by J. M. Madden
Madeira leaning against his arm had been nice though. She’d been trying to console him. He got that. He just couldn’t let himself feel that, though. Especially now, the night before he had to walk back into his own private hell.
The possibility that anyone would be there was slim. The Collaborative had to have realized that the camp was compromised after they broke out. Mattingly probably had people out of there within few hours.
Or she’d had everyone killed like in the camp they saw today.
For a moment he allowed himself to think about the men they’d left behind. There hadn’t been a lot of men, but definitely a few. Had she killed them all to clean up her mess? What had happened to Smoke, the Brazilian guard who had been one of their main jailers?
If he was still around, Fontana would like to kill him. Slowly.
Humberto wandered over, as if he could feel how messed up Fontana’s head was. The little dog stepped over his thigh, then curled up between his legs. Fontana let himself absorb the dog’s comfort.
Tío Pablo’s house was big enough to accommodate all the men. There were two cots out on the back patio he kept for pilots who had to sleep over, as well as a guest bedroom for passengers and a pullout sofa. Pablo himself usually slept in his recliner out in the hangar. A few years ago, he’d had a problem with thieves and he’d gotten used to sleeping out there.
Fontana was still outside. When he came in, she would give him the guest room.
Jordyn had her own bedroom. Or what she’d always considered hers. It was the room where she and her mother slept together when they came down to visit during her childhood. The walls were a pale green, with an old wrought iron bed that squeaked when you lay on the mattress. Her aunt had decorated it with satin roses and a series of pictures of them all together.
Jordyn’s mother had treated their biennial trips as adventures, and it was one of the favorite things she’d ever done with her mother. At night they’d lay in the bed and look up at the stars they could see through the window and her mother would tell her about growing up as a girl there on the farm and getting into trouble with her older brother.
They’d laughed and laughed.
Jordyn checked the kitchen, but the men had already cleaned up after themselves. Good. She was tired. Miracle of miracles, the bathroom was also free. Grabbing a black sports bra from her pack and a pair of black boy shorts, she headed in. Not the most fashionable, but it would keep her cooler when she slept. For a few blissful minutes, she allowed herself to bask in the hot water of the shower. She scrubbed the sweat from her head and wondered when her next shower would be. Tomorrow when they flew in, they were going to have to play it by ear. They had to scope the area out, but they couldn’t fly directly over it, just in case there was someone there.
She rinsed the soap from her body and stepped out of the stall. The towel she used was faded with age, but clean. Apparently the once-a-week housekeeper her mother had hired was still working. Pablo surely wouldn’t have washed them.
Jordyn patted herself dry and slipped her clothes on. After wearing her fatigues, her safety vest and the thirty-pound pack on her back, a bra and shorts felt naked. Hanging her towel on the rod she padded toward her room.
The back slider door opened and closed. Pausing, she waited to see who would come around the corner. Fontana stepped inside, big and broad and tentative. He glanced up and spotted her in the hallway. He went completely still, then he cleared his throat. “Kenny said my place is in here?”
Jordyn couldn’t move, caught as Fontana looked at her. Even from this distance she saw him glance downward, over her body. His jaw flexed and tightened, and he looked away.
Jordyn waved a hand toward the guest room beside hers. “Make yourself at home. There are fresh towels in the bathroom.”
Then, with a final, lingering glance at his profile she slipped inside her door.
Fontana knew that the vision of Madeira standing in the hallway in the bra thing and minuscule shorts would be burned into his brain forever. Those fucking curves… she was going to kill him. They weren’t technically in a military structure so there was nothing that said that they had to stay apart, but he didn’t know if he wanted to open himself up to what she could do to him.
Power raged in his mind and he had to look away to clamp it down. That was another thing. Normally, he had a pretty decent grip on himself, but something about her riled him up. Weakened his walls, or something.
