Mayhem's Desire: Operation Mayhem

by Lindsay Cross

Hicks turned his head to see Reaper still clutching Caroline, tears streaming down his harsh cheeks. “What happened?” he asked her, his voice rough. “You were fine and then you just, you just weren’t.”

  Melissa put a cuff around Caroline’s arm and checked her blood pressure and listened to her pulse. Caroline smiled faintly and said in a very soft voice, “I don’t know, I don’t remember anything. But I’m guessing from how you all look that it was pretty bad.”

  Hicks felt his strength return. Diggs moaned and cradled his head while King had managed to get on all fours.

  “You guys okay?” he said.

  “What the fuck was that?” Juarez panted.

  Diggs moaned and rolled onto his side. “I don’t know, but I think my ears are bleeding.”

  Melissa finished checking Caroline and sat back on her haunches, looking strangely out of place in her pajamas. “Caroline, I need to run some tests on you. I’d like to keep you down here overnight. Reaper can help you into the room in the back.”

  Caroline had been receiving the same injections as Hicks and his team. After being held against her will by General Rainier and used as part of the experiment, she’d been subjected to a punishing round of injections and withdrawals. It was a miracle she was still alive.

  “I’m not leaving her down here,” Reaper said.

  “I don’t expect you to leave her.” Melissa got to her feet. “I know you’ll monitor her better than any of my equipment can. Why don’t you go get her settled so I can check the rest of your team? I’ll come in and check you when I’m done.”

  Even though Hicks knew how difficult it must be for Reaper to move, somehow his team leader managed to stand and gather Caroline in his arms. He moved slowly through the back of the lab and into the room they’d set up with a hospital bed and monitors.

  Whitney stroked his face again and he turned his attention back to her. “Do you think you had a seizure or something? Melissa, come check on Hicks. He’s all pale and sweaty, and his pupils are dilated.”

  Melissa knelt at his side, her stethoscope warm against his chest. She checked him over, pursing her lips. He could see the wheels turning in her mind. She wasn’t sure what had happened either. “I don’t know how it got turned on, but I intend to figure it out. That recorder holds all the audio from the night –” she stumbled over the words – “the night your team was forced to commit murder.”

  Hicks closed his eyes and focused on the blood pulsing through his muscles, willing all of the fatigued tissue to heal. After a few seconds, he was able to prop himself up on his elbows. “It was Rainier.”

  Melissa and Whitney both froze. Whitney said, “Impossible.”

  Hicks shook his head, fighting through the pulsing and buzzing that was slowly subsiding. “What other explanation is there?”

  Melissa reeled back in shock. “He can’t. This place is clean. We left no ties to the outside. None.”

  “There is now,” Hicks said quietly and squeezed Whitney’s hand. “He could have found us through her somehow. I went out in public. He has spies everywhere. What if that device has some kind of remote trigger? He wouldn’t even have to pin point our location to activate it.”

  They were vulnerable. Much more so than he’d thought before.

  “Hicks, if that’s true, there isn’t anywhere you or your team can escape. Not until we figure out how to change you back to normal,” Melissa said.

  Altered. It was a bitter reminder of what they were now. Not human, not soldiers. They were altered. He’d never be normal again. He could never give Whitney a normal life. She deserved so much more than he could give her. All he could offer was a hidden life secluded from the rest of the world, one where they both would have to be constantly on the lookout for some type of brain fritz or seizure. Worse, what if he was forced to hurt Whitney?

  “After all of this is over, we need to find you somewhere safe,” he said to her softly. “You can’t stay here for much longer. Not until we know more about our condition and how Rainier is controlling us.” Those were some of the hardest words he’d ever spoken, but by God he’d rather live without her than put her in danger.

  “Like hell I will, I’m not leaving you.” Some of the fire had returned to her eyes and Whitney crossed her arms and glared. “You think I’m scared of a little science experiment? Do you know who I grew up with?”

