by April Hunt
“Call the Legion again,” Roman directed King, his fists tightening on the steering wheel. “And keep trying until you get hold of someone.”
He never did. Five minutes later, Nat cut off a line of cars waiting to turn onto the main road and pulled right up to Tru Tech’s front door. Roman screeched to a halt right next to her, jumping the curb seconds before he jumped out from the car and ran into the building.
He’d barely reached the center lobby when Maddy nearly crashed into him.
Her eyes widened before narrowing into daggers. “You. It’s about damn fucking time. What the hell took you so long?”
“Is Isabel okay?” Roman’s breath froze in his lungs.
“Is she okay? Okay?!” Maddy stepped closer, drilling a finger into his chest. “No! No, Roman Steele, she is definitely not okay! Actually, she’s as far from okay as one could get!”
“What happened?”
Maddy’s look would’ve killed him if she had the power. “What happened is that the man she’s head over heels in love with is a cowardly jackass! You would only be so damn lucky to have Isabel in your life. You’d be the luckiest man on earth…ever!”
Roman gently gripped her arms before she drilled her finger through to his spine. “Maddy, I’m not disagreeing with you. I’m the stupidest man for not telling her how I feel. Trust me, I plan on rectifying that as soon as I make sure she’s safe.”
“Safe? What are you talking about?” She blinked, concern overshadowing the anger, and fisted Roman’s shirt. “Damn it, man, talk to me!”
King gently extricated her grip from his shirt. “Easy there, kitten.”
Nat scoffed. “Do you have pet names for all women?”
Maddy waved her hands for attention. “Why does Isa need to be kept safe?! I swear to God if someone doesn’t talk soon—”
“Where is she?” Roman asked.
“She’s in the lab—working—as usual.”
“Alone?” Fuck. His chest tightened as if Maddy still had a grip on him.
“No, she’s with Tony. I tried convincing her to come up here with me for a little break, but in case you haven’t already noticed, she likes working through pain. And you, asshole, hurt her really damn bad.”
Roman spun on the detective. “Nat? Surveillance. Get eyes on that lab.”
“On it.” Nat hustled off.
Maddy folded her arms across her chest. “Is someone going to tell me what’s happening at some point, or am I going to have to guess?”
Roman steered her toward the lab elevators. “Right now you’re taking me and King to the Legion, you’re going to put yourself in one of those spacesuits, and then you’re going to stay as far out of the way as possible.”
“Roman!” Nat yelled, flying across the lobby, her gun drawn and at her side. “Video’s grainy, but it’s rolling and Winter is definitely in the lab with Isa…and it doesn’t look like he’s empty-handed.”
Roman’s heart stopped in his chest, the abrupt sensation buckling his knees. He couldn’t be too late.
He needed to make things right.
He needed to keep her safe.
He needed to make her his.
Chapter
Twenty-Six
Tony’s hand shook as his fingers clenched around the syringe.
“Tony.” Isa kept her voice low and calm. “You really don’t want to do this, do you?”
“I don’t, kiddo. I really, really don’t.” His voice cracked. Sweat dotted his forehead and dripped down his face. “I’m so close to making the GHO stand up and take notice. I’ll finally have their attention and their—”
“Money?” Isa finished. “That’s what this is about, right? Your bank account?”
“No.” He shook his head adamantly. “Not my money. Funding for the field. For research programs like yours all over the world that are struggling to understand these horrific viruses with practically no money.”
“You’re doing this for funding? Tony! If you want a damn grant, you put in the paperwork and—”
“And it sits on a fucking desk until one of those paper pushers deems it a worthwhile cause!” Tony screamed. He stepped forward again, his gait slightly unsteady. “You were never supposed to get this close to figuring out FC-5 until after I shook them up…until after they finally started taking me seriously.”
Isa took a small step back, but Tony took two forward. He stumbled before righting himself, his fingers clutching the syringe even tighter.