Just before she disappeared into her room he glanced at her ass. Fuck, it was luscious. Thoughts of gripping those voluptuous hips in his hands he entered her from behind… God… he slammed the doors shut on his brain. There was no way that was happening. He wasn’t in a position to even consider a relationship. There was too much danger swirling around them right now.
The guest room was plain but spotlessly clean. Fontana dropped his pack to the floor and sank to the bed. He would grab a quick shower then try to get some sleep. His eyes were gritty from being awake for so long. When had he last slept deeply? It had to have been days. Maybe when he first got to Aiden’s and he knew he was secure in the warehouse with physical backup and alarms. Since then he’d catnapped when he could.
Fontana hated feeling vulnerable, and sleep was the most vulnerable time for him. His defenses fell and sometimes his power leaked. He wished that the bulb exploding over Madeira’s head had been the only time that had happened, but it wasn’t. There were a handful of times when he’d woken to find that every bulb in his hotel room was shattered. And it didn’t matter what kind of bulb it was. He’d overloaded LED lights till they snapped, he’d even overloaded the amber halogen lights in parking lots. Those took concentration, though. Wall outlets had burned up, as well as chargers. When he fell asleep and his defenses came down, it was like the electricity that he normally controlled ran wild.
Digging through his pack he found the plastic bag with his chargers in it. He selected the MP3 charger and plugged it into the wall, then plugged the device in. For some reason when he slept with music playing in his ears, he could control the power a little better while he slept. It was like a tiny part of his brain monitored and controlled the music, which somehow controlled the rest of the energy flowing through him.
It was a bit of a balancing act, though. He didn’t like to use the player all the time because it put him at a security disadvantage. With the buds in his ears he couldn’t hear shit. Sometimes, though, he could feel someone walking toward him. Like he was reading their electrical signature.
It had been two years since he’d had an Ayahuasca injection, but his powers continued to grow. As well as the dangers.
Digging through his pack again he pulled out a clean pair of underwear and his shower bag. Stripping off his outer vest and weapons, he kicked his boots in line beside the bed, ready when he got up. Then, palming his sidearm, he let himself out of the bedroom and into the bathroom. His limp was more pronounced now than it had been all day. He was absolutely dog tired.
Cranking the hot water, he let it pour over him. Leaning against the tile wall, he let his body relax.
The thought of Madeira’s fine ass popped into his brain and he was instantly hard. He ran a hand over himself, first scrubbing with soap, then just because he wanted to. Madeira was so damn sexy. He didn’t think she had any idea how sexy. The scars on her face had probably shaken her confidence.
Fontana closed his eyes, thinking about the light shining on her face earlier. Personally, he thought she was one of the most beautiful women he’d ever seen.
Had she been waiting there for him to notice her when he’d walked in? No, that seemed a little calculated. It had looked like she’d just gotten out of the shower. Plus, her hair had been wet.
The thought of her in this shower stall, with no clothes on, lathering her plump breasts with the soap he had in his hand plunged him toward orgasm. It only took a few tight-fisted strokes to finish himself off.
It took the edge off, but still left him wanting h
er.
Later that night he was still rock hard. Every time she moved in that damn bed, the springs squeaking, he envisioned being there with her, making those bed springs scream as he rocked into the cradle of her hips.
Why the fuck was he hooked on this woman? It had to be the exhaustion plaguing him. He was so tired.
Finally, he put the earbuds into his ears and cranked the music. His men were outside so he wasn’t going to be attacked in the night.
Closing his eyes, he prayed for sleep.
Chapter Ten
Anton Scofield straightened the blue tie, hating that he had to show up for this ridiculous thing. Fuck Priscilla Mattingly. She’d been a bitch in life and she was still screwing him over. He had better things to do than to attend her fucking funeral.
He glanced at the clock on the wall. The car would be waiting for him downstairs, and Damon wanted to talk before they headed to the cemetery. Probably wanted to bitch at him again for something else he didn’t know about. Anton was the face of the company. He wasn’t supposed to be the one doing the dirty work. Priscilla had had her tasks and Anton his own. If they’d crossed at all it was because he was covering up one of her fuck-ups.
The woman had been evil, but she’d made the company a lot of money. It would be damn near impossible to replace her. Hence Damon’s attempt to fit Anton into Priscilla’s heels, so to speak.
Positioning the colorful pocket square, he turned from the mirror and headed for the door.
“Michelle,” he called out toward the kitchen. “Or whatever the fuck your name is.”
The gray-haired woman stepped from the kitchen, wiping her hands on a towel. She frowned at his muttered words. “Yes, Mr. Scofield?”
“Whatever it is you’re cooking stinks. I want Italian tonight. With a 2015 Paul Dolan Cabernet Sauvignon. I’ll be back at seven.”
The woman tilted her chin up and he could see the fury in her eyes. “Yes, Mr. Scofield.”
Laughing, he called the private elevator. He would have to watch the kitchen cameras tonight and make sure she didn’t spit in his food.
The elevator arrived and he stepped inside, then turned to watch through the glass as it went down. As soon as he’d seen the atrium in the center of the exclusive high-rise, he’d known he’d wanted to live here. The atrium reminded him of his days in the country as a boy, and the manicured gardens all around his home. They’d been pristine, of course, his mother a nagging, vengeful harpy if they weren’t.
The elevator hit the bottom and the doors slid apart silently. Striding from the box he passed the security desk and the manager’s station.
“Your car is waiting, Mr. Scofield.”
He rolled his eyes to the security guard, then back to the car parked directly in front of the building, and its glass doors. The stupidity astounded him. How the hell did people make it through the day? “Obviously.”
William, one of his personal guards, had the door open and waiting as soon as he stepped toward the vehicle. Samuel, his regular driver, pulled away from the curb smoothly. The rest of his security team followed along behind, pretending to be useful.
“We’re going to the office first, Samuel.”
“Yes, sir.”
Anton pulled his phone from his pocket and began responding to emails, which seemed to be never ending, now that Priscilla’s were being forwarded to him. Even with his assistants wading through the bulk of them, he still had more than he could manage. And there were some that the assistants were never supposed to see. They were all working on a bit of a learning curve.
There was no way Anton could be expected to go through all those emails himself, though. Damon would just have to accept that.
There were a lot of things that Damon was going to have to get used to in the coming months. He might actually have to do some of the dirty work himself.
For years, Priscilla had been happy enough to do the dirty work, along with the brilliant Dr. Edgar Shu. The man had been a true, off-the-charts genius, as well as a sociopath. When he’d been in the States he saved babies from some of the most deadly diseases with his remarkable cutting edge therapies. But when he’d began devoting his time to the Spartan project there’d been a marked change in his personality. Anton had been shocked at some of the things Shu had done, shocked and impressed. He had devoted his attention to creating a super-soldier, at any expense. Too bad the man had died in the jungle. The company had yet to recover and Anton secretly believe it might never recover.
And Priscilla had been right there encouraging the doctor. The research camps had been her babies and she’d developed an unhealthy fascination with some of the captives. There’d been several men that hadn’t done well in the program so she’d made them her security detail.
A few of them would be buried this week as well.
They pulled up in front of the Silverstone Collaborative, one of the tallest and longest buildings in downtown Arlington. It took up a lot of prime real estate. The taller part of the building was the corporate tower, and the longer, lower building to the south was the research division. His new albatross.
Anton liked being the face of the company at parties and government shindigs. He loved the wheeling and dealing that went along with his position, and he felt like he’d been an asset for the company for many years. When opportunities presented themselves, he tried to take advantage of them. Why not?
Samuel pulled the car to a stop and William hopped out to open the door for him. Stepping from the vehicle, Anton buttoned the front of his suit jacket together and strode into the lobby. Clean and pristine, it tried to be the benign embodiment of what a good company should be. If the public ever figured out what was behind the curtain, so to speak, they would all be in the deepest shit imaginable.
