Behind him, the door lock clicked.
What the—?
Hadn’t he locked the door?
Reaching for his Glock, he spun around. His jaw dropped when he saw Sofia glaring at him with a first aid kit in her hand.
She scowled at him. “I knew it. I thought I smelled blood in the car.”
“Didn’t your mother ever teach you to knock?”
“Not when you’re hoping to catch someone butt-naked or with an injury that they’re trying to hide.”
“How did you—?”
“You walked funny. You were favoring your right side.”
That was not an answer to the question he had intended to ask. He had locked the door, hadn’t he? Kyle glowered at her. “Did I ever mention that you’re too observant?”
“Several times now.” Sofia washed her hands in the sink, and then leaned down to peer at the cut. “You could use some stitches.” She opened the first aid kit and carefully picked through its contents.
“I see you rummaged through the trunk of my car,” he said blandly. “It’s a good thing I didn’t have a body hidden in there tonight.”
She cast him a dirty look. Clearly, the girl knew no fear. “I can make do with what you have here.”
“Do you know what you’re doing?”
“There are lots of self-help videos on YouTube.” She giggled when he frowned. “Of course I do. I took courses in first aid before I decided to sign up for my nursing program. It wouldn’t do to learn that I’m queasy about bodily fluids after graduating. In fact—”
She paused suddenly. He did too. He had not imagined the low thud, like that of something heavy, a body perhaps, falling to the ground. He shrugged on his shirt and pulled his gun from his leather jacket. Pale and silent, Sofia closed the first aid kit and picked up his leather jacket. She looked at him, and he nodded. It was the only assurance he could give.
He eased the door open and tried to peer out of the bathroom, but was driven back by a hail of bullets that ripped up the wooden doorframe. “Do you have the car keys?” He mouthed the words.
Sofia patted the pocket of her denim jeans.
“On my count, get out the back door and get to the car.”
She swallowed hard and nodded. He did notice that the only time she did not argue with him was when their lives were in danger. Smart girl.
“Three…two…one.” He stepped out of the doorway, ducked behind a nearby shelf, and opened fire in the direction where he had heard gunfire. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sofia, crouched low, dash out of the exit.
Cold night air wafted in her wake.
Kyle spared a quick glance out from behind the shelf. The young man who had been standing behind the cashier counter was nowhere to be seen.
Bullets smashed into the refrigerated displays behind him. Kyle brought his hands up to shield his face as the glass doors exploded into a deadly spray of shrapnel.
Damn it. Two shooters. He had to get clear, and he had to stop them both here, or they would follow Sofia.
He glanced up at the large, circular mirrors that the management of the store had installed to deter shoplifters. He could not see the shooters. It did not surprise him. The people of the Rue Marcha were more than street hoodlums; they were professional killers.
So was he.
Time to even the odds. He took careful aim at the long tubes of florescent lights overhead and blew them out with a single shot. A section of the store plunged into darkness. In that instant, he moved, racing toward the cover of another shelf.
Bullets raced over his head. Cans and packages of food tumbled from the shelves, rolling over his back. Kyle lunged forward, sliding over the slick linoleum tiles. He twisted onto his side and fired.
Someone howled in pain.
One down. Maybe.
He blinked as the glare of straight-on headlights flooded the store. The familiar purr of his car engine crescendoed into a roar.
What the hell was that girl doing?
Moments later, the glass storefront shattered to the cacophony of panicked screams.
Kyle raced past the cowering gunmen. His racing feet crunched on glass fragments. Sofia’s wide brown eyes stared at him from behind the steering wheel, her face pale in the surrounding darkness. He scrambled into the passenger seat and pulled the door closed. “Go!”
Sofia slammed her foot down on the gas pedal. Tires squealing, the BMW screeched into reverse, switched gears, and raced down the road.
Kyle looked over his shoulder. The dismayed faces of two Rue Marcha goons, who had scrambled from the ruins of the convenience store, shrank behind a cloud of exhaust. A tight grin creased his face as he turned back to Sofia. “You’re crazy, but I like your style of crazy.”
Chapter 4
Crazy?
She would have been insulted if Kyle hadn’t made it sound like a compliment. Still, she took issue with his comment, and she would, at least once her heartbeat went back to normal. “That was the Rue Marcha, right? Not the IGEC?”
Kyle nodded. “IGEC agents play by the rule book. They announce themselves first and shoot later. Still, they’ll be on your trail. Just a matter of time. We have to get the microchip out of your arm. Pull over.”
“What?”
“I’ll drive.”
She shot him a narrow-eyed glance. “You’re hurt.”
“Yeah, well, I can still drive.”
“And so can I.”
“But—”
“But what? You think that just because you have a Y-chromosome you can drive better than I can?”
“Of course,” he said, his tone matter-of-fact. “When did you get your certification in Israeli tactical driving techniques?”
She huffed out her breath. Sanctimonious prick.
He pointed at the building on the street corner. “Pull into that parking lot.”
The police station? “What? You’re not serious.”
“Nowhere safer. You’re not a fugitive from the law, at least not yet. I’ll get out. You scoot over. No point in anyone seeing you.”
A chauvinistic sanctimonious prick.
Who was trying to keep her safe, or at least anonymous.
She did as he instructed and watched him as he stepped out of the car. His stride was strong, and she had to stare closely to notice that he was favoring his right side. How badly hurt was he? “You should get that treated,” she said when he reentered the car.
“I will, after we put a hundred miles between us and the Rue Marcha.”
“You said the tracking device is feeding off my body heat. Is there any way to dampen the signal?”
“Sure.” Kyle nodded. “We could cut off your arm and bury it in ice, but that’s not optimal, right?”
Jerk. She slanted him a glance as he pulled the car out of the parking lot. The pale golden streetlights flashing by accentuated his harsh profile. His mouth was set in a firm, unsmiling line, but his eyes did not seem as hard and unyielding as they had back at the club. He was almost gorgeous.
She ground her teeth in an attempt to refocus her thoughts. “What about ice packs?”
“An ice pack on your arm isn’t going to cool your body temperature enough to dampen the signal.”
“I meant you. You could use an ice pack on your wound.”
He shook his head. “It’s not bad. Glancing shot. Mostly skin. The bleeding’s stopped.”
She almost made a snide comment but thought better of it. Honey worked better than vinegar. “I can hold the ice pack for you while you drive.”
“I said I’m fine.”
She threw up her hands. “Fine. Just be sure to pull over before you pass out.”
A long, silent moment dragged between them, and then he chuckled, a deep rumble that caught her off guard. “Crazy, with an attitude. You’re growing on me, you know.”
“If you think comparing me to mold sounds romantic, think again.”
“I have been thinking hard. You’ve just been shot at. How i
s it you’re so calm? Most women would be in hysterics by now.”
“Most women?” She rolled her eyes and settled in her seat, tugging her jacket around her for warmth. With effort, she shoved away the memory of her last encounter with a gun. “You don’t get out much, do you? Ever seen a hospital delivery room? Women are plenty calm. The men, however, are basket cases.”
Kyle punched a button on the car dashboard. He had activated the seat warmer, she realized, as a cozy heat radiated from the car seat. He continued without missing a beat. “I know several women who might be able to kick my ass in hand-to-hand combat, but it doesn’t change the fact that most women can’t.”
“Who are they?”
“What?”
“These women who can kick your ass in hand-to-hand combat. Friends?”
His brow furrowed for the briefest instant, pain flashing through his eyes, before his expression smoothed into stoniness.
Sofia drew in a jagged breath. She had overstepped. She braced for a flash of violence; she knew, certainly, that he was capable of it.
The silence simmered between them.
Kyle was quiet for so long she was certain he did not intend to reply. “It would depend on your definition of friends,” he said finally.
The tension in his voice warned her not to probe further.
For a few minutes, she obliged. Her jaw taut, she stared out the window at the familiar scenery of fast food chain restaurants and big box stores peppering both sides of I-85N. Within a half hour, the pervasive signs of suburban America would give way to snow-dusted trees and empty fields. She rubbed her hand against her arm where the microchip was embedded. Her arm did not feel any different, but everything had changed. She turned to Kyle. “What’s going to happen when you get the microchip out?”
“You go back to Chapel Hill.” He glanced at the digital clock on the dashboard. “You might even make it to your afternoon classes on time.”
“And what’s going to happen to you? To the microchip?”
“Zara will probably use it as leverage, make sure Proficere Labs pays up before she releases it.”
“But what’s on it? Why does the Rue Marcha and the IGEC want it?”
“What does it matter?”
“It matters because it’s in me, Kyle. I’d like to know what the hell I’m carrying. It matters—it really does—who we give the microchip to.”
Kyle raised his eyebrows. “We?”
“Yes, I was trying to be polite. The microchip is in me; I could have said ‘I’ instead of ‘we.’”
He shook his head. A muffled sound escaped past the fist he pressed to his mouth.
“Something in your throat?” Sofia asked politely.
He dropped his hand. “Right.” The amused gleam in his eyes sharpened. “Look, you’re a bystander, an innocent one at that, caught up in something far larger than yourself. Not exactly what you bargained for when you started your shift at Zanzi-Bar. As soon as the microchip is out of your arm, you can cut yourself loose.”
“Three people died today.”
“Not a big number in the grand scheme of things.”
“What?” Her eyebrows drew together. “You’re kidding, right?”
“Lost more buddies on a bad day in Iraq.”
“How does that make what happened today trivial?”
He scowled. “That’s not what I said. I just don’t get how you’re so eager to jump into this when most people would be trying to get out of it.”
“Perhaps I wouldn’t feel the need to be so involved if you showed a bit more interest in what the microchip actually contains.”
“Look, it’s not my job—”
“And I’m sure that’s going to hold up just great in a court of law. Do you know how much genetic research is considered out of bounds? Flat out illegal?”
He hesitated, but not long enough to satisfy her. His response certainly did not. “This is Zara’s problem. She’ll take care of it.”
“She sounds as mercenary as you. Worse, actually.”
“Proficere says it’s just a genetic analysis.”
“Right, one that a drug cartel and the IGEC would kill to obtain? I don’t think so.”
“What’s with your obsession with getting to the bottom of this? What are you, some kind of private investigator?”
She inhaled deeply and waited until she was certain her voice would hold steady. Her true reasons ran deeper, their consequences devastatingly personal, but she offered the logical argument, the one that most people, including Kyle, she hoped, would buy.
“International Genetic Law is a mandatory first-year class. The professor bombarded us with examples of irresponsible research. Five years ago, in a village in Chad, a genetically engineered strain of the common flu killed twenty percent of the people it infected. Two years ago, a variant of the bubonic plague escaped or was released by a Chinese laboratory into a rural countryside. It devastated the region, killing seven hundred people before it faded out. Nine months ago—”
He waved a hand, cutting her off. “You think there’s a lot more to this microchip than a basic genetic analysis.”
“Don’t you?”
Kyle did not answer.
He mulled over her question—no, not a question. It had been a statement.
Three Fates mercenaries were known for their strict adherence to their stick-to-the-project-scope mentality. Zara had drummed it into them, which was ironic considering she was practically compulsive about exceeding the scope of her projects. But then again, they all knew how much havoc Zara caused when she deviated from the plan. Society was still reeling from its repercussions.
No surprise then that Three Fates contracts were written to protect the agency from legal entanglements, regardless of how borderline illegal its mercenaries’ actions appeared to be.
Like overseeing an information transfer between a genetics laboratory known for breaking rules and a South American drug cartel.
His contract compelled him to retrieve the microchip and return it to Proficere Labs, no questions asked.
Sofia demanded differently.
Kyle ground his teeth. The last thing he needed was a do-gooder with a shaky grasp on reality. Real life had a tendency to kick those people in the ass.
He just had to convince her of it.
He glanced at her. “Sofia—”
She was asleep, her head resting against the car door. Her face was serene, and her chest rose and fell with each gentle breath.
The tension locked around his heart like a clawed fist eased away. He smiled. She seemed young and fragile. No, she was young—an entire decade younger than his thirty-three years—and still naive enough to be idealistic, but she was not fragile. She was cool and levelheaded under fire, and apparently had the gumption to ram his car into a storefront to save his life.
None of that matched her public profile of a middle-class college graduate raised in suburban America. Who was she really?
More importantly, where did her strength come from?
Most importantly, what kind of a pain in the ass was she going to be?
Kyle let her sleep. The miles raced by, but each minute seemed to crawl. The pain in his side settled into a dull throb. The wound was not much more than skin-deep; the bleeding had stopped quickly. Surely, the doctor could look at it.
Zara’s apparent trust notwithstanding, Kyle was as leery as Sofia was of the free clinics. They skimmed the bottom of the barrel as far as medical talent was concerned, but even a free clinic doctor, however incompetent, should be able to handle a simple wound cleaning and apply a bandage.
He passed the time by alternately checking the digital clock on the dashboard and his rearview mirror. As far as he could tell, they were not followed, though he was certain that the Rue Marcha and the IGEC were tracking the microchip. At best, he had a fifteen-minute to half-hour lead, and he had been squeezing the speed limit for all it was worth. It would not do to get pulled over by an overzealous police offic
er.
The predawn sky was still dark when he crossed into Washington, D.C. He pulled out his smartphone and called Zara. He kept his voice low. “I’m fifteen minutes out.”
Her reply was terse. “All right. He’ll meet you at the clinic.”
He hung up and glanced at Sofia. She had hardly stirred in all that time. He reached over and shook her gently.
After several moments, she sat up and blinked, rubbing sleep from her eyes.
“We’re almost there,” he said.
She twisted around in her seat to look out the rear window of the car. “We’re okay?”
“So far.”
Her shoulders sagged with relief. She turned to him. “And you?”
“Still alive.”
“Maybe you can get the doctor to look at it.”
“Yeah, I will.”
The clinic was dark when they pulled up. “Stay here,” he instructed curtly before stepping out of the car. His caution was instinctive. Washington, D.C., was Zara’s backyard and playground, and as a rule, Three Fates employees stayed out of the city, but even he had heard of Anacostia. One had to be suicidal or desperate to enter the gang-controlled warzone.
He liked to think he was the latter, not the former.
The glow of streetlamps seemed too far apart, their meager pools of light devoured by the surrounding darkness. Graffiti adorned the buildings, and the windows were barred. He wrinkled his nose against the stench, a blend of cheap alcohol and urine, wafting from the gutters.
Unease tickled along his spine.
The shadows were far too deep even for someone like him who utilized them as allies and weapons. He looked up at the sound of uneven footsteps.
A man emerged out of the darkness, his features cast in shadow. He leaned heavily on the crutch under his left arm. “Are you Kyle Norwood?” His voice was a melodic tenor with an underlying sheen of polish that hinted at private schools and a life of privilege. Certainly not what Kyle expected to hear in Anacostia.
He buried his surprise with a gruff answer. “Yes.”
The man nodded. “I’ll open the clinic.”
Kyle glanced back as Sofia stepped out of the car. “I thought I told you to stay in the car.”
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