Sins of the Flesh

by Caridad Piñeiro

  Mick stalked toward the oven, snagged one of the kitchen towels hanging from the door handle, and wrapped it around the wound on his forearm, since blood was beginning to escape the gauze he had wrapped around the wound earlier. When he took two big strides toward Caterina, she controlled the urge to flinch. Miraculously, he obeyed her and plopped down onto the kitchen chair.

  “There’s a small linen closet in the master bathroom. Medical kit is in there,” Mick said, cradling his injured arm to his midsection.

  Caterina rushed upstairs and found the kit right where he’d said. Grabbing the plastic olive-green box with the red and white cross, she hurried back downstairs, but stopped short as she entered the kitchen.

  He had pulled off his black sweater and the blood-soaked gauze. The naked expanse of his shoulders was leanly muscled. On one shoulder he bore a bruise in the shape of a hand—her hand.

  Caterina bit her lip and walked around him to the table where she set down the medical kit. While she opened the gear, she glanced at him sideways, slowly inventorying the damage to his body.

  On his left shoulder, the vivid imprint of her hand. Farther down, a series of reddish blotches sure to turn into more bruises.

  She skipped over the sight of his lean sculpted abs, her hands shaky as she took out some gauze and butterfly bandages from the medical supplies. As she removed pre-packaged alcohol swabs, she said, “Let me see your arm.”

  He shifted the chair to better face her and it squeaked against the tile floor. Laying his hand flat on the table, he removed the towel and splayed his fingers against the thick wooden surface to allow her to examine the wound.

  She winced as she noted the length and depth of the knife cut.

  “That looks like it’ll need stitches.”

  Mick grunted in agreement. “Lil can close it later if we clean it up.”

  Caterina nodded and ripped open a few alcohol pads. Wadding them together, she faced him to start the cleanup, but as she did so she again noticed the cuts, scrapes, and bruises on his face. Once again she winced, earning an amused chuckle from him.

  “Don’t worry. The other guy looks worse.”

  His comment, undeniably macho as it was, dragged a chuckle from her before she dabbed at the areas around the wound. Gently she wiped away the dried blood and smudges of dirt. Tossed aside the dirty pads and opened up new ones.

  As she finally cleaned the slice in his arm, he sucked in a breath. His fingers turned white as he pressed down on the table from the sting of the alcohol against the open wound.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, and guilt rose up even more sharply as she took note of her handprint against his collarbone and shoulder.

  Mick tracked her gaze, but shrugged off her apology. “You didn’t mean to do that.”

  “Doesn’t make it right, or any less painful, I suspect,” she said and brushed the tips of her fingers across the bruise.

  That touch—innocent and honest—ripped through his body, tightening his gut and creating an unexpected and unwanted reaction.

  From the tremble of her fingers a millisecond before she yanked her hand away, she clearly had experienced something intense as well.

  When he lifted his head and examined her features, he couldn’t fail to notice how her irises had widened and a blush—a very human blush—had blossomed across her cheeks.

  Needing to return their interaction to a more neutral plane, he said, “Can you put some butterfly bandages on it for now? Cover it up for me.”

  She shifted away from him and her fingers pecked at the contents of the kit. She carefully applied the butterfly strips and then covered the area with gauze.

  “Thank you,” Mick said, relishing the softness of her fingers on his skin.

  “Raise your head.” He did as she asked, amused by the command in her voice, at odds with the tenderness of her touch.

  Carefully Caterina tended to the cuts and scrapes on Mick’s face, her expression intense as she worked. Concerned and guilt-ridden.

  Mick tried to reassure her. “Like I said, the other guy looks worse. Besides, the fight had little to do with you.”

  “I don’t understand.” She leaned one hip against the edge of the table as she worked.

  “The guy I fought has a problem with me. We used to work together.”

  “In the Army?” She started to pick up the dirty swabs and remnants of gauze and tape, shooting him a half-glance as she waited for his answer.

  “They’d never take a psycho like him into the Army.”

  Mick rose from the chair and stood close to Caterina. Too close. Her shoulder brushed against the wall of his chest, creating that skitter of reaction once more.

  Cautiously she tilted her head up toward Mick. Her eyes were an intense ocean blue, the pupils wide. The blush was even stronger across the high slashes of her cheekbones. She licked her lips in a nervous gesture.

  Very luscious womanly lips.

  Mick dipped his head down, hesitating when he was about an inch away. Warning himself that if he took a taste…

  CHAPTER 21

  Mick barely brushed his lips against hers, but he still felt the hitch in her breath that spoke of surprise before turning into acceptance.

  Caterina joined her lips to his, the need for human contact overwhelming any caution about the logic of what she was doing. His lips were warm and soft above hers. Mobile as they gently explored. She laid her hand against his rock-hard chest to steady herself. Warm beneath her hand. The skin smooth as she skimmed her fingers down the length of his body.

