by Nalini Singh
Closing his cell, he began to scan the apartment with the eyes of a cop. The food preparation area was clean except for the unopened container of milk on the counter. He stilled. Sophie was hopelessly neat, but it was possible she’d forgotten to tidy it away while distracted by something.
Living area undisturbed. Organizer on the coffee table. And the bedroom, when he returned to it—
His head snapped back to the organizer. Sophia might forget her cell phone, but she was never without that computronic device. Gut clenching with a fear so visceral he couldn’t afford to feel it if he was going to function, he ran out of the apartment and straight to the security hub at the heart of the building.
Entering using the override Nikita had programmed into his key, he had the Psy guard rewind the corridor feed. “Stop! Who are those two?”
The guard enlarged the view. “The facial recognition software places the female as an M-Psy attached to a local branch of the Center, while the male appears to be a security expert.”
Max shoved down his raging worry, focusing only on the lethal clarity of his anger. “Why were they allowed up?” he asked, his tone a whip. “I fucking warned you all that she could be a target!”
The guard was already accessing the security log. “According to this, they had an authorization which overrode our—”
“Bring it up,” he interrupted. “The authorization!” It was a snapped command when the man didn’t immediately understand.
The screen filled with a crisp document mandating the removal of Sophia Russo, Designation J, to the Berkeley branch of the Center for Comprehensive Rehabilitation.
Rage burned an inferno across Max’s skin, but his mind remained mired in ice. “What does that mean?” He pointed to what appeared to be a coat of arms or an emblem of some kind on the bottom of the page—a small square of black overlaid with a web.
The security guard went unnaturally still. “That’s Councilor Henry Scott’s new emblem.”
Max was already coding in a call to Nikita as he ordered the guard to send the location of the Center to his phone. “Nikita, Henry Scott is having Sophia rehabilitated,” he said the instant Nikita answered, knowing Henry’s interference would ensure Nikita’s cooperation. Councilors, he’d learned, were as territorial as changelings. “She was taken an hour ago.”
Nikita didn’t ask useless questions. “Which branch?”
“Berkeley.”
“Wait.”
He was in the car and screaming out into the rain-dark city by the time her voice came back on the line. “They haven’t yet reached the Center.” A pause. “They should have according to the time frame you’ve given me.”
He forced himself to think, to focus. The rain hadn’t turned torrential until about twenty minutes ago—Nikita was right, they should’ve reached the Center by now. And then, suddenly, he realized that Nikita should’ve been able to contact Sophie on the Net. Everything stopped as he forced himself to ask, “Is she still alive?”
CHAPTER 41
“Her mind is present in the PsyNet,” Nikita said, “but she’s not responding to telepathic hails.”
Relief mixed with a cold, cold anger. If the bastards had hurt her—“I need you to find out the make and model of the car the Center people were driving so I can ask Enforcement to put out an alert.”
“You’ll have the information in minutes. I’ve already notified the Center not to proceed with the rehabilitation order.”
Thanking her, he hung up. But he knew Nikita’s intervention wouldn’t help, not if Sophia had been taken somewhere else. They could’ve already—No. “Hold on, Sophie. You just hold on.” Opening his cell phone, he made another call. “Clay, I need your help.”
The changeling male turned out to be at an indoor training facility at least twenty minutes closer to the Center than Max. “I’ve got several soldiers with me,” Clay said, able to hear the incredible strain in Max’s voice. But he knew from experience that the other man wouldn’t appreciate sympathy, only practical assistance. “We’ll head out now.” Hanging up, he pulled a team together, and they drove out into the pounding rain.
“Pretty isolated,” Kit said when they reached the road that led to the Center, his auburn hair appearing deep brown in the stormy light. “Visibility’s low.”
And getting lower as thunderclouds continued to roll in, their heavy weight making it seem as if it was late afternoon when it wasn’t yet midmorning. “This is the only way to the place.” The Psy had located their new lobotomy facility in an innocuous building set on a patch of fenced land that DarkRiver had kept an eye on, but hadn’t considered a threat because it had no obvious military or tactical function. “If they’re not on this route . . .”
“Stop!” Kit’s cry came at almost the same instant that Clay pulled the car to a halt, reacting even before the proximity sensors detected the overturned vehicle on the road.
Getting out, Clay held up a hand to the packmates following in the vehicle behind them and ran to the wreck. “I have a male on this side, injured—fuck, it looks like his throat’s been slashed.”
“Same here, except it’s a female.” Wiping the rain from his face, Kit looked at him over the top of the car as Clay rose. “She had an ID around her neck, with an M in the corner.”
Rain pelted Clay’s back in hard little bullets. “I’ll call Max, get him to send us the images—”
Max’s car screeched to a halt behind the second DarkRiver vehicle at that instant.
“Man.” Kit whistled, his lashes dripping rain. “The cop must’ve driven at three times the speed limit. I didn’t even know cars would let you do that.”
“She’s not in here,” Clay called out as soon as Max exited his vehicle, knowing from the white look on the cop’s face that that was what he feared.
Max peered into the overturned car as if to confirm Clay’s words. A second later, he bent, bracing his hands on his knees, his white shirt so wet as to be almost transparent. “Thank God.” Shoving a hand through rain-slick hair, he rose to his full height. “Sophie looked like she’d been drugged. If she got out, wandered off . . .”
“Jamie, Nico, Dezi,” Clay said, pointing to the packmates who’d exited the second vehicle when Max came running over. “Do a sweep, see if you can find any trace of Max’s J.” The heavy canopy of trees around them could have protected the scent trail from the rain. “Kit, you, too.”
“Max,” Desiree said, her tone gentle. “Do you have anything of Sophia’s?”
Max blinked rain from his eyes. “I had a shower before I left home,” he said, obviously aware that intimate contact could leave a detectable scent, “just kissed her good-bye. The fucking rain’s probably washed away anything that was left.”
Frowning, Desiree stepped closer, her long, thin braids sleek ebony in the wet. “Do you mind?” At Max’s distracted nod, she unbuttoned the top three buttons of his sodden shirt and pressed her nose to his skin, taking a deep breath. To his credit, Max didn’t move. “Got it.” A fierce grin. “She’s in your skin, Cop.”
Jamie, Nico, and Kit repeated the process—the men choosing to take the scent off Max’s arm now that Desiree had confirmed it was in his skin—before they scattered. Max glanced at Clay, his gaze piercing even through the rain-lashed darkness. “Throats cut, what looks like oil across the surface of the road, this wasn’t a simple crash.” His words were practical, outwardly calm.
Clay understood—first the cop would find his mate. Only then would he give in to the demons tearing him apart. With that in mind, he followed Max’s line of thought, his eyes on the oil. “You know anyone else who might want your J?”
Rage turned Max’s blood to fire. “Bonner—the Butcher of Park Avenue.” Forcefully wiping away the red haze that would just get in his way, Max moved around the car, checking for anything that might give him a clue as to where Bonner may have taken her. “The only good thing is—if the bastard does have her, he won’t kill her.” No, unlike with the doctor, Bonne
r would play with Sophia in the cruelest of ways.
His hand fisted.
“The car crash,” Clay pointed out, raising his voice to be heard above the rain pounding on the wreck, “could’ve gone very wrong.”
“No.” Max shook his head. “It was planned very well. Look at where we are—right after a curve, so their speed would’ve been low.”
“The car had to be on wheels for this to work,” Clay said. “And they were—doesn’t make sense with the rain.”
Realizing the sentinel was right, Max examined the side of the vehicle, focusing on the section that he knew controlled the hover system. “Does that look like a bullet hole to you?” He pointed to a distinctive hole in the plasmetal.
“Here’s another one,” Clay said from the other side.
