“I know!” he yelled.
“So why are you here? Why do you need me?” I kept my hand at my side, trying not to draw attention to it.
“Because I need you. Nero’s no longer an issue. I’ve dealt with him.”
I knew that, but he didn’t know I did. “And one more tally on your kill list.”
He ignored the comment and went on. “But, Bane.” He gave a harsh laugh. “Bane is the crazy one.” He pointed to himself. “Crazier than me. He has this idea…” He drew closer, circling both hands for the universal sign of lunacy. My muscles stiffened as the gun as it waved in the air. “This idea that he’s going to have women birth superhumans. I did what he wanted, and he took my daughter.”
I put up my free hand. “Don’t come any closer.”
He paused. “He took my daughter, Melissa. I need your father. I need to know where he is so he can help me find her. Bane is planning to use my daughter. You see why I need your dad to speak with him? I need to know where they are.”
“My father’s not an option. But if you turn yourself in, I’ll do my best to find them.”
He threw up his hands and took one step closer with the gun. “No, I need to speak with him. He’s the only one who could find her. Them.”
I moved back and clinched the jewelry box in my hand. “I can’t. Won’t.”
An evil glint entered his eyes, and I went on high alert. “You know, I could make you. I’m different, now. Nero made me different.”
“What he made you is a monster.”
“You’ve made your choice, Adams. Come to me.”
At first I froze, unsure what he was doing. Then, I realized that persuasion must be his new talent.
“Why isn’t it working?” he growled. “I said ‘come to me’ dammit!”
I got an idea and moved toward him. As long as he thought he was in control, he wouldn’t harm me.
I played my part and took a step toward him. “What did you do? What’s going on?”
“Stop the questions!”
I clenched my teeth.
“That’s it, that’s right, come right to me.” I stepped close to him, not wanting him to take interest in what I held in my right hand. “I really don’t want to harm you.” I flinched as he brushed away a strand of my hair. “You remind me of my daughter. I can’t have you telling anyone else where I’m going or what I’m doing.”
His hand dropped. “It’s frustrating that I couldn’t compel you over the phone, but it doesn’t work that way. Now, tell me where your father is.”
I spoke the truth. “Colorado.”
Satisfaction gleaned in his eyes as his hand wrapped around my throat. My eyes widened, and I almost jerked back. “Where in Colorado?”
It was time to be proactive.
In one fluid movement I knead him in the family jewels, ducked as he fired his shot, and slipped the syringe out, slamming the needle of the antiserum into the side of his neck shoving the plunger down.
Shocked, he staggered on a groan.
“Go to purgatory, you asshole!”
“What? Ho—”
When he started foaming at the mouth, I shoved him away.
Outside, doors slammed open.
“Melissa!” a voice shouted.
I ignored it, my attention on Myter. “You’re dying,” I told him, backing away. “The H-15 serum that Nero injected you with has been eliminated from your system and the cyanide that remains is now finishing its course.”
His eyes glassed over. “I’ll find your daughter, and I’ll tell her you loved her enough to give up everything to save her life.”
He drew in his last breath, and cold eyes stared back at me. Dead eyes. I kept going. “But I will never tell her of the monster you became. I’ll do this for the man I used to know, not for the one dead at my feet.”
I looked up to find Aaron in the doorway, as well as Tristan and another man. I silently thought, I will never forget what happened here.
The unknown man replied as if reading my mind, “And you shouldn’t.”
I guess I finally met Kellan, the mind reader.
***
“So what do we do now?” Dallon held me on his lap after I explained what went down.
I stared at him in confusion. “What do you mean?”
Garrett put a hand to my cheek and turned my attention to him. “You know what he’s asking, sweets. Are you going to let me win, or are you going to prove me wrong?”
I gave his palm a kiss and turned away from him with a tilt of my lips as I looked out to the sunrise bleeding into day. “I never did like losing.”
Dallon chuckled. “No, you cheat.”
I leaned in and kissed him. “That’s rule number fifteen.”
“So, you’ll stay?” Trisha asked, coming in from the hallway. It seemed like forever since I’d seen her last, and she looked happy. Her grin was infectious. “Rule number one. Never leave a man behind.”
She frowned, her guys surrounding her. “But surely that’s not the reason.”
I took Dallon and Garrett’s hands in mine. “No. When you’ve found a good thing, you don’t let go of it. You hang on.”
“Another one of your rules?” Aaron teased as the others came in to join us.
“No, my mother’s.”
A phone rang in the distance and Weston, who was somewhere in the house, answered it. I held still, tuning in a listening ear to try to hear the conversation, but his voice was a muffled murmur.
I listened anyway until boots shuffled toward the kitchen. When Weston entered the room, his expression looked grim.
My intent gaze focused on him. “What is it?”
Weston shook his head. “Myter’s daughter is dead. It happened a few days ago. Around the time we left the base to rescue Macintosh.”
“But now the body’s missing.” Kellan, the mind reader, answered. “Someone took her.”
Taken
Three Days Earlier
Bane
I looked to the young woman who lay in the hospital bed, wasting away.
Ghastly complexion, frail frame, barely hanging onto life. Not even twenty yet. No way to live, too soon to die. I was doing her a favor. I was saving her. And then she would be a part of something spectacular. The first mother of a new type of human. Children that would grow into my soldiers, heed my will.
Amber Myter would be the start of it all.
I slipped the needle out of her medical IV and let the H-15 serum run its course. It wasn’t the diluted drug I’d given those other two women. It was the full dose. She’d die, but just for a while. Long enough to send her down to the hospital morgue and for my team to take her out. Then, she’d rise.
I quickly exited the room and kept my head down. We needed to hurry.
We had a jet to catch.
Hope you enjoyed this book.
Next book is Honey Babe! Releasing Dec. 29th.
Thanks for reading!!!
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Author Bio
I love to write! I have been writing since I was young
(Maybe not long in this subject), but I enjoy it.
Raised in an adoptive family of ten, there were seldom secrets between us siblings.
I thrived on finding out their secrets they did keep and embellishing on a few.
That's where my writing came in and my imagination went wild.
-Nikki
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Sweet Firecracker Page 11