  Then suddenly Mick ripped away, toppling the kitchen chair behind him.

  He raised his hand in front of himself like a shield. “That should not have happened. I’m sorry.”

  Caterina hated that he was right. It shouldn’t have happened. “I’m sorry as well, it was just…”

  “The satisfaction of surviving. I’ve been through it before. It’s a natural reaction after a battle,” Mick said as he ran his hand over his face.

  She understood. The conquering hero coming home to whatever woman awaited him in that place. Celebrating the victory over an opponent. Thumbing his nose at Death. Her father had been a warrior in a suit, vanquishing opponents in the marketplace. He would come home, drunk with victory and liquor. Beating his chest and belittling her mother’s accomplishments and joys. Diminishing them to aggrandize himself until her mother had stopped believing in herself.

  Until her mother had ceased to exist.

  “I get it,” she said. Not that she approved. She wanted to seem unfazed, but she couldn’t stop herself from running her fingers across her lips to savor the lingering feel of him.

  Mick’s eyes tracked that motion for a second before he quickly shuttered his gaze. His face turned stony and his lips thinned into a tight line as he reined himself in.

  “I’m going to go get changed,” he said and left the room.

  Caterina watched his retreating back, wondering about the kind of man he really was. Was there anything in him beyond the warrior? Was his only interest the success of his mission and accompanying monetary gain?

  The gain that had to be substantial, she assumed, thinking that Edwards would be willing to pay a great deal to get her back. Would Mick tire of the challenge she seemed to be presenting and turn her over for that bounty?

  Or was he a man of honor beneath the dangerous and hard persona he displayed?

  As Caterina stood there, she realized either scenario was risky for her. And she realized that just like she had refused to let her father determine where her life would go, she couldn’t rely on Mick to get her life back for her.

  She had to find a way to take care of it herself.

  * * *

  The scientist stared at the bloodied and dirtied face of Matthew “Mad Dog” Donnelly. At the leaves and bits of twig glued to him by the drying mud.

  “You assured me you could deal with Carrera,” he said, gesturing to the cabinet on the wall. One shelf was completely em
pty. The shelf had held half a dozen vials of the inhibitor medication necessary for controlling the gene replication in their patients. It would take only a day to make more of the compound, but with the vials taken, Shaw could easily last another six months. Maybe more.

  “I can take care of Carrera,” Mad Dog reassured, rubbing at his wrists, which still bore the markings from the cable ties with which Mick had secured him.

  The man examined the paid mercenary, circling around him the way a guard might a prisoner, hands held behind his back. Assessing the dirt all along his body and the bruises and scrapes on his face.

  “Carrera has Shaw,” he said.

  Mad Dog denied it with a quick shake of his head. “Carrera said—”

  “He has Shaw,” the scientist nearly shouted and jabbed his hand toward the telltale empty row in the cabinet. “He took medicine to treat her.”

  Mad Dog’s gaze flickered to the vacant space before he pulled his shoulders back and a steely glint came into his glacial ice-blue eyes. “If he has her, I’ll deal with both of them.”

  “I won’t pay extra for Carrera.”

  A twisted gleam took hold in the mercenary’s eerie crystal cold eyes.

  “When the time is right, Carrera is a dead man,” Mad Dog responded, his voice bone-chillingly cold.

  The scientist walked up to the hired man and peered at Mad Dog. “Do you know what Machiavelli said about enemies?”

  At the mercenary’s hesitation, he continued. “ ‘The injury that is to be done to a man ought to be of such a kind that one does not stand in fear of revenge.’ ”

  Poking a finger into the hard wall of Mad Dog’s chest, he warned, “Don’t play with Carrera. Eliminate him.”

  CHAPTER 22

  Mick controlled his grimace as Liliana finished tying off the last stitch in his arm. Barely a flicker of discomfort crossed his face thanks to his restraint.

  Too bad he hadn’t used such restraint earlier with Caterina.

  “You’ll need to keep this dry for twenty-four hours.”

  “Coño. There goes that bubble bath I planned on taking,” he teased, but it failed to bring a smile to his sister’s face.

  “You okay?” he asked, worried at the troubled look in her eyes. Sorry that he might have placed it there.

  “Okay? You want to know if I’m okay.”

  With jerky motions Liliana cleaned up the materials she had used for the sutures and stalked across the kitchen to toss them away. Rounding on him, she jammed her hands on her hips. “You’re hurt. Someone named Mad Dog is after you and Caterina. And speaking of Caterina—”

  “I got the inhibitor. Several vials of the medication are in my satchel.” He jerked his hand in the direction of the worn black satchel resting on one of the kitchen chairs.

