by KH LeMoyne
“And?”
Taylor closed his eyes. “There was a number I called. It’s on my cell. Told me when, where. I updated after each phase. When you got in the way, I updated. A message came. The package arrived with the last instruction an hour after.”
“What message did you send after the shooting failed?” Jason took his time walking back to the crate, bringing the case back with him this time.
Taylor tensed, his eyes fixed on Jason’s hands, preparing for another onslaught. “That the attempt to kill Dr. Briet Hyden had failed outside the hotel building, when she was with Jason Ballard.”
Jason narrowed his eyes. “The exact message?”
Taylor nodded once and Jason took a deep breath, not bothering to look at Briet’s clan. Grimm had been right. The update had finalized Briet as mated, though Salvatore hadn’t really needed a confirmation. The injection had been intended to kill her, their child, and shoot a finger in the face of the other Guardians.
“Your home base?” Jason asked as he put down the syringe.
From the easing of tension on his face, Taylor figured he was home free. His chin rose, confident Jason wouldn’t kill him. “There’s no—”
Jason’s fist planted into the side of the man’s mouth. He retrieved the third syringe as Taylor crab-walked backwards with his feet, his shoulders sliding along the concrete, his breath a rasp. “Denver.”
“I want it all.”
“A website—on the phone—Denver.”
Jason nodded to Frank to check Taylor for the phone.
“Antidote.” The insistence in the man’s voice made Jason want to gag.
He leaned in, his face close enough to Taylor that the man could smell what he had for breakfast. “After you tell me where he recruited you.”
A glimmer of fear flickered in the man’s eyes, a jump of muscle at his temple. “Fuck you.”
Jason slipped the syringe back into the case and snapped it closed. Without a backward glance to Taylor, he motioned to Ansgar. “He’s yours. Take him.”
With forced concentration, he kept his focus on Frank skimming through the contents of the phone. He listened to the struggle behind him and waited.
“Callao,” Taylor squeaked out the word.
Frank’s brows shot skyward as his gaze flickered to Jason. “Peru.” Without another word, he started messaging on his phone.
“Ballard,” Taylor shouted and swore behind him. Jason waited on the infinitesimal nod of Frank’s head before he spun on his heel and fisted a clump of Taylor’s hair, lifting the man’s head uncomfortably off the ground.
“The burn and pain will wear off in about six hours. With any luck, you’ll stop peeing blood in a few days. If you ever return—you’re dead.”
Taylor tried to lunge, but the thick fingers around his neck and upper arm held him still, if not compliant. Ansgar wasn’t about to let him loose. He didn’t bother to wait for Jason’s approval. He pressed the man’s carotid artery, letting Taylor’s unconscious body drop into a heap at his feet.
Kamau elbowed in before Ansgar could act and bent down. Lifting Taylor, he tossed the man over his shoulder like a bag of grain. “Let me save your soul on this one brother.” He walked off into the shadows.
“Good call.” Frank glanced between Jason and the other Guardians. “We have a lock on a warehouse on the outskirts of Callao. Signals track from further in the mountains to the facility. You should come work for my group, Jason.”
“Thanks for the offer.” He retrieved Taylor’s knife from the floor and rolled the handle in his hand. Too easily, he could imagine slicing that blade across the man’s neck. Guilt and restraint, not even vying for top ten in his emotions. He could never do his brother’s job, the toll to his soul too great, and the risk to his conscience too permanent. Though he didn’t judge Frank for his choices. Hell, he wouldn’t be here without him. “I’ve got a team, for now.”
“I have a good place in Peru to leave that weapon,” Tsu said, holding out his hand with a quick look to Frank. “Time frame?”
“Chopper will be here in fifteen.”
“I’ll wait outside.” Tsu and the rest disappeared toward the far end of the warehouse and the exit.
Jason and Frank walked a little slower, creating some distance and buying them some privacy.
“I’m surprised you didn’t kill the bastard,” said Frank. “So, what’s still bothering you?”