“You don’t look very good, Tony,” Isa said truthfully, hearing him wheeze even from their four-foot distance. “Why don’t we sit down so I can take a listen to your lungs? Or I could take you to the nearest emergency room. I think you need a chest X-ray and maybe a—”
“That’s not necessary.”
“It is.” His usual tan complexion looked more pallid by the second. “I’m sorry I ruined your plans, but you don’t need to resort to drastic measures. You saw yourself, FC-5 is still a killer. What I found isn’t a long-term solution. It’s a Band-Aid on an artery bleed.”
“But it’s enough. It’s enough of a leap that the GHO will shift their notice right over it. It’s enough that they once again won’t see the threat looming right over all of our heads.”
The blinking light of the Legion elevator caught Isa’s attention, and when it opened, four figures stepped out, all crouching low and immediately fanning out. Isa immediately recognized King, and Nat from the DCPD. Maddy crab-walked toward the back room, where they stored extra gear.
And Roman was the fourth.
His gaze caught hers from the distance, and he held a single finger to his lips before motioning for her to keep Tony talking.
“You can help me, Tony.” Isa drew his attention back toward her. “You and I can work together in fine-tuning this treatment plan. We can help the people of Beaver Ridge, and the GHO will see that. They’ll see what kind of good we can do when we have the right tools.”
He scoffed. “It won’t work, kiddo. They don’t communicate in successes. Threats and decay and death are the only ways to get—and keep—their attention.” The hand holding the filled syringe lifted, and Isabel’s heart lurched into her throat.
“DCPD! Drop your weapon! Now!” Nat shouted from the clean room, her gun aimed directly at the glass…and Tony.
Tony spun around and, seeing the three forms advancing, quickly hauled Isa in front of him.
“Don’t move!” He held the needle three inches away from her neck. “Don’t you fucking dare move!”
Roman froze, his gun aimed, and King and Nat followed suit. “This won’t end well for you if you keep on this route, man.”
“Things are already not ending well…for me or for anyone.”
Tony’s chest rattled. Isa was able to feel the vibrations at her back.
“Anthony, please.” Isa’s voice wavered. “Please don’t do this.”
Something dripped onto her arm.
Blood. It rolled off the back of Tony’s hand and onto her suit, and just as she registered its presence, another trickle slid down the side of her mask from where his cheek pushed against her hood.
His words of warning and all his physical symptoms set off every internal warning bell she possessed.
“You’re sick,” Isa whispered, more for her own ears than anyone else’s.
Tony wheezed into her ear. “It took you long enough to figure it out.”
She didn’t need to ask him to confirm her suspicion. He wasn’t sick from the flu or a case of pneumonia. Fever. Loss of equilibrium. Pallor. And large-scale capillary hemorrhaging.
“How did you become infected with FC-5?” Isa’s heart broke as she spoke the words. Based on the severity of his symptoms, she’d guess him to be near the final stages of the illness.
“Does it matter? It’s done.”
The finality of his words sent a shiver through Isa as she locked gazes with Roman through the thick glass and wished with everything she had that she’d had the c
hance to tell him how much she loved him.
* * *
Roman knew that look, and he’d be damned if he’d let Isabel say goodbye to him through a fucking double-paned window. “Maddy?”
Isa’s friend stuck her hooded head out from the back room. “Yeah?”
“Let me into the lab.”
“You’re in the—”
“No, the lab. Right now.”
Her eyes widened. “You can’t go in there without a—”
He shot her a hard look. “Do you see what that bastard has in his hand right now? Do you know what’ll happen to Isabel if he decides to use it? Get me in that lab now.”
Maddy cursed under her breath, but she slipped out from the back room. “She’s going to kill us both for this, just so you know, but since she can only do us in one at a time, I’m shoving you toward her first.”
“Noted. King? Distract him for me.”
Ethan glanced into the lab and back. “Maybe you should hold on a second, man.”