  Liliana walked to the chair, picked up the bag, and removed a handful of the vials. Weighing them carefully in her hand, she said, “Based on the dosages indicated in her medical file, these should last for some time. Certainly long enough for you to figure out why someone wants her dead.”

  The relief on his sister’s face was incomplete. Mick pressed on. “Something else is bothering you.”

  Liliana placed the vials on the table, and then removed the rest from the satchel. As she did so, he noticed the bare spot on her ring finger.

  “You broke it off with Harrison.”

  Nodding, she replied, “He didn’t take it well.”

  Mick rose from the chair, flinching at the ache in his ribs as he stood. Mad Dog hadn’t broken them, but they still hurt like hell.

  He took a step to close the distance to his sister and laid his hands on her shoulders. “I’ll make sure he doesn’t hurt you.”

  Liliana shrugged his hands off. “You’ll protect me. Caterina.” She whirled on him, laid a hand on the middle of his chest. “Mami and Papi. Tony. You’ll take care of all of us.”

  She shoved his chest hard enough to make him recoil, tender as the area was thanks to the blows from Mad Dog.

  “Who will take care of you, hermano?”

  Apparently recognizing that her question had no answer, she grabbed one of the vials and her medical bag and stormed out of the kitchen. Mick could hear the heavy thump of her footsteps on the stairs, a testament to her anger.

  He could have followed, tried to reassure her he had things under control, but opted instead to give her time to cool down. Since Liliana had once again brought home food from the family restaurant, he placed the take-out dishes in the oven. While he welcomed the food, he worried it came with a very large price tag—a visit from his mami. She was bound to be wondering about what was happening with him and why Liliana was involved.

  When the food was in the oven and the kitchen table was set, Mick took a steadying breath and headed upstairs.

  Caterina was sitting on the edge of the bed with Liliana perched across from her in the recliner. In her hand his sister had a syringe which she had plunged into the vial he had taken from Wardwell’s lab. As he walked in Liliana said, “I’m using the dosage indicated in the file.”

  Liliana pulled the syringe from the vial and in a fluid move, swapped the vial for the rubber hose sitting on the nightstand. She wrapped the hose around Caterina’s bicep, tapped her arm for a vein, and then injected her with the medication.

  Caterina jerked as she did so. “I didn’t mean to hurt you. Sorry,” Liliana apologized.

  Caterina shook her head. “It’s not you. It’s burning.”

  “That happens with some medications,” Mick explained as he walked into the room.

  Caterina looked up at him and offered a brave smile. “Thank you for getting the medicine.”

  “Hopefully it’ll keep things under control until we can find out what really happened to Wells.”

  Liliana withdrew the syringe, placed an adhesive bandage over the injection site, and urged Caterina to bend her arm to apply pressure.

  Caterina did as instructed and turned her attention back to Mick. “I can help you with the investigation now.”

  Mick shook his head. “Maybe if the meds work, but first… It would help if you could try to remember more about what happened that night.”

  Caterina nodded. “I’ll try. Only every time I do…” She shrugged and wrapped her free arm around her waist. “There’s always blood. Lots of it. All over Dr. Wells and me.”

  Mick nodded and sat down on the edge of the bed beside her. She averted her gaze, but he tucked his thumb and forefinger beneath her chin and urged her face back toward his.

  “You need to get past that to try and remember what happened before. To how Wells was killed.”

  Caterina nodded. “I’ll try.”

  He brushed away some stray unruly locks from her face. “You can try later. Liliana was kind enough to bring dinner again and I suspect you’re hungry.”

  Caterina smiled. It caused a funny hitch in the middle of Mick’s chest. “I thought I smelled something tasty.”

  “Let’s go get some eats then,” Liliana said and rose from the chair. Watching the gentle way her gruff brother touched Caterina, Liliana couldn’t help but suspect his feelings for the sick woman were no longer strictly professional. But she said nothing, only led the way down to the kitchen, smiling to herself as she went.

  With dinner over and the two women sharing an easy conversation as they cleaned up, Mick had felt driven from the kitchen, unable to stand the way they chatted about everyday things seemingly without a care to the danger which existed. He had not wanted to burst their fragile bubble with the reality that so far he had nothing to prove that Caterina wasn’t a murderess. He also couldn’t abide the sense of homecoming he felt sitting at the table with them.

  Locking himself away in his office, he spent the night perusing the Internet for additional information on Edwards and Wardwell Biotech, and discovered more than he had expected.

  News from various science sites confirmed that Wardwell was a leader in developing a number of different fluorescent p
roteins for use in various applications, as well as an innovator in the field of gene therapies. Much had been made of one of their early experiments, using genes spliced from a urodele amphibian to successfully regenerate nerve tissue.

  That would explain Liliana’s comments at dinