by Lynne Silver
Finally, Gavin paused his conversation with his earpiece and turned to her. “Xander’s gone. I think they took him. We miscalculated, thinking they were only after you.”
“Oh no,” she said weakly and felt a wave of nausea rush through her. They hadn’t seen it coming. They’d been so focused on any threat to her, they’d overlooked the fact that Paulson could use an already enhanced soldier. Or they’d been so arrogant to think they were too strong to get caught.
Gavin bypassed the garage and pulled straight up to the curb in front of the main building. She followed him down through a series of complicated man traps and hand scans. Finally they were in the dull compound hallway she recognized. Her stomach lurched when she saw Chase looming in a doorway.
He strode to meet her. “Chase, I—”
“Don’t talk right now. Seriously, just don’t.”
He gripped her elbow and practically dragged her outside.
“Chase, stop.” She tried to tug her arm away. “Xander’s gone. We have to go help find him.”
He turned, still holding her elbow. “You don’t have to do anything. You’re not a trained soldier. Gavin and Shep will find Xander. You have only one job, and that is to explain to me what the hell you were doing allowing Shep to use you as bait.”
She’d never heard Chase’s voice hold that kind of anger. He’d been furious a few nights ago when he’d learned what happened between her and Adam. But that was nothing compared to the pure rage he spewed now.
“Chase, calm down. I had a plan.” Oops, she’d forgotten rule number one. Never tell anyone in a rage to calm down. It only poured lighter fluid on the fire. She clamped her lips shut and hunkered down for the battle.
“I will not calm the fuck down.”
She hadn’t used the F word, but it probably wasn’t wise to point that out now.
“Did it occur to you even once to let me know of your plans?”
“You would have tried to stop me. Maybe you would’ve succeeded.”
“Damn straight I would’ve. Even if I had to lock you up to keep you from putting yourself in danger.”
“Exactly. Which is why I didn’t tell you.”
“What about Luca?”
She’d hoped he wouldn’t bring up the glaring flaw in her plan. “Luca was safe on campus. I knew you would look after him.”
“And what the fuck was I supposed to tell him when he woke up to discover his mommy had been taken back to the bad guys?”
That had been her worst nightmare, but she’d calculated the risks versus the rewards. “I trusted Xander and Gavin to keep me safe. I had no intention to go back to Paulson. If I hadn’t made a move, I could’ve spent the rest of my life hiding from Paulson. What kind of life is that for my son?”
“Paulson’s about one hundred and two years old. You would only have had to hide for a few years.”
“Only a few years?” Sarcasm laced her words. “And that would be an acceptable life to you? And you’re a fool to think Paulson’s successors wouldn’t also come after me. It never would’ve ended.”
“Guess what, Samara? It hasn’t ended. They got Xander. And we didn’t get Paulson. I’m not sure who the fool is here. You, because you let yourself be used? Or me for falling in love with you when you obviously don’t feel the same?”
Every muscle in her body froze at his words. He loved her? She didn’t even have time to process before he was bitterly telling her something else.
“We’re done here, Samara.”
She could only stare at him. Her mouth didn’t seem to be working, and it wasn’t as if her brain was feeding it anything smart to say.
“I can’t keep making a fool of myself chasing after you and being slapped down. Let me know if you’re pregnant and we’ll talk custody and child support then. But that’s all I can give right now. I’m wiped out.” He walked away.
Her feet remained glued to the grass, even though every bit of her wanted to run after him and beg. Beg for him to forgive her. Beg for him to keep loving her. But she didn’t know how. She was letting him walk away again. Chase was right, she always let him walk away. What else could she do? He’d look at her with even more disgust if she threw herself on his mercy and begged. Her words would make things worse.
Her knees wobbled and she sank to the ground where she knelt, uncaring of the potential for grass stains on the fancy suit she wore. Nothing mattered except Chase was giving up on her. And it hurt. It hurt as much as the year spent prisoner in Paulson’s clinic, if not more.