“I’ve already waited too damn long. I’m not waiting a damn second more,” Roman growled. “Maddy? Get me inside.”
He followed her along the perimeter of the room, and so far, King and Nat did a good job keeping Winter’s wavering attention on them.
“You sure about this?” Maddy asked, stopping in front of a door much like the one around front, her badge hovering over the security scanner.
“More than anything.” And Roman meant it. He’d risk this and a hell of a lot more to keep Isa safe.
With a nod, she swiped her badge and entered her code. The door slid open with a hum, and it was when he eyed the white lockers and fresh clothes that he realized she’d taken him through the back.
She tipped her head to the door on the far end. “You’ll be entering the lab how we normally exit. That door leads to decon, and the door on the far side of decon takes you directly into the lab. It’s air-sealed, so when you hit the button, it’s going to make noise.”
And Tony will realize that he and Isa are no longer alone. “Thanks.”
She nodded, already looking regretful. “Just bring my friend out safely. And yourself, too.”
Roman had every intention in doing both. With every door he opened, he heard Tony and Isa’s voices more clearly. She’d never stopped trying to talk him down.
He took a deep breath at the last door, his gun clenched tightly in his hand as he visualized the layout of the lab inside…and pushed the last button. The door hissed open.
Tony spun both him and Isa around, the needle still hovering over her neck. “Don’t you dare move!”
Isa’s wide, panicked eyes found Roman’s. “No. No, Roman go back. Don’t come in here.”
He took a small step forward. “That’s not happening, Doc.”
“Please.” Tears slipped down her cheeks from behind her hood. “Roman, he’s sick. He’s infected. Please go back.”
Isabel was trying to protect them. To protect him. But he wasn’t sitting back and doing nothing. One wrong move. One twitch. One startle and that syringe Winter held could would slide right through her plastic hood and into her delicate flesh.
Six steps. Four. At three steps away, voices echoed through the clean room and two more uniformed DCPD cops barged into the clean room side of the Legion.
Winter’s attention snapped back and forth before finally falling and staying on Roman. “I said don’t fucking move!”
“Do you not see that it’s over?” Roman gestured to the room of waiting cops. “Come on, man, know when to quit. You’ve made your point. Bureaucracy sucks. All you’re doing at this point is making things worse for yourself…and for Isabel.”
Tony blinked at the mention of Isa.
“I know you care about her, Tony. Or at least I thought you did.”
“I could say the same about you, and yet I’ve done nothing all morning but listen to how you took her feelings and trampled the shit out of them. Guess we’re both good at hurting the people we care about.”
Roman forced himself not to react at the rough jab. “I plan to make it up to her the second I can hold her in my arms again.”
Tony wavered…ever so slightly. Movement from outside the window snagged his attention, falling on one of Nat’s men, and in a snap, he was back on alert, the syringe raised. “I have a job to do here, just like everyone else…and I can’t let my affections get in the way.”
Tony raised the syringe, his grip tightening on Isabel. Roman didn’t hesitate. A mere inch from the point the needle would’ve breached her suit, he fired. The noise of the gunshot ricocheted through the lab like a roar. Tony’s grip on Isabel relaxed and he spun, crashing into the counter from the momentum.
Red blossomed on his shirt, just below his shoulder, but the bastard still held on to that damn syringe. Roman rushed him, and they collided in a tangle of arms and legs. For a sick man, Tony sure as hell put up a fight. They exchanged blow after blow until Roman finally captured his syringe hand and slammed it onto the ground once, twice, and finally a third time before the older man released it. With a final move, Roman swiped an elbow straight across Tony’s nose, and Tony Winter finally lay there unconscious.
A half dozen people rushed forward, some to help Isa, one to check on Tony.
“No one come any closer!” Isa’s scream brought them all to a standstill.
Blood poured out from Tony’s gunshot wound despite Roman’s effort to miss hitting anything vital. Isa dropped to his side. Her suit hindered her efforts to stanch the bleeding, and she cursed.
