Tall, Dark and Paranormal: 10 Thrilling Tales of Sexy Alpha Bad Boys

by Opal Carew

  “It’s not paint. It’s blood.”

  Liliana shot him a disbelieving stare, but then reached out and touched the splotch on the shirt. Picked up her finger and smelled it, her reaction much like his had been earlier.

  “Definitely blood. How’s that possible?”

  “Wish I knew, Lil.” He leaned over his sister’s shoulder, watching as she carefully slipped the surgical scissors beneath the sleeve of the T-shirt and began to cut away the fabric.

  Caterina immediately roused then, her eyes wide with fear as she noted the scissors and realized what was happening.

  “No,” she said and jerked away from Liliana. The motion must have caused her pain because she moaned, grimaced, and screwed her eyes shut.

  “She’s here to help, Cat. Do you understand? Help,” he repeated the way he might speak to a young child.

  Caterina shook her head and whispered “no” before passing out once again.

  Liliana pressed forward despite her patient’s protest, her movements efficient and so capable that the shirt was cut away from the damaged shoulder without her patient noticing. As his sister revealed the damage caused by the bullet wound, she muttered a curse. “Damn, this is almost closed up, but I can see there are still bits of cloth in there.”

  “And the bullet. Can you clean it up?”

  Liliana nodded as she placed the scissors on the nightstand. “Definitely have to get it clean, otherwise she might go septic. We can admit her – “

  “No hospital, Lil, and don’t ask me why not.”

  Liliana turned and planted her hands on her hips, head tilted up defiantly, and the lines of her small body vibrating with tension. “You can’t expect me to cut her open here.”

  “I can. It’s not life-threatening.”

  “It could be if infection sets in. Plus I’m obligated by law to report any gunshot wounds,” his sister warned, obviously hoping she could convince him on a different course of action.

  Which left only one thing he could do.

  “If she’s discovered, she could be killed. And how would you explain the lightning bug blood? It’s her blood, Lil, and when I found her . . .”

  He looked away and dragged a hand through his hair. “It’s almost too weird to believe,” he admitted.

  * * *

  Sensing the truth and frustration in her brother’s words, Liliana reached out and laid a hand on his arm. She had never seen him this upset, not to mention that he had never reached out to her for help on a case before. That he had done so now said a lot, but she wouldn’t be quick to judge what his actions were saying. And if what he said was true about the young woman’s life being in peril, it justified not reporting the shooting.

  At least, not for the moment.

  “If I’m going to deal with the wound, we’ll have to sedate her. Then you’ll have to monitor her carefully for any signs of infection.”

  Mick nodded and she reached into her medical bag and removed a vial of sedative that she kept in case of an emergency. It would take very little of the powerful drug to keep Mick’s guest knocked out while she cleansed the wound and stitched her up.

  She prepped a syringe and then picked up the young woman’s arm to administer the medicine. The woman’s eyelids fluttered up and down as she responded to the movement, then immediately flew open at the sight of the syringe.

  “No,” Caterina protested, stronger than before and suddenly, the pale blue of the sheets spread across every visible inch of her body.

  Liliana glanced down at where she held the woman’s arm, just to make sure she was seeing right. The olive tones of her own skin clashed with the sky blue hue the woman’s skin had taken on. Shock tightened her grasp on the woman, who attempted to break free by wrenching her body away.

  “Easy, Cat,” Mick said, immediately at her side, grabbing hold of the woman’s shoulders in an attempt to pin her down. That only made her react even more forcefully.

  The woman thrashed in earnest, heaving her shoulders up off the bed. Bringing her knees up so she could try to kick at Mick.

  Mick climbed up on the bed and wrestled his captive back down until he was straddling her. He pinned her arms and legs down with his body, but she continued to twist and buck upward in an effort to free herself.

  “Hurry, Lil. She’s damn strong.”

  As one powerful surge of the woman’s body nearly upended her much bigger and supposedly stronger brother, Lil didn’t hesitate.

  She jabbed the needle into the woman’s bicep and pushed down the plunger to administer the sedative.

  When the woman reared up again, nearly snapping off the needle in her arm, Liliana withdrew the syringe and stepped back to count down until the medicine took effect, watching as Mick attempted to keep her contained.

  He was tempering his force she could see, while softly murmuring to the woman, “We’re not going to hurt you, Cat. We’re here to help.”

  Liliana waited anxiously since the sedative was taking much longer than she expected. So much longer that it occurred to her she might have to administer another dose of the medication, although she feared too much of it might present another round of complications.

  Finally the woman calmed down and as she did so, the blue of the sheets receded from her skin, leaving behind the normal tones of her pale white skin.

  Mick slipped off the woman, but he paused by her side, gazing down at her. The emotions on his face a mix of confusion and concern.

  Liliana stepped close to him and asked, “How does she do that? The skin thing.”

  “Don’t know. Her medical history mentioned a complication from a full gene expression and maybe this is part of it. It was some radical kind of treatment.”

  “Someone’s used her for a guinea pig?” Liliana wondered aloud.

  “A damn strong guinea pig. I’m going to have to tie her down,” he said.

