She mulled over his words. “You think we might have the capability to remove it? I can manipulate the view, but I’ve never been able to change the structure of an organism.”
“It’s crossed my mind that the abilities your people have might be stronger in pairs.” He shrugged and closed his eyes for a second. “During the last altercation with Salvatore in the council room,” he waited on her nod, “it seemed the fire from Turen grew stronger, changed color around Mia. Like she had input or something.”
Everything had been so quick in the confrontation. She’d reacted that day on emotion and adrenaline. Neither conducive to clarity or recall. Jason had seen her mind’s images, without her fear and distraction. He was probably correct. His attention to detail had caught facts she’d witnessed yet not absorbed.
“So you think we could retro-engineer the process?”
“Someday. Now, I think it would be dangerous. But we should test what functionality we have jointly.”
Now they had come full circle. “This isn’t leaving us with a solution. These patients can’t wait for long. There’s no telling when he’ll realize we’re on to him and activate the nanites to scrap the whole initiative.”
He let out a breath. “Maybe we should focus on the trigger, not a total fix. The trigger would have to be similar for all of the patients, regardless of trial or specifics.”
Rolling her onto her side, Jason followed her and braced his head on his elbow as he kissed her lips. Just a sweet touch of flesh, but the heat started inside her again, tempting, building, and then he pulled back.
“I needed a fix.” He searched her face, seeming to need confirmation that she’d been desperate for his touch as well. The contact wasn’t enough for either of them. She ran her fingers along the rough stubble of his jaw and tried to focus anyway.
“If he uses his current to activate the nanites and they function to speed the production of the cancer cells or destroy the antibodies, or whatever his target objective, then we need to isolate the frequency.”
Jason nodded. “Too much and it would interfere with the body’s natural electric current and kill the patient. Too little and it won’t activate his procedure.” His fingers dug into her waist as his leg pressed between hers, the act less sensual than effective in trapping her to the bed with him. “I know you have more samples. I know you’ll work on this like a demon until the frequency is determined. I’ll help you. But if I’m not here, you need to be careful.”
She tilted her head and rolled her eyes. “Why promise? You’ll just have Grimm stationed by my side anyway.”
His eyes narrowed. “Damn straight. But while I want this fixed as much as you do, I’m not willing to risk you, for anything. Please.”
“I promise to be here, being careful, because you promised to come back safe.” She ignored the frustrated shake of his head. “We could start now.”
“Grimm wanted another day before he cleared you,” he said. She didn’t even get the sigh out before he smiled and snuggled her into his body. “We shouldn’t push him until tomorrow.”
With a smile, she relented. “So, we’re back to napping?”
“Your quarters here are incredible.”
Speaking of the weather and completely off topic.
He’d walked in and completely ignored the place. Fine, given all they’d gone through. “Didn’t think you noticed.”
“Open, airy, colors that blend inside and out. Nothing but sky and land for as far as the eye can see. Yeah, I noticed.”
“You didn’t say anything.”
“I just needed you more than I did the ambiance.”
His arms tightened her against his body, hard, warm, and perfect. Maybe a little nap wouldn’t be so bad.
***
Forty-eight hours later, he answered Frank’s summons.
Heat ripped through Jason’s lungs as his boots pounded against the concrete. His target, twenty feet in front of him, dodged around crates and through small passageways with a clear knowledge of the warehouse’s layout.
A big plus in Arron Taylor’s favor. Or Ryan Layler. Or Michael Langston or whichever alias the man was using these days.
Jason tightened his lips. He had a few points in his favor as well.
Taylor vaulted a metal railing at the end of the platform and Jason followed.
Not the smartest move. But if that prick could survive, he would, too.
Fortunately, the landing consisted of several metal storage crates only ten feet below the railing level.
Jason rolled and dropped from the crate’s roof, recovering faster than his prey, thanks to his training. Four feet later, he lunged. Catching Taylor by the back of his knees, he brought him down hard to the concrete floor, centering them both in a hexagonally gridded patch of sunlight.
A roll and they disengaged. A hard fist connected with Jason’s lower jaw. He spun out of the way in time to avoid the knife Taylor aimed at his throat. Small and wicked, with wide serrations, the blade flashed in the light as he jerked back again.
Footsteps hammered the ground behind Jason’s back. Neither he nor Taylor shifted their gaze. Each focused on the other’s face and body language.
Fresh from Tsu’s lessons, Jason fixed his eyes below Taylor’s solar plexus. At the first hint of a shift, he dropped to a crouch. Blocking the incoming arm, he grabbed Taylor’s wrist. Forward momentum, a firm grasp, and a twist on Taylor’s wrist spun the man to an awkward angle. The bone cracked with an audible snap. He finished the spin with quick kick at Taylor’s shin and brought the man down again.
Jason landed on his knee from the follow-thru and tensed for another attack. A broken wrist wasn’t enough to incapacitate his target. He whipped backward as Taylor rolled with a swift knife swipe at his groin. The blade snagged his belt, then glanced over his hip, missing the femoral artery.
Jason finished his backward roll and shot to the balls of his feet. With a lunge, he kicked out, powering his boot into Taylor’s ribs. Grappling the man’s injured arm behind his back, he pushed Taylor’s face to the concrete. Ansgar’s boot pinned Taylor’s knife hand, grinding it mercilessly until the fingers released. Jason swore he heard bones popping. After a kick at the knife, Ansgar stepped back and tossed Jason a double zip restraint handcuff.
Wrenching both of Taylor’s hands behind his back, Jason tightened the zip. He stood and toed the man over onto his back. “Who gave the orders to take out Dr. Arnault?”
A wad of spit spewed from Taylor’s mouth, landing on the cuff of Jason’s pant leg. The spittle and sneer were his answer.
Jason hauled him up. Hands fisted in Taylor’s shirt, he spun him around hard against a metal cargo holder. The crack of Taylor’s skull against the metal reverberated in the air. He watched Taylor take a breath, preparing to piss him off again and slammed him back cheek-first to the concrete floor.
“Not Arnault,” the sound wheezed from the Taylor’s chest.
Jason waited for a second, then rolled Taylor over, confronting the glare in the man’s black eyes. Slow and calculating, Jason unzipped his vest and withdrew a narrow metal case from a pocket beneath his arm. Turen, Tsu, and Kamau lingered in the shadows beyond the sunlight. No one shifted to stop him or help Taylor. Frank moved in from the outer fringe of Taylor’s field of vision, but he remained a silent ghost to Jason’s actions. Ansgar stood closer, his hands loose at his sides even as his other muscles seemed coiled, prepared for Taylor to make one wrong move.
Jason broke Taylor’s gaze and snapped open the case.
“The other doc. The blonde, she was the contract.”
Briet. “Who gave the orders?” Jason repeated and set the case on a nearby crate.
“No names.” Taylor shook his head and glared back. The click of a gun cocking split the silence. Taylor tried to angle a look above his head. “Not Welson. Orders were to take the blonde doctor out and not touch the company reports.”
“Why?” Jason gave a quick shake of his head to stall Frank, as his brother stepped closer, gun trained with both hands on the center of Taylor’s head.
“Causing too much attention. Bitch couldn’t keep her nose out of things,” he snarled. “I had orders not to take you out. But if you’d been there that night, I’d have taken you out with the little whore.”
The soft, deep rumble of a large cat echoed from the shadows. Taylor slithered on his back at the sound, his head whipping from side to side, struggling to get a fix on the direction.
Kamau crossed his arms and said nothing, but he turned away, his clear sign that whatever Jason chose, he wouldn’t interfere.
“Where’d you get the drug you gave Dr. Hyden and the orders for the targets in the other trials?”
Taylor’s eyes widened, then narrowed. His lips curled into a sneer as he mustered a show of bravado. “Why tell you?” he spat. “You’re going to kill me anyway.”
From his stance by the crate, Jason looked at the man. “Maybe.” He looked up at Ansgar. “But I’m going to give you a choice. You give me answers and you’ll be taken somewhere. With luck, you’ll have a chance for survival.”
“Middle of the Mohave, Siberia—there are some isolated, remote underground caves.” Ansgar’s voice rumbled with the same current of menace as the cat. “With more luck, you might even reach civilization in a couple months.”
He sounded very knowledgeable. Jason didn’t argue. Ansgar could drop this guy in the middle of the Pacific Ocean for all he cared. “Or you don’t tell me—” Jason added.
But Ansgar wasn’t done. “Did you know sharks can follow their prey for days? I could hang you from a hook off a back of the boat and they’d have some sport, eating your parts bit by bit. You would live through a lot of it.”
His voice took on a disquietingly uplifting tone. Jason felt the bite to satisfy revenge as well. He had no problem with a little psychological torture and raised his brows. “Works for me, but I have something more specific.” Moving closer, he pressed his boot into the man’s ribs. Nothing painful, just enough to remind him what awaited him. Jason squatted and brought the syringe he’d been holding in front of Taylor’s gaze. Not the same syringe Taylor had used on Briet, but it looked identical. “Recognize this? A hair of the dog.”
“You take me for a fool.” Taylor’s voice rang with conceit, a hint of a quiver beneath his words.
“One of my degrees was in biology.” Jason squeezed some liquid from the syringe and plunged it in the man’s neck before Taylor had a chance to prepare.
Taylor’s body jerked and tried to roll away. His eyes widened further as Jason held a second syringe in front of him and waved it like a lecture wand.
Teeth clenched so tight he thought his jaw might crack; Jason fought the strong, raw urge to kill the man and be done with it. Briet had barely survived what they’d planned—her body laced in toxic black webs. It took everything he had to push those images into the recesses of his mind. Rage threatened to take control and he waited with a silent prayer that he would never feel this way again.
“The first shot sets up the chemical reaction.” He managed to force the words out, each one ripped like acid from his throat. “You remember. It’s this second one that you used on Dr. Hyden, which causes the virus to rush through the system, destroying the blood vessels, eating the healthy tissue.” Jason moved closer. “Took me a while to reconstruct the chemical sequence. I think I’ve got it. I’ve actually enhanced it.”
Taylor inched backwards, looking to the others for help. “Fucking liar.”
“Answer the question. Trust me, you don’t want to leave the choice to me.” Jason spat through gritted teeth. He grabbed Taylor’s hair to bring his head closer. “Briet Hyden was the most precious thing in my life. I remember every second of her suffering. Trust me. I am the
last
person who will piss out compassion for you.”
Before Taylor had a chance to answer, Jason plunged the second syringe into the man’s chest. Taylor’s body spasmed and his eyes bulged, followed by a feminine sounding scream.
Jason avoided looking at anyone and walked back to the crate to bring back a third syringe. “Now see, I separated that last process. You’ll be feeling the burn about now, that’s the chemical mixing in your system.” He waived the third syringe. “This one activates the final process and lets them mix. It’ll eat you from the inside out.” He glanced at his case. “I have the antidote for that last one.” He shook his head and squatted again. “Though, I’m partial to justice.”
“No.” The man whined and looked away, swallowing hard. Jason could smell the sour stink of fear in his sweat. “The contract on the doctor came from a different source than the others. Drug, too. Delivered by special courier. Not traceable.”
“And?”
Taylor closed his eyes. “There was a number I called. It’s on my cell. Told me when, where. I updated after each phase. When you got in the way, I updated. A message came. The package arrived with the last instruction an hour after.”
“What message did you send after the shooting failed?” Jason took his time walking back to the crate, bringing the case back with him this time.
Taylor tensed, his eyes fixed on Jason’s hands, preparing for another onslaught. “That the attempt to kill Dr. Briet Hyden had failed outside the hotel building, when she was with Jason Ballard.”
Jason narrowed his eyes. “The exact message?”
Taylor nodded once and Jason took a deep breath, not bothering to look at Briet’s clan. Grimm had been right. The update had finalized Briet as mated, though Salvatore hadn’t really needed a confirmation. The injection had been intended to kill her, their child, and shoot a finger in the face of the other Guardians.
“Your home base?” Jason asked as he put down the syringe.
From the easing of tension on his face, Taylor figured he was home free. His chin rose, confident Jason wouldn’t kill him. “There’s no—”
Jason’s fist planted into the side of the man’s mouth. He retrieved the third syringe as Taylor crab-walked backwards with his feet, his shoulders sliding along the concrete, his breath a rasp. “Denver.”
“I want it all.”
“A website—on the phone—Denver.”
Jason nodded to Frank to check Taylor for the phone.
“Antidote.” The insistence in the man’s voice made Jason want to gag.