She wanted to cry, but the sobs were stuck in her chest. Tears would be cathartic but it seemed even her body was angry at her. Too angry to allow her the release of a good cry.
“Doctor Jones?”
She looked up to see Adam standing over her. “Shep would like you back in the meeting room. We want to know if you saw anything in the restaurant.” He didn’t say it, but she could tell he suspected foul play and that she was involved somehow. Fan-freakin-tastic.
Slowly she crawled to standing without any assistance from Adam, who watched her as if she were a bug he wanted to stomp on. “Let’s go.” Without a word they set off toward the office.
*
Chase slammed his apartment door behind him. He wiped at his eyes and his hand came away wet. Holy shit, he was crying. Who wouldn’t cry? His woman had ripped out his heart, stomped on it and didn’t have the decency to put it back. She was holding on to it.
A knock sounded. “Chase? Shep wants you back in the conference room. We’re making plans to get Xander.”
He cleared his throat. “Go on without me. I’ll catch up.” His brain warred with his heart, one desperate to get Xander back, the other desperate to get Samara back. Silence fell, and he collapsed on his bed, feeling a little like a teenage girl. He wanted to bury his face in his pillow and sob, but his Y chromosome wouldn’t let him.
Instead he sat on the edge of the bed, rested his forearms on his thighs and stared blankly at the carpet below his feet. He’d never been more miserable in his life. For a moment he wished he were like Xander. When Xander showed up at meetings tightlipped and scowling, no one said a thing. If he showed up at the conference room, people were gonna be all over him, wondering what was the matter. And no one would believe him if he said it was concern for Xander. Everyone was concerned for the missing soldier. No, his was a special brand of pissed off, so different from his normal jokester ways, he’d have to explain himself within minutes.
He really didn’t want to have to explain that he’d fallen in love and been rejected. Samara may never have said actual words rejecting him, but her actions screamed her intentions loud and clear. She’d run away after having unprotected sex and she hadn’t told him her plans of drawing out Paulson.
Holy shit. Everything suddenly became crystal clear. She hadn’t told him, not because she thought he’d stop her, but because she didn’t trust him to keep her safe. Fuck. If he’d thought he was miserable before… That had to be what it was. She needed the best soldiers on campus to keep her safe, so she’d gone to Adam, Xander and Gavin. Not him.
She and Adam hated each other. Yet she’d still gone to him. Of course she had. She was a freaking genius geneticist, but it didn’t take a genius to know to go first-string if your life and family were on the line. That was exactly what Samara had done. She knew he didn’t have the enhanced goods, and so she’d cut him out of the mission. He knew she’d deny it, but it was exactly what he would’ve done in the same position. It didn’t change anything between them. Any possibility for a relationship between them was still doomed.
After a quick face washing in cold water at his sink, he donned an impassive expression, giving nothing away about his emotional shit storm for Samara, and went out to meet the world.
Chapter Eleven
Three days later
“Chase! Where are you going?” Luca shouted clear across the campus to Chase. Samara grabbed his arm in a vain attempt to shush her son. It was no good. Cha
se paused on the path and turned to walk toward them. He was in black fatigues with a worn backpack thrown over his back.
“Secret mission stuff, little man.”
Luca nodded. “When will you be back? Is it dangerous?” he asked, but he sounded excited by the possibility of Chase going into battle. Her heartbeat sped up, and she knew her stomach wasn’t meant to somersault in that fashion.
“Nah, nothing too dangerous.” Chase rubbed a hand across Luca’s scalp, messing up his hair, but he didn’t look at her. Her breath came easier as soon as she heard him dismiss the possibility for danger, but he had to be lying. Surely he was going after Xander, which was fraught with danger. She wasn’t privy to all the missions on the Program campus, but the most obvious, most pressing was going after Xander. She wanted to throw up thinking about Chase getting near Paulson and crew.
“Do you think the bad men will show up and try to get us while you’re gone?” Luca asked, obviously worried.
She bent to look her son in the eye. “Sweetie, we already talked about this. The bad men aren’t after us anymore. We’ll be safe.”
Now Chase frowned at her and said in a low voice, “Just because they have Xander doesn’t mean they still don’t want you. You need to take care while I’m gone.” Then he squatted down to Luca’s level. “Luca, while I’m gone Adam and Gavin are going to look out for you. I need you to take care of your mom. Got it?”
Luca nodded solemnly. Chase straightened to full height, and she caught his attention. “My mother is doing poorly, Chase. If she needs me, I’m going to go to her. Shep thinks if we travel incognito and stick to public places we’ll be okay. He gave me a false driver’s license.” She said the words as much to reassure herself as for Chase and Luca’s benefit.
An unreadable expression passed over Chase’s face. “Please don’t. Give me time. When I’m back, we’ll deal with it then. Okay?”
He looked intently at her, and she squirmed under his penetrating gaze. She didn’t understand why he was acting as though he still cared about her. She thought that ship had sailed, but the anxiety on his face maybe told her a different story. “All right,” she managed. “I’ll wait for you.” It was one of the harder concessions she’d ever made, but if she were ever to have a chance at winning Chase back, she needed to show some faith in him. “Have a safe trip, Chase.” She tried to convey all her feelings for him in a single gaze.
“Bye,” he said quietly and slung the backpack over his shoulder again. Her heart ached as he walked away. She prayed their goodbye was just for the extended weekend, not for good. But there was a good chance it was over between her and Chase. He’d kept a clear physical and emotional distance between them just now. She couldn’t blame him. He’d learned she’d been intimate with Adam and she’d allowed herself to be bait for Paulson without telling him. That had to be a hard pill to swallow.
She blinked back her tears and walked toward her apartment. Luca chattered and she made noncommittal responses at the necessary breaks in the conversation, but she barely heard anything her son said. She reminded herself she and Chase had no future together, no matter how many times he’d claimed otherwise. It was for the best. Her one regret was that she had never told him how she felt. He thought she didn’t care, when that couldn’t be further from the truth.
She loved him rather desperately. He saw her as the person she always dreamt of being. She wasn’t a boring, socially awkward genius around him. He teased that persona out of her. She liked who she was around Chase. It wouldn’t be fair to tell him though. He’d broken up with her, and now that he had, he could create a Program-approved future with his genetic match.
*
Chase held his phone up to his ear from his hotel room. It was Gavin on the other end. “What’s up?” He could hear chattering in the background, yet there was none of the usual laughter and easy chatting that happened when Program soldiers got together. “What happened?”
Gavin’s voice was scratchy and low. “It’s Xander. I just sent you a file. Check it. Xander’s in serious shit. We’re ramping up plans to get him out like yesterday.”
The wind knocked out of his sails, he struggled to find a chair and ended up ass-planting it on the carpeted floor. “What?”
He told Gavin to hang on and clicked the buttons on his phone to see an email with an attached picture. It was blurry and poor quality, but it was enough to show a bruised, bloody body lying on a concrete floor. A dark splotch that Chase ID’d as blood pooled around his torso.
“Obviously we’re not taking a photo as confirmation Xander’s dead, but either way, he needs us,” Gavin said.
Chase nodded and studied the photo closely.
The typed caption below the photo was brief. “We got what we needed.” He clenched his phone in a shaking fist. “Why? Why the fuck would they take Xander when they already had what they needed from Adam?”
Gavin was silent for a long moment. “Didn’t you know?”
“Know what?”
“Your woman screwed them.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“She messed with the samples. She poured water or something in Adam’s sample so it was useless to Paulson.”
“She did?” Disbelief and pride rose in him that Samara had done something like that. “When did she do it?”
Gavin paused. “I’m not sure. Maybe a few hours before Rowan and Xander broke into the clinic to rescue Adam.”
“Why didn’t she tell us from the beginning?”
“Duh, we didn’t let her. Don’t you remember her first meeting on campus? You kept glaring at her and practically telling her to shut up. But she told Shep a few days ago.”
He hugged his knees to his chest, stunned at this development. Part of him wanted to whoop. That was his girl who’d fooled Paulson. And part of him wanted to shake her. She shouldn’t have taken such a risk. If Paulson discovered her treachery, she would’ve been punished. Thank God, they’d gotten her out in time. He spent another second thinking about Samara before he returned to the current reason for the misery miring the occupants of the room. Xander was likely dead or wishing he were dead. “Where’s—” he started, then broke off, struggling to talk over the lump in his throat. “Does Shep know?”
“Yes. He’s taking it hard. He went to find his wife. Same with Blacker.” Chase looked around and realized he was alone in an anonymous hotel room without any source of comfort.
The matched couples back on campus had all gone to find their mate for comfort. He ached to have Samara near to wrap his body around, but it was a useless wish. She wasn’t his, and she would likely never be. He knew she was on campus working, and would probably do her best to ignore him when he returned. That was why he was here, taking care of this personal business. He was going to make it so she couldn’t ignore him.
He glanced at the grainy image of Xander’s body again and gave in to the urge. He let the tears come. He buried his head in his knees and sobbed for his friend Xander and Samara.
*
Samara lay in bed and cried silently into her pillow. Luca was blissfully snoring away in his bed, but she couldn’t sleep. First, her mother was doing terribly. She’d fallen off her bed and broken her wrist. And she was no longer able to talk to her on the phone. The downward spiral happened so quickly, it was difficult to believe she and Chase had been there recently.
Adding to her misery was her loneliness for Chase. Today, while walking to the cafeteria, Luca tried to grab her hand and swing, the way he had with her and Chase. He got nowhere. She wasn’t strong enough or balanced enough to give him a good single-arm swing.
Luca had tried to hide his disappointment, but she could see right through his mask. He’d waited a whole three minutes before asking when they’d see Chase again.
She kicked the sheet off her and walked to the bathroom to splash cool water on her face and to do something she’d been putting off for as long as possible. She could no longer hide from the necessary ta
sk.
A glass cup on the corner of the bathroom counter reminded her of Chase teasing and coaxing her to hold a cup for him while he jerked off. Idiot.
He was always able to tempt her into trying new things. He didn’t let her feel self-conscious. Without him it felt she’d lost a limb or as if she were slowly bleeding out, and soon there’d be nothing substantial left of her.
He was the one who accused her of always walking away. Hah. Now he was the one who’d walked away this time from them as a couple. She splashed more cold water on her face then looked at her reflection in the mirror. “But you didn’t go after him,” she whispered to her mirror twin. She waited for a moment for some advice from the face in the mirror, but nothing was forthcoming. Her heart knew the right answer.
“Go after him. Don’t let him go,” she said, this time louder to her reflection. And then the face smiled at her. For the first time since Chase had stomped away from her, she felt as if she could breathe again. She could do this. She would. When he returned to the Program, instead of hiding from him as she’d planned, she’d get in his face. She’d refuse to leave his presence until he’d forgiven her and loved her again.
For she loved him. Dearly. She gulped in air, prayed for courage and then reached into the drugstore plastic bag for the small box she’d asked Thea to purchase for her. She slid a fingernail under the cardboard flap of the box and pulled out the pregnancy kit. The irony was not lost on her that she, a fertility specialist, had resorted to a simple drugstore pregnancy test.
She followed the instructions then sat on the closed toilet to wait. And wait. And wait. She didn’t know why she was waiting. She knew what the results were. She was pregnant with Chase’s baby. She peeked at the stick to confirm. An ear-to-ear grin tried to break free on her face, but it competed with the sobs that welled up.
He had to take her back now. She was carrying his child, but something stubborn in her knew she would withhold the pregnancy information until she’d confessed her love for Chase and had it reciprocated. She lifted the hem of her t-shirt and stared down at the smooth skin of her stomach. Her bellybutton showed the signs of having already carried a child, and she couldn’t wait to see it swell with this new baby. “I’m going to get your daddy back for you, sweetheart.”