“He must’ve tailed them from the apartment, overtaken them at some stage to set up the oil slick,” Max said, well aware of the Butcher’s intelligence. He would’ve checked his vehicle’s nav system, discovered this road had no turnoffs, no side streets. “All he had to do then was lie in wait and shoot.” Squatting, he stared through the broken wreckage of the car. “The straps in the back have been cut through—but it’s obvious Sophia was strapped in far more securely than either of these two.”
“And if he was stalking her, Bonner would’ve seen them strap her in.” Clay’s eyes were leopard-bright in the rain dark. “Acceptable fucking risk.”
“For him, yes.” Rising, Max began to consider and discard options, refusing to let Clay’s anger feed his own. Not yet. He had to think, had to find Sophie. “Bastard’s got money. His family’s helping him stay on the run. He won’t be out in the open or even in a cheap motel, but he’ll be close.”
Clay walked around to stand beside Max. “It would make more sense to take her as far as possible, give himself room to breathe.”
“He’s . . . impatient.” Max swallowed his fury for the thousandth time, told himself he could scream at the heavens later. “He’ll want to have her to himself as soon as possible.” And if the Butcher touched her, the viciousness of him might just shatter her mind.
Forever.
No. Teeth gritted, Max hunkered down, blocking the rain with his body as he examined the vehicle again. Bonner had apparently had no problem with the front seat passengers. Either one or both had been unconscious at the time. There were absolutely no signs of a struggle.
He moved to crouch beside the window that Sophie had been dragged through. That was when he saw something glint in the headlights of Clay’s car, right below the window itself . . . where Bonner might’ve braced his foot to gain leverage. He bent down, until his nose almost touched the earth, using the built-in light of his cell phone to illuminate the area.
Tiny particles that glittered and glimmered, having been hidden from the rain by the angle of the wreck.
Sand.
But there was something strange about it. Picking it up in between his fingertips, he brought it even closer to the light. Sparkles of yellow and crystalline red, along with the odd flicker of what looked almost like blue. “Clay!”
Max’s eyes fell on a tiny white shell just as the leopard ran over. “What’ve you got?” the sentinel asked.
Max showed him what he’d found. “The sand’s not natural. I don’t think we’re talking a beach house.”
“Wait.” Clay took the tiny shell, brought it up to keen changeling eyes. “I think this is coated with something. Protective plas would be my guess.”
“You know of any place nearby that might use this stuff? It’ll offer enough isolation that Bonner will feel comfortable—but won’t be too rugged.” That wasn’t the Butcher’s style.
Clay’s eyes narrowed. “Kit and the boys were laughing about some kind of a fake ‘beach resort’ about an hour from here.” He pulled out his cell. “I’ve still got the web address saved. There—says it has bungalows set ‘discreetly apart,’ laundry and room service.”
All the comforts of home for a killer who liked to work without lowering his personal standards. It fit. Max rose to his feet, trying not to think about what Bonner might be doing to Sophia—if he did, he’d shatter, and Sophia needed him to hold it together. “Send the location to my phone”—he was already running to his car—“I’ll hook it into the nav system.”
“Done!” the cat called out after him. “We’ll continue the search here, just in case!”
He was five minutes into the drive—too fucking slow—when his phone beeped. It was Nikita, wanting an update. “Councilor,” Max said, telling her where he was heading, “how many teleporters do you know?”
He didn’t expect help, not now that it was a human sociopath who’d taken Sophia, rather than another Councilor’s interference. But she said, “I’ll see what I can arrange.”
Sweat trickled down Max’s spine. I’m coming, baby. Just hold on.
Sophia’s stomach roiled, nausea filling her mouth. Drugged, she thought. She’d been drugged. The Psy brain didn’t react well to narcotics. A moan whispered out of her as she was jostled about, her already battered body unable to stop its jerky movements.
“Sorry.” A smooth, charming voice with . . . excitement, yes, it was excitement that bubbled beneath the surface. “We’re almost there. This road’s the private one to my bungalow. Made to look like a natural pebbled road. They should’ve sealed it. At least the rain’s stopped.”
Sophia only understood about half of what he’d said. But she knew he’d taken her, and that he wasn’t a man she wanted to be alone with. He smelled wrong.