It was all about appearances.
He punched the button for the thirtieth floor then shoved his hands in his pockets. Damon had been walking a dangerous edge this week. Maybe his fuck-buddy Priscilla had meant more to him than he let on.
When he walked into the office Damon was staring out the window. He’d done that a lot recently.
Dustin Truckle, Priscilla’s Head of Security for the Silverstone Campus, sat in a chair in front of Damon’s desk. Anton was taken aback for a moment but didn’t let his distaste show in any way. He wasn’t sure why Damon had decided to include the other man.
Damon looked up when Anton walked in and scowled. “The press is already at the cemetery waiting.”
“Well, of course they are,” Anton laughed. “I let a contact know we’d be heading there.”
Damon rounded on him. “Why the fuck would you do that?”
Anton looked at his boss closely, seeing the real weariness in his eyes. Had the man actually considered the bitch more than an occasional lay? “Because we need the press, Damon. You have to appear to be torn up about losing your Chief Operating Officer. And if you have to give a statement I think you know what you need to say. She was a devoted employee for so many years, she helped complete so many projects, blah, blah, blah. But you need to appear to be the business owner who just lost a valued employee, not a grieving lover.” He moved a hand at Damon’s look. “You can’t go out looking like this. Is that suit even clean? And when did you last shave?”
Damon looked down at himself and seemed taken aback. He scraped a hand back through his hair. “I’ve been here all night.”
“You have a change of clothes in your bathroom. Go take a quick shower and get cleaned up.”
Damon turned, as if to do as Anton said, then swung back. “Mr. Truckle is taking over the research division. It seems to be more than what you can handle.”
Alarm coursed through Anton. “What do you mean he’s taking over? I’ve been in charge less than a week. I’m learning. It wasn’t like Priscilla and I were having lunch together and exchanging blow by blow accounts about our days.”
“Exactly.” Damon’s cold eyes turned frosty as he took the dig and he drew himself up, leaning into Anto
n’s personal space. “You’ve been in charge for a week and haven’t done shit to figure out who killed her. Or done anything to get the damned information back. Those little five dollar memory drives that Shu deemed more reliable than our million-dollar company servers have the information we need to get the Spartan project back on track again. Right now we’re fumbling around in the dark, trying to guess at what he did. And it’s not turning out well. Not to mention recruitment is down,” Damon gave him an even more pointed look.
Anton clenched his jaw. “When the participating countries don’t see results, they don’t want to throw their best military men away.”
Damon folded his arms. “Well, we’re in a catch-22, then, aren’t we?”
“If you would just allow me to raise the bounty…” Anton started.
“You’ve already done that! Twice!” Damon poked him in the chest. “Right now I’m wondering what the hell you’re doing for all the money I’m paying you.”
Anton glared at Damon’s back as he walked to the bathroom in the corner of the office and slammed the door. Truckle stood up, a smug look on his angular face as he stroked a hand down his thick brown beard. “Sucks to be replaced, huh, Anton? I’m sure you did the best you could.” Crossing his arms over his muscular chest, he looked Anton up and down. “I’ll take care of everything from here on out. No need to worry your pretty little head.”
Truckle tapped his cheek condescendingly and turned away.
Anton gritted his teeth and remained where he was. He’d been bullied before. If he gave Truckle any kind of indication that he was rattled, the security guard would continue his abuse. Just before he exited the office, Anton called his name. “Sucks that she had to die before he made the effort to remember your name.”
Truckle gave him a toothy, predatory smile before slipping through the door.
Once he was alone in the office, Anton relaxed a little. Truckle, a slow-talking good ol’ boy from the south, rubbed him the wrong way as soon as he’d met him. He was disgusting. There was no recognition of authority in that coal-black gaze, just sardonic rebellion. He had no idea what Priscilla had seen in the man. He’d only been here a few years. If Damon thought Truckle was going to do any better than he had…