“Roman.” She nodded to his knuckles and the front of his shirt. Both coated with a slicky wet substance. Her brown eyes met his, and even though she tried to suppress it, he saw the panic. “You need to get yourself into quarantine.”
“I’m not going anywhere without you.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll be there soon enough, too.” She reached around the back of her hood and tugged it off.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Roman rushed forward, stopping a split second before touching her when he remembered the blood on his hands. “Isabel. No.”
She ripped off her gloves. “I’m a doctor, Roman. I can’t…” She swallowed her words and took a breath before meeting his eyes. “I can’t let anything happen to him. I can’t not try. Just…maintain your distance.”
Just in case he hadn’t already been exposed. Roman hands were specked with trails of blood that could’ve been his own—or from the sick man on the ground.
Chapter
Twenty-Seven
Roman couldn’t sleep. Sterile and way too quiet, the solitary confinement at Tru Tech was worse than any hospital he’d ever been in or visited. And he’d been in a lot of them between his own surgeries and rehab, and then adding in visits to service buddies.
After he and Isabel had been deconned and placed in side-by-side observation rooms, he’d thought they’d have time to talk, but that hadn’t been the case. Isabel had spent most of her time talking Maddy through the next steps of their FC-5 research, and when she wasn’t doing that, she was coordinating their own quarantine.
He was starting to think she was avoiding him.
It had to be somewhere close to midnight or after, and he couldn’t help sneaking a peek at the shared window separating their rooms and wondering if she was awake, too. Now they were in a waiting game. Any minute, they’d get news of their latest batch of blood samples, the ones that would either clear them of FC-5 exposure or officially hurtle them into the next countdown.
He really fucking hated waiting.
He sat up, scrubbing his palms over his face, and caught movement from the other side of the blinds. Isa paced back and forth, obviously as restless as him. He pushed the intercom button that allowed them to talk freely through the glass.
“Keep pacing like that and you’ll wear a hole in the floor, Doc.”
Isa’s blind flew open and suddenly she was right in front of him. He needed to be closer, so he half-walked, half-li
mped over to the window.
“You’re limping.” Her graze dropped to his leg. “No one told me you hurt your leg.”
“Because I didn’t hurt it. It’s just the prosthetic. Guess I’ll be writing my friend and complaining to him that it didn’t hold up to the test of taking down a biological terrorist.”
She frowned. “Was that supposed to be funny?”
“Not really, no.” For the first time in an hour, Roman got a good look at her.
Wearing the lab’s pale blue linen PJs, she looked healthy and fit and like a force to be reckoned with…and he couldn’t help but worry that her vitality was about to be taken away. He’d nearly had a damn heart attack when she’d ripped off her protective gear, but in true Isabel Santiago form, she hadn’t thought twice about helping her old friend despite everything he’d done and everything he’d hoped to do.
Thinking about what could be in their future, Roman’s stomach churned.
He’d fucked up before because he didn’t make the right decision, so he fought like hell to find the right words now. Or at least ones that didn’t entirely suck.
“You mean a lot to me, Doc.” He inhaled, hearing the quiver in his own breath.
“Roman, you don’t have to—”
“Yeah, actually, I do, and I know I don’t deserve a second chance here, but I’d really appreciate it if you’d zip those beautiful lips of yours and let me say what I need to say.”
She pantomimed zipping her mouth and gestured for him to continue, making him chuckle.
“I was an ass the other night at Iron Bars, and I have no other reason for what I said than I was a fucking idiot, and you were once again very much right. I do deserve to be happy…and I know without a doubt that you do it for me. Until you came into my life, I hadn’t realized how much I’d just been existing. When you came into my life, I realized just how much I was really missing.”
Roman swallowed a forming lump of emotions, the knot reforming when tears floated in Isabel’s eyes. The sight of them gutted him, making him wish he could reach through the glass and wipe them away.