  “I don’t care if you grew up with Einstein, you don’t know what we’re capable of. Hell, we don’t know what we’re capable of. It’s too much of a risk,” Hicks said. Didn’t she see what had just happened? The lot of them had nearly all stroked out.

  Whitney shook her head, scooting closer to him. “I don’t care if I have to handcuff myself to you, I’m not leaving and you can’t make me.”

  The thought of Whitney with a pair of handcuffs gave him a small and unexpected choke of amusement and arousal. “So, you’ve got handcuffs too?”

  Her deep blue eyes softened and her sexy lips curled into a faint smile, smoldering enough to singe the edges of his soul. “Reinforced steel.”

  “I don’t want to know.” Melissa rolled her eyes and padded across the room, unlocking the small refrigerator where she safeguarded the serum they needed to survive. She returned a moment later, knelt beside Hicks’s arm and then gave him the injection he needed.

  He felt his body and mind healing within seconds, the strength that surged through him so powerful he shook. Hicks got to his feet and pulled Whitney to hers.

  “Is that the stuff that makes you really strong?”

  “So, your sister told you about us?” Hicks countered pensively.

  Whitney nodded her head yes. “And I think it’s kind of cool, not weird. So don’t start thinking you need to tell me to leave for my own good.”

  A blast of protectiveness careened through him. “Woman, if it means keeping you alive, I’ll lock you up as far from me as possible.”

  “I’d like to see you try.” She closed the gap between them, her full breasts pressed against his chest. Desire fanned the heat inside him and it was all he could do not to throw her over his shoulder and haul her up to his bed.

  “Ouch,” Diggs said.

  Melissa had just plunged a fresh needle into his arm, injecting him as well. “You’ve had hundreds of these. Stop whining.”

  She withdrew it, and Diggs covered his arm, practically pouting. “I’ll be ready for the day when we don’t have to get these anymore.”

  King had somehow managed to climb up onto a nearby chair, the only team member besides Reaper to have gotten to his feet after the…incident without the help of an injection. “If you don’t shut up, I’ll be the one to give you your next dose, and you won’t like the way I do it.”

  Melissa tended to Juarez and King next. They’d be back at a hundred percent soon. Most of them would, anyway. Why didn’t the serum help Quantum like it did everyone else? And Caroline? She was steadily going downhill.

  Hicks met King’s impossibly black gaze and they shared a current of understanding. Every man in here was wondering the same thing. Was it only a matter of time before they all regressed into helpless vegetables?

  A deep red light blinked on and off overhead and Hicks’s heart stopped. “They’re here.”

  The red light was the alarm for the outer perimeter. Someone had managed to breach the perimeter wall.

  “They, who?” King said quietly.

  “Is this because of Whitney?” Melissa said sharply.

  “I’ll fill you in on the full story later. What you need to know now is that a very powerful man is sending professional hit teams after Whitney. He’s the one who sent the assassins from this morning, and it looks like another crew tracked her here.”

  By now Diggs, Juarez and King were all standing. The effects of the serum were fast and blunt— although it hadn’t fully kicked in yet, they’d be able to operate effectively as a team. “Whitney, I need you to stay here and help your sister.”

  She shook her head. “No,
you’re not going out there. Didn’t you see what those men were like in the garage?”

  A surge of amusement shook through Hicks. If he hadn’t had to worry about Whitney’s safety last time, he could’ve taken out that entire three-man team in half the time. Without even breaking a sweat. “Baby, it’s not me you have to worry about.”

  Diggs cracked his knuckles and a look of excitement lifted his features. “About time we got some action.” All of them were feeling the drag of their daily routine.

  “No,” Melissa interjected, “it’s not safe. You’re not ready. We don’t know what just happened. What if it happens again while you’re under attack?”

  “This is the perfect opportunity for us to test the waters,” Hicks said. “We’re in our own controlled environment, we know the lay of this compound better than any GPS could track it and we can see them coming.”

  A cold, hard rage was forming in Hicks’s chest and he embraced it. These men were coming to kill his woman, but they’d walked into their own deaths. He didn’t care what he had to do, he’d crush them, one by one, until any remaining threat to her was demolished.