A laugh, almost amused. “I’ll shower when we get to the bungalow. Got a little sweaty and bloody saving your life.”
A snapshot of memory, her legs kicking out in futile panic, her limbs too heavy to do much damage as he cut away the straps that held her in the car, as he pulled her out. Rain on her face. Glass on her legs.
Reaching down, she touched her thighs, touched the damp material that covered it.
“You’re not injured,” the man with the wrongness in him said as he brought the vehicle to a stop. “A few cuts and bruises from the crash, but otherwise fine. Not even that wet. My arms got nicely sliced up coming to your rescue—I’m sure you’re dying to thank me.”
A buzzing in her head, a dizzying splash of words and images, her mind twisting out of control for a frightening instant as the drugs punched at her again. But she came to enough to flinch when the man exited his side of the car and came around to hers.
“I’m not going to hurt you.”
Lying, she thought, he was lying. “Don’t touch me,” she forced out through lips that didn’t work right.
His expression changed, becoming mean in a way she couldn’t describe. “I’m in charge now.” His hand clamped over her upper arm, and he lowered his head, as if he would kiss her.
Even in the depths of her narcotic induced state, she knew that if she told him the truth, it’d give him another weapon with which to torture her. But if she didn’t, he might inadvertently break her mind, kill her by making her relive the horrifying ugliness of his blood-drenched memories. And she had to survive. Because Max didn’t know. “No,” she whispered, swallowing the nausea inspired by his mere presence. “J. Can’t . . . contact.”
He stilled, his hand tightening on her arm. “You telling me direct physical contact can hurt you? Is that why you were always wearing those gloves?”
She tried to nod, but her head fell forward, and she had so much trouble bringing it back up. “Yes.”
“Then I guess I’ll just have to be careful.” Unsnapping her safety belt, he lifted her out of the car and into his arms.
Her clothing protected her, but this close, her remaining telepathic shields shredded by the drugs, she couldn’t help but drown in the fetid evil of him. He appeared normal, human. But he wasn’t. He was so twisted up inside, so viciously mutated that he wasn’t even close to human.
A slam, her body being laid down on some sort of a soft surface, that handsome b
lue-eyed face going in and out of focus. Her stomach revolted at the same moment, and she pitched over the side of what turned out to be a sofa, her stomach twisting in agony.
“There, there . . .” He was wiping her face with a wet cloth, his voice solicitous. “I’ll clean that up. Let me take you into the bedroom.” A smile that made her blood chill. “That’s where we’ll be playing our games anyway.”
CHAPTER 42
Take care of my heart won’t you, Sophie? It’s a little odd having it outside my body—but I’m planning to steal yours to make up for it.
—Handwritten note from Max to Sophia
Max overrode his car’s safety instructions for the fifteenth time but knew he was going to be far too late. By his calculations, Bonner was almost fifty minutes ahead of him. Even if he made the journey to the resort in half the time, that still gave the Butcher an eternity too long to torment a confused and drugged Sophia.
She’d survive, he told himself. J-Psy were tough in every way. And his Sophie had proven her strength over and over. He’d find her. There was no other option.
He’d just overtaken a sedan going at exactly the speed limit when there was a slight shift in the world to the right of him. He had his stunner out and pointed to the head of the Psy who’d teleported into the passenger seat before the thought cleared his mind.
“That won’t be necessary, Detective.” A voice so cold, it was beyond ice, beyond emotionless. “Nikita asked for a favor. Where do you need to go?”
Making a split-second decision, Max lowered the stunner and crossed lanes to the blaring of warning signals, coming to a full stop on the verge. “To Sophia Russo,” he said to the man in the passenger seat.
Councilor Kaleb Krychek wore a razor-perfect charcoal gray suit and had eyes of pure black filled with white stars. But unlike Faith’s or Sascha’s, his eyes were remote in a way Max simply couldn’t explain. It was as if Kaleb had never felt, as if not even an echo of the boy he must’ve once been lived in his eyes.