  Liliana didn’t much care for forceful restraints and as she considered doing so to this injured young woman, she unconsciously rubbed at her own wrists, almost lost in recollection.

  The movement of her hands snared Mick’s attention and he finally noticed the bruises on her forearms. Reaching out, he tenderly took hold of her wrist. Raised her arm up higher so that he could inspect it.

  “Who did this to you?” he asked, the anger in his voice barely contained.

  Liliana shook her head and yanked her arm away. “No one. I hurt myself doing some chores.”

  A lie and they both knew it. “Did Harrison do that to you?”

  Harrison had done that and more she wanted to say, but worried about how Mick would react. She worried that no one would believe her. After all, Harrison was successful. Head of his department at the hospital and well-known in his field.

  Who would believe that such a man – her fiancé – was capable of abusing her?

  “I got banged up doing some gardening this weekend,” she offered up, but Mick wasn’t buying it.

  “If he’s hurting you, we can put a stop to it.”

  “I’m okay. Better than you are, obviously,” she said, pointing back to the injured young woman who needed their immediate attention.

  A muscle ticked along the hard strong line of Mick’s jaw before he reluctantly said, “When this is done, we’ll deal with Harrison.”

  She left it at that, hoping that by the time this problem with Mick was finished, she’d have found her own way to deal with Harrison. For months she had been contemplating leaving him, but had delayed, fearful of what he could do to her career at the hospital where they both worked. He was better connected politically and she feared his vindictive nature.

  But no career was worth what was happening to her.

  For now, however, she had to help her brother.

  She handed Mick the scissors. “Cut away the rest of her clothes and get her restrained, but not this shoulder. I’ll start – “

  She stopped as Mick held up the young woman’s wrist, drawing attention to the raw spots and ligature marks
on her arm.

  She gazed down at the wrist on the young woman’s wounded arm and noticed similar injuries.

  “Someone’s already restrained her. Repeatedly.”

  Mick gently laid the young woman’s arm back down and with the scissors, cut away her socks and jeans, revealing additional bruising and ligature marks along one ankle.

  “Fuck,” he said, his head hanging down as he braced his hands on the bed.

  When he raised his gaze to meet hers, Liliana detected anguish in the depths of his dark brown eyes. Laying a hand on the hard muscles of his arm, she said, “Go get a basin with warm water. We’ll clean all those areas and get them bandaged.”

  He immediately did as she asked and while he was gone, Liliana tackled what remained of the young woman’s clothes, cutting them away. With each piece she removed, it became apparent just how badly Mick’s guest had been abused.

  Her tall body had previously been lean she suspected, but now was even thinner, the edges of her ribs and hip bones prominent. Assorted bruises marred her body and fearing her brother’s reaction, she worked quickly to remove the clothes and cover the injured woman with a light sheet before his return.

  Liliana would take care of sponge bathing her once she had finished dealing with the wound to the young woman’s shoulder.

  Mick returned a moment later. As he set a plastic bowl filled with water on the opposite nightstand and pulled a washcloth from his back jeans pocket, she reached into her bag and removed a tube of ointment and roll of gauze.

  “Wash her wrists and ankles. Once they’re dry, apply this,” she said and tossed him the tube and then the gauze.

  Mick did as he was told and she went to work, carefully cleaning the bullet wound. Picking out pieces of fabric and finding that the bullet was not all that far in. If she didn’t know better, she would say it was almost like the injured woman’s body was expelling it the way a human defensive response might contain a splinter.

  But a bullet was no splinter and Liliana had never seen this kind of behavior before.

  As she worked and more luminescent green blood slowly seeped from the wound, Liliana wondered just was happening with this woman. Especially since with the bullet and bits of cloth removed, the injury appeared to be healing even more quickly.

  For a moment she considered that it might not even be necessary to stitch the wound closed, but decided not to risk it.

  Working quickly, she made a series of neat tiny stitches to finish, hoping they would not leave much of a scar.

  As Liliana straightened, her back protested how long she had been bent over while she worked on the woman.

  Placing one hand at her waist, she stretched out the kinks and watched as her brother fashioned restraints from what remained of the gauze she had given him earlier.

  “Are you sure that will hold her?” she asked, recollecting the force of the woman’s earlier struggles.

  * * *

  Mick examined his handiwork and tugged on the lengths of gauze he had braided for extra strength and tied to the legs of the bed. Recalling how Caterina had fought him, he had contemplated using handcuffs, but the sight of the ligature marks on her wrists and ankles had guilted him into finding a kinder way to confine her.

  The guilt was not good.

  It was affecting his judgment about Caterina and he couldn’t afford that.

  He also couldn’t afford not knowing what was going on with his captive, from the weird blood and healing to her decidedly limited mental capacity.

  “Do you think you could run some tests for me?” he said, shooting a sideways glance at his sister.

  “I’d be a shitty doctor if I didn’t. Blood test. DNA analysis. Maybe even a full tox screen because something is definitely not right with your friend.”

  A friend she was not, but his sister didn’t need to know that. “I’d appreciate anything you can do only it needs to be on the down low.”