  “Let’s get to the war room. We can gear up and track them on the monitors.” King crossed to the door, and Diggs and Juarez followed. They lingered there, waiting for him. Melissa had that disapproving look, like a mother hen hovering about her flock.

  Hicks pressed a soft kiss to Whitney’s lips. “Promise me you’ll stay here. I’ll be able to work better if I know you’re safe and out of harm’s way.”

  “Okay, but please be careful. I…I can’t stand the thought of you getting hurt.”

  “Like I said, it’s not me you have to worry about.” Hicks released her, forcing his mind to focus on the oncoming battle.

  Melissa finally uncrossed her arms and blew a piece of dark hair, nearly the same shade as Whitney’s, out of her face. “Fine, if you guys are determined to go through with this, I need to give you something else.” She made her way to another cabinet and extracted what looked like an oversized silver barrel with a trigger at the back. On the opposite end was a clear tool with what looked like a tiny silver dial inside. “I’ve been developing these biological trackers. They’ll help me determine exactly what’s going on inside your body in the heat of battle. If something bad happens, I’ll be able to time it down to the very last nanosecond and determine what triggered that event.”

  She approached Hicks with the gun, and despite everything Melissa had done to help them and save their lives, he couldn’t help but be wary. Whitney stepped in front of him, blocking her sister from his path. “He doesn’t want it.”

  Melissa pulled up short, looking at her sister in shock. “He may not want it, but he needs it. Each and every one of them do.”

  Whitney glanced back at him, asking him without words what he thought. And he thought she was the sexiest creature alive. “Damn, I like it when you get all protective.”

  She rewarded him with a saucy grin. “You haven’t seen anything yet.”

  “Would you two get a room already? Listen, there’s no time to argue, would you just trust me?” Melissa said.

  Of all the people in his world, Dr. Averton was the only one who had never given him a reason to distrust her. Hicks extended an arm. “Fine, do it in a hurry.”

  Melissa grabbed his wrist, pressed the cold barrel against his flesh and squeezed the trigger. There was a brief flash of pain and then nothing. There wasn’t even an injection mark.

  “I need to inject each of you. You each react differently.” Melissa moved closer to the door and the men who were still standing there. Without question, they each extended an arm. When they were done, King pulled open the door and said, “You ready?”

  Hicks gave Whitney a squeeze and joined his team. “More than you know.”

  17

  They arranged the furniture on the first floor so that it would direct traffic to the staircase and up to the top flight of stairs. Reaper had opted to stay behind with Caroline. If the intruder’s breached the interior of the house, the design would help funnel them up to the third floor, the least used space in the entire mansion, where the team had already set up traps for any person brave enough to attempt a breach from the ceiling.

  The third floor was where they’d stowed old furniture from the previous inhabitants. Dust covered the walls and the picture frames. Sheets were thrown over various items, protecting them from the dirt particles in the air. Hicks and his team had chosen a large, cluttered room down the center of the hallway on the west wing to make their stand. With the camouflage of so many sheet-swathed pieces of furniture and boxes, it would be simple and fast for them to ambush the intruders.

  Their goal: to kill all but one of the men. The final one standing would be saved for interrogation.

  Juarez had remained downstairs near the front door, hidden in the darkness. Out of the entire team, he was the stealthiest and they needed someone to ensure the attackers followed the path they’d set up for them.

  “They’re in the library,” Juarez’s whisper-soft voice came through the hidden earpieces they all wore.

  Since they were after his woman, Hicks was running the operation. “Good, stay back and out of sight.”

  “Scared I’ll take all the action?” Juarez replied and then fell silent. The intruders were getting closer; Hicks could feel it.

  He scooted back another inch on the floor. He was tucked in behind a tiny sitting couch covered with an old white sheet. They’d killed the power to all three aboveground stories and blacked out the windows so they were in total darkness. While Hicks and his team would see easily in the dark, the intruders would be blind.

  Diggs was nearby, hidden next to an antique dresser. King was across the large expanse of what had to be an old ballroom. They would pull a classic flank maneuver, choking the men off from both sides. Hicks clutched his knife in his hand. He’d use his gun if he had to, but the bloodlust inside him needed an outlet. He preferred hand-to-hand combat. With his enhanced strength, any man stupid enough to get within touching distance was as good as dead.

  Juarez’s voice came through his earpiece. “Six-man team. Moving up past the second story now.”

  Hicks tensed in anticipation. “Everyone ready for a little fight?”

  “Remind me to thank your woman,” Diggs said. “I’ve been itching to get out and do something. She brought them to us.”

  King remained silent, as was his way. He was even less talkative than he’d been before the experiment, and that was saying something, but he was the team’s anchor. The fallback guy. Anytime one of them got into a tight bind, King was there to pry them loose. Formidable before, he was nearly invincible now.

  Hicks sensed the moment the intruders arrived on the third floor. He closed his eyes and forced his other senses outward, listening to their nearly silent footfalls on the thick carpet as they moved from room to room. They were moving in classic formation—two-man teams breaching and clearing one room at a time. Six men altogether.

  As he’d expected, they were well trained. Just not as well trained as his team.

  No one spoke when the first team entered the room and split, one moving left and the other moving right. They were all equipped with night-vision goggles, which would help them some, but their vision would still be limited in comparison with Hicks’s team.

  Hicks was closest to the door, so he would make the first move. He waited until the second team entered, not wanting to risk the possibility of any of them escaping. The final two would hang back outside the door, as they’d been doing all along.

  They were obviously killers here to murder Whitney. A cold rage settled into his bones. These men would never see the light of day again.

  Hicks rose up behind the closest intruder, placing his knife at the man’s throat and yanking. The man’s blood hit the floor just before Hicks eased his body, now lifeless, to the ground.

  Diggs moved next, rising twice as fast as a normal man. He snapped the
neck of the intruder nearest to him. By the time Hicks turned to King, he was lowering a third body to the floor.

  The fourth man held his gun high and slowly swept the room near the farthest wall, completely unaware that half his team had just been taken out. King and Diggs melted back into the furniture, disappearing from sight.

  Hicks dropped to his stomach and began silently making his way across the room. When he honed his hearing, he could make out the intruder’s erratic heartbeat in his chest. The man sensed the danger but hadn’t yet figured out he was next. That he’d signed his death warrant the moment he’d agreed to take out Whitney.

  Hicks bared his teeth and sheathed his knife. He rose up like an apparition and the intruder spun to face him. Hicks grabbed the man’s gun and ripped it from his grip, tossing it across the room. King caught it in midair and tucked it into his belt before ducking back down.

  The intruder drew in a sharp breath, ready to shout out a warning. A warning that was choked off when Hicks wrapped his hands around the man’s neck. Barely winded, Hicks lifted him from the ground by his throat, enjoying the way he flailed like a dying fish out of water.

  The intruder’s foot glanced off Hicks’s knee, but he barely felt the blow. He was too busy enjoying the way the man squirmed as his grip tightened. Snap. The intruder stopped moving and Hicks eased him to the floor, careful not to alert the remaining two men.

  Juarez moved in and took out one of the remaining two guards before Hicks reached the doorway. The sixth man, the only one left alive, dropped his weapon and took off running. Hicks leapt forward, wound up like a hungry animal, grabbed the man by the back of his shirt and flung him backward. The assassin hit the ground hard and rolled. Juarez was already there and waiting, his gun pressed to the man’s temple. “I wouldn’t go for that knife if I were you.”

  “What do you want?”

  Hicks ate up the distance between them in seconds. Careful not to break this one’s neck, he grabbed him by the throat and lifted him in the air, giving him a taste of panic. “Who sent you?”

  “No one,” the man choked out, clawing uselessly at Hicks’s hand, looking around at the rest of the men surrounding him.