweet. And here I thought it was his intention to rape and maim me like he did my mother.” Her voice was whip like, spitting the words out and letting them drop like acid.

A perplexed look drifted over his face. “That’s nonsense child. He didn’t harm your mother. She was gone long before Goolsby caught up with her,” Smythe-Ward said.

“No. No. That’s not the way I remember it. I distinctly remember your good little worker bee there slicing and dicing my mother to pieces before stringing her up from a chandelier in the home we were moving out of. Her last words to our nanny were, ‘Get them out of here,’ and she garbled it around the blood pouring from her mouth. See good old Warren thought she was dead when he left, but she wasn’t, not completely.” The pain of that memory was staggering. She’d never told another soul about feeling her mother’s death, hearing her last words. She’d not even told her sisters.

What she said enraged him. For a split second she thought he’d turn and cut Goolsby down where he stood. Goolsby turned white and shook his head from side to side as if he couldn’t believe it. Yeah, Warren must not have told Pop about playing in the field of the dead.

“She lies, Smythe-Ward,” Goolsby stuttered.

“Shut up, fool. I’ll deal with you later,” Smythe-Ward snarled.

His fury was palpable, not that Skylar cared.

“Surely, child, you cannot remember that. You were only months old when your mother died.”

Glee at the prospect of exploring what he’d created highlighted his eyes. It made her nauseous.

“That’s right. We were eighteen months old to be exact and even then smart as whips,” she responded with heavy sarcasm.

“Skylar dear, let’s not let the past create an impassable divide between us. Come with me now, and let an old man get to know his oldest child.”

“You don’t deserve an opportunity to get to know me,” she pushed out between her own grinding teeth.

Play him correctly, and all this talking would be well worth whatever disgust she presently felt.

“I know that, but please give me the chance to correct the errors your mother made.”

She wanted to cut him down right there. How dare he presume to place all of the blame on her mother?

“I am to blame, my child,”
the voice from her dreams echoed in her head.

When he stepped closer she looked around and focused back on him.

“Milania’s here with us right now isn’t she?” he asked with excitement. “How is she speaking to you? She’s dead.”

She hated this man. She said nothing in response, just stood there with a bored look on her face. She had no idea how he knew she was hearing things in her head from God only knew who, but she wasn’t about to chat of it with him.

“Listen, we’re out in the open here, dear, and as I’m sure you are aware, I have many enemies who would seek to target my children as a way of getting to me. Please come with me to a safer environment, so we can talk,” he implored.

Yeah, right. Just a man trying to forge a bond with his child. Her gorge rose.

“There have to be some ground rules. One, no one touches me. Two, the first time you make a move that I perceive as threatening I will kill you. Make no mistake, I will make that day in New York look like a play date with death.” His eyes flared, and his face hardened as knowledge broke over his features. A swift current of satisfaction rushed through her. She’d shielded as she’d attacked him that day. He’d never seen her, never really known it was his own child attempting to wipe him off the face of the earth. Now he did, and the taste of it, while bitter to him, was sweet as honey to her. “Three, you leave my sisters alone, and you call off the dogs. That includes Sebastian Graham’s pack and any others you have waiting to try to take me down.”

She had to give it to him, he recovered quickly. “It is my hope that once you and I have established a relationship, your sisters will join the fold. Unless they have no desire to do so, and I promise you that I will not push myself on them. If you’re adamant that they stay out of this, then I will grant you your wish. Also, rest assured that everyone I entrusted to locate you has been called off. Tell me, did Mr. Graham treat you well?” A certain slyness entered his tone.

“As well as can be expected. I really do not enjoy being around anyone associated with the military. It would be best if you learned that now, and it will save any inconvenient problems for you in the future,” she warned him.

“No one will touch you, and I will allow no one to make any threatening moves toward you. Now then, with the dramatics out of the way, shall we go?”

“Where are we headed?” she asked, though she already knew the answer.

“My estate in South Carolina. I think you’ll enjoy the beaches there, my dear, and it will give us the privacy we need to build our relationship.”

She inclined her head, polite daughter to his doting father. This was going better than she could’ve hoped for. South Carolina, Bluffton to be exact, was exactly where she wanted to be. As the hub and headquarters for GenTech, North America, it was the perfect place to set in play her plan to destroy her father and his company.

“You have no idea what you are doing, child,”
the mysterious voice admonished her, and for once Skylar agreed with her.

How was that for a total crack up? She agreed with a figment of her imagination. She settled into the blacked-out SUV, prepared herself for what was to come, and waited for the caravan to start back up.

* * * *

“Damn it. What the fuck did she do to him?” Bleak demanded of the sisters.

“She severed their bond. Don’t worry he’ll recover. Right now we need to be planning our next move,” Piper said as she typed ferociously on the laptop she’d taken from Rover.

Sebastian sat in a chair staring out of what remained of his big bay window like a hopeless child. He hadn’t said a word since falling down with a yelp of pain. He’d lain on the floor for a solid hour earlier. Each of the sisters had known that their sister, their hardheaded, stubborn-assed sister, had severed her link with him, and it’d hurt him badly. Skylar may have had her doubts about Sebastian’s feeling for her, but her sisters no longer did.

It was too bad really that Sky wasn’t here to witness what her actions had wrought.

The little they knew of Sebastian had lent itself to an old warrior persona. He was a large man with such an aura of competence and self-assuredness that none of the sisters had doubted his ability in the field or anywhere else. He was quiet, rarely smiled and commanded the allegiance of men who were equally as stoic and competent. He was a born leader who didn’t seem affected by things like love, anger, etc. But after watching him fall and yell their sister’s name as if his soul had been pulled from him, they’d gained an understanding that still waters ran deep.

And Sebastian was the frigging Mariana Trench.

“Piper’s right, Bleak. Don’t worry about me. Right now we need to plan exactly how we’re going to get her away from that son of a bitch, and how we’re going to stay alive doing it.” Sebastian’s voice was gruff, almost as if he never used it, but they were all aware that it was from trying to hold back his incredible berserker rage at Sky’s leaving.

“That’s where I come in,” a man said from the porch.

One of the largest dudes Piper had ever seen stepped slowly into the house, whistling through his teeth at the destruction.

“Micah!” Kinsey called out and ran to jump into the arms of the man.

He caught her with ease and hugged her close before he set her down and put his arm around her shoulders.

“You know him?” Piper asked in amazement.

“Yeah, me and Sky saved his ass about, what’s it been, six years ago now? This is Micah. Micah, these are my sisters Raina and Piper. Piper put the gun away,” Kinsey said with a snicker.