  “I get it, Mick,” she said with sisterly exasperation.

  He nodded and placed his hand on Liliana’s shoulder. Gave it a reassuring squeeze. “I need you to be extra careful, Lil. Don’t come back to the house without checking in with me first.”

  Liliana gestured to Caterina. “Are you sure you can handle her?”

  Chapter 8

  Mick was sure he could, but possibly not in ways in which his sister would approve.

  “She’ll be fine,” he reassured, but worried whether he could ultimately keep that promise.

  This mission was turning to have too many unexpected complications. Never a good thing when the only contingencies you had anticipated where whether your target would end up dead or alive.

  Caterina wouldn’t end up dead if he could help it.

  But he also didn’t know whether he would come to regret keeping her alive.

  After Liliana had left to return to the hospital, he gave a last tug on the makeshift restraints and with Caterina sedated, hurried from the guest room and to the smallest of the bedrooms at the end of the hall. He had converted that room into an office where he kept a desk loaded with an assortment of computers which monitored the perimeter of this house, his office/apartment in Philly, and any location he had decided to bug. On the wall opposite the desk was a large lateral file cabinet holding a varied collection of cameras and microphones he used for surveillance, as well as first aid materials.

  The closet beside the file cabinet had once been roomy, but now housed a built-in vault home to a collection of guns, weaponry, and ammunition. The vault could only be opened with his fingerprint and a complex security code.

  Mick sat down at the desk, powered up the monitors, and checked out the feeds from the various locations.

  The infrared cameras detected nothing unusual around the perimeter of the house.

  The remote video from his office/apartment areas showed it was still in one piece and the control panel on the security system didn’t indicate that the area had been breached. The only activity anywhere had been his entry into this safe house hours earlier.

  The last monitor was blank until, with a few quick keystrokes, Caterina’s image appeared as she lay on the bed, her arms and legs tied to the bed frame legs and the headboard. A light sheet covered her, hiding the thinness of her body and the bruises.

  His sister had tried to keep that from him, but he had seen them as Liliana had bathed his captive, much as he had taken note of the purpling marks on his sister’s forearms.

  Definitely not bruises from gardening contrary to her assertions.

  He recognized the signs of someone being manhandled. Since as far as he knew Harrison was the only man in Lil’s life, he had to assume Harrison had been the one to hurt her.

  His stomach tightened with anger at the thought of anyone harming his sister. That it was Harrison doing it only made him angrier.

  He had never like Harrison Williams. He had always found the supposedly brilliant surgeon to be rather pompous and slow-witted. No match for his smart and effervescent baby sister who deserved much better, as far as Mick was concerned.

  Why would Lil put up with such treatment? he thought, gazing at Caterina’s image on the monitor. Another seemingly smart and capable woman who had been overpowered. Trapped by a system in which she had once had faith.

  Did Lil feel the same way? Did she consider herself imprisoned by who she was at the hospital – a newbie resident? One who couldn’t challenge an older, better-established surgeon like Harrison?

  He was going to find out what was happening with Lil and put an end to it much like he intended to do with Caterina.

  No, not Caterina. Shaw, he reminded himself, needing to create distance because she was rousing emotions in him that would only complicate the assignment.

  Shaw was his target.

  Just another job.

  He couldn’t let sympathy for Shaw and admiration for the strength she had shown during her illness get in the way of the mission he had been paid to complete.

  How about
justice? the voice in his head challenged. Could he let justice get in the way?

  He flipped away from Shaw’s image to one of the front door.

  All quiet and dark in the dead of early morning.

  Dead as he would be if he didn’t get some rest too, so he could stay sharp for what he needed to do tomorrow.

  Mick walked out of his office and past the room with Shaw, stopped at the door to his bedroom. The large king-sized bed called to him, but he glanced back at the room holding his captive.

  With a muttered curse, he tore off the black knit Henley he had been wearing which still bore scattered traces of Shaw’s oddball blood. He whipped the two guns from the spot where he had tucked them into the gap at the small of his back and tossed them on his comforter. His jeans soon followed, but fell from the bed and landed in a heap on the floor.

  In the master bath, he washed up, removing all traces of Shaw from his hands and arms and returned to his room to slip into comfortable sweats.

  He retrieved the two guns from the surface of the bed, placed them on the nightstand beside him, and lay down on the comforter.

  Just a few hours nap before he got back to work.

  Sleep eluded him, however, as images of Shaw’s and Lil’s bruises juxtaposed themselves in his brain.

  Giving up hope of sleep after about an hour, he rose, slipped the two guns beneath the waistband of his sweats, dragged the comforter off his bed, and stalked to Shaw’s room.

  A comfortable over-stuffed chair and ottoman were tucked invitingly in a far corner of the bedroom. His mother’s handiwork when she had helped him decorate this house, hoping that its purchase was a sign that he intended to settle down into a more sedate life. Maybe even take up his cousin Ramon’s offer of a spot on the local police force.

  My mother had been sadly mistaken, Mick thought as he dropped the comforter at the door and walked to the chair and ottoman. He dragged them to the side of the bed where he could both keep an eye on Shaw as well as the stairs and bedroom door.