Yeah, and Frank wouldn’t have batted an eye. Although none of the Guardians had made a move to stop him either. “I wanted to kill the bastard. Couldn’t risk going over the edge.”
“You’re kidding, right?” Frank stuffed Taylor’s phone into one of his many vest pockets. He glared at Jason, his mouth tight, brows pulled down in the middle, his eyes fixed and unblinking.
Jason hadn’t seen that expression on his brother since his father had last lost control, right before Frank had left for good.
“Tell me you don’t think you’re like that asshole father of yours?”
“Violence, rage—no difference.” Jason shrugged. He could deal with his demons. At least he’d put his heritage to good use. “Your point?”
Frank walked right up to him and blasted his palms into Jason’s shoulders, hard, sending him staggering backwards several feet.
“Your father would have used the attack on the good doctor. He would have kept the wound open and raw, tormented her, played on her fears, and broken her until she was insecure and terrified. Your father would have enjoyed her pain and suffering.” He swung an arm out pointing to the scene of Jason’s confrontation. “He wouldn’t have tracked the man down. He wouldn’t have kept his calm to get information he needed. He wouldn’t have given a rat’s ass about anyone else’s welfare. That disgusting excuse for a human being was all about pain and abuse, control and power. A true sadist.”
Jason was so close. He desperately wanted to believe him. Yet the intensity of what he’d wanted to do to Taylor still gripped him. “I would’ve enjoyed beating Taylor to death.”
“Yes,” Frank shouted. “Because he viciously hurt someone you love. You’re a decent guy, Jason. You want to protect people. Seeing them suffer makes you angry. Go figure!”
He stood shaken and off balance by Frank’s anger. He wanted to claw at the crack in the door that led to a surety that he wasn’t like his father, a place where he wasn’t capable of becoming that man—ever. He wanted to wrench the door open, tear it off the hinges, and never let it close him on the darker side again. The temptation was so strong, but he felt like a kid again, small, scared, powerless. Moisture dampened his eyes with tears.
Frank clamped his big hands on either side of Jason’s head, and stared right into his eyes. “Let it the fuck go,” he whispered. “Let the bastard die. Go home. Love your wife. Live happily ever after and you win.”
CHAPTER 30
“Don’t you consider three tests for the destructive frequency to be sufficient?” asked Grimm, his fingers tapping a slow rhythm on the tabletop.
Briet gave him a quick glance. The slight upturn of his mouth indicated more humor in his question than annoyance.
“One more should do it. Can you give me isolation around the last sample?” Briet adjusted the numerical value of her last reading on the pad by her hand and keyed a final sequence of values. The first value would emit an electrical frequency to activate the nanite in the DNA splice. The second value would resonate a frequency of opposite value, thereby short-circuiting the first command. A final sequence would initiate a sound wave to break down the nanite, returning it to inert, nonfunctional, and eventually disposable waste.
At Grimm’s input, several thick circular columns of energy descended from the ceiling to surround the sample. Layers of energy, light, and vacuum shielded the experiment from releasing the nanites or toxins into the lab environment or the Sanctum.
“One more minute.”
“You’ve been working on this for three days. What’s one more minute?” sai
d Grimm.
Briet ignored him and activated the sequence. As the pad signaled a yellow light, she spoke. “Mary had a little lamb, whose fleece was white as snow.”
Briet started with a low, even tone and gradually escalated to a shout. The third part of the sequence had taken the most work, finding a mechanism to destroy the nanites without imbedding an active chip in the victim’s body. She’d finally settled on sound. Or the magnification of localized sound, amplifying the ambient voices and noise outside the body to bombard the nanites and break them up like kidney stones. The correct level of resonance had taken some work. With Grimm’s help, she’d been able to determine a non-harmful level with repeated success.
When the pad flashed green, she gave Grimm a nod. The shields receded and she floated the slide to the second lighted strip on the table for a look. Deep focus confirmed the dissolution of the nanite. She glanced back at Grimm, her eyebrows raised and a smile on her face. She wanted to dance a jig, but she would wait until Jason got back for that.
“Finally.” He pressed another sequence on the keypad. Light flickered beneath the sample, mutating from an ambient yellow, to gold, to red. Fried to dust in less than a second, a cylinder descended, vacuumed the residue, and spritzed the table with disinfectant.
“We did it. Well, not all of it, but we’ve got the initial sequence categorized.”
“When Jason returns, you can compose a viable medium to contain the sequence of commands and work on a delivery plan for all the patients.”
Briet closed her eyes and tilted her head back for a second, absorbing the progress achieved, and tempering the magnitude of work left to finish. Then she looked at him. “We need your help with a medium the body won’t reject. One easy to administer.”
“Great, give me the hard part.” He laughed and leaned forward across the tabletop. “What of you and Jason?”
She crossed her arms over her chest and bit the inside of her cheek. “He’s bringing back samples from the other trials. We’ll need to run a set of corroborating tests for each one.”
He closed the pad, rotated it back into the table, and crossed his hands. “Might take a little while.”
“Roughly a dozen trials. At least a dozen runs on each test. Maybe another two, three days.”
“Then what?”
“We organize everyone to deliver what we have to the kids.” She pursed her lips. “Actually, we will probably deliver to the other trials first. The kids last. That way we aren’t under the radar in case they’re being monitored because of me.”
“Then?”
She frowned at him.
“Have you considered what you and Jason will do next?”
Jason had said he wouldn’t leave her and she believed him. She glanced at her ring. None of their talks had revolved around anything other than the problem at hand. “We haven’t discussed it.” She paused and then added, “Yet.”
“I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.” Grimm tilted his head but kept his gaze fixed on her. “You’ve changed a great deal in the last few months. Not physically.” He smiled. “It’s this effort and the way you work with Jason.”
“I’ve worked with you, and shared my ideas with Ansgar.”
“After the fact. You spent a lot of time in your head, always very independent, isolated. You probably didn’t even realize you worked that way. With Jason—you both interact. You’ve broadened your view to include more tangential ideas. You share concept and process with him, understanding.”
“You sound jealous.” Though jealously wasn’t really a quality Grimm had ever embraced, not in two hundred years. She doubted he was starting now. That left a mentor intervention.
“No.” He shrugged. “Well, maybe, but not the way that sounds. It would be nice to have symbiosis with someone. I imagine Jason’s changed as well.”
“He treats me the same way he always has.” Given the limited number of months she’d known him. He’d been remarkably consistent, something she had come to count on.
“Then you trusted him from the beginning?”
She laughed and considered the lengths Jason had gone to in drawing her out. “I fought it.”
“Yet, the two of you have designed this solution.” He glanced away and back. “So, why won’t you trust him enough to share your desires with him?”
She stared at him, stunned. “I don’t know what you mean. Jason and I talk to each other all the time.”
“You both compromised very well in the council meeting. I think it would work even better if you both addressed deeper issues, the ones that concern you long term.” He gave a wicked smile. “Instead of conspiring on how you can circumvent my requests as your doctor.”
“This is all because you’re annoyed I started working before you gave me clearance.”
“No. But, first, I want to commend your foresight in asking me to be here while he’s gone. It’s a new step for you, being more cautious. As a considerate mate, and someday mother, it’s a valuable trait to develop.” His intense gaze met hers and she turned quickly back around. Not before, she caught the frown on his features. “Second, I had to hunt both of you down the day after the council meeting. I had good reasons to consider you not ready to jump back into work. You chose avoidance. I’m not so pleased on that score.”
She winced at the disappointment in his expression. “I agreed to limit my time here.”
“After I found you. After I insisted.” He waved his hand. “Look, I’m not the issue here. I’m only asking you not to discount what I’m saying. You two seem to work very well together, understand each other. It’s not worth anything if you can’t embrace the courage to fail with each other as well.”
What was he talking about? “I don’t want him to fail.”
Grimm shook his head. “I’m not saying he will or that you will, either. Neither of you is made of eggshells. I’m certain neither of you has felt comfortable addressing the future. I’m telling you this as your friend, Briet. Throw it out there. Be honest about what you both want. What’s the worst that can happen?”
“He’ll say no.” She snapped the response without thinking, and for the first time she recognized it for what it was. Fear. She’d prided herself in logic and hope, yet she was leading with fear.
“Do you think he wants to sequester you as a housewife somewhere? Or that he expects you to leave your home and family? Perhaps he’s hiding his disregard for us until he gets you alone.”
“That’s absurd. Jason doesn’t hide who he is or what he thinks. He may not wave it out for everyone to see, but he’s entirely genuine. He gets along with everyone, even here. Even Ansgar takes his side now. He’s as comfortable at the Sanctum as any of the rest of us.” Her response had whipped out more tersely than she’d intended in the wake of her self-annoyance, but she meant every damn word.
“But he’s probably rigid in his thinking about the future, maybe not really open about women who speak their own minds and have potential.”
“Just where are you going with this, Grimm?” She glared at him, partly trying to dissect his purpose, so in conflict with his words. “You know full well he’s been nothing but supportive of my goals and concerns. Not just privately but in front of all of our people.”
“So, how do you think he would have voted on the women being put into cryo?”
Briet stopped, mouth open, stunned by a left field question. Yet she hadn’t a doubt in her mind how Jason would have reacted to their previous problems. “He would have been kowtowing to Salvatore and scuttling women out the back door.”
“Like your brother.”
“Along with you, Kamau, and Tsu. It’s not as if you weren’t aware I’d gone rogue. Turen spoke out against the act several times. Jason would have been no different.”
“So he’s open minded.”
“Of course.”
“Flexible to alternatives.”
“Very. He’s a born negotiator.” The shift in Grimm’s direction sent a tingle of alar
m down her spine, yet she responded without thought to his questions.
“But he would probably shut you down if he disagreed with you.”
“He’s always listened to my side of an issue.” She rolled her lips. “I tend to be the more stubborn one.”
He raised a brow. “Letting go of control is frightening but you’ve done it with your work. You are both in lock-step in your professional interactions.”
She took a deep breath as the questions came back to a safer plane. “Yes, though we both want to fix this problem.”
“Certainly. And then? Have you asked him what he wants to do? Shared with him your hopes? My point about failure is about expectations, not actually failing. If you don’t ask and don’t reveal yourself, you have no way to meet in the middle.”
There’s no middle for having children. You either have them or you don’t, she thought miserably. Yet, this conversation was sounding an awful lot like the one she’d had with Jason months ago when he’d made her promise to come to him first whenever she was upset. A promise to give him first crack at her issues.
“Has it ever occurred to you that you might both want the same things? You’ll never know if you aren’t honest with him about what you want.”
“You’re as bad as Ansgar.” Her gaze shifted back to her plasma screen as she tried to digest, tried to frame a wall against what Grimm might see in her reactions.
“Not even. Though I do care about both of you. You’ve both been through a great deal, been exposed to emotional trials. Those events change people. What’s the worst that can happen? Would you tell him you’d flat out refuse something he told you he desperately wanted?”
She whipped her gaze back to his. “Of course not.”
Did Jason have needs he was afraid to tell her? The consideration staggered her. A measure of guilt and shame rippled through her at the thought that she’d been so preoccupied with their progress and her own wishes that she might have neglected his desires.
“You certain?” prodded Grimm. “Would you give up the life you now have for him?”
Her mouth opened, but she paused. Several months ago, she would have vehemently refused a change. Now the idea of life without Jason was unthinkable. “I would consider any request he made.” At Grimm’s questioning look, she continued. “But I also know he’d never ask me to do something he thought would make me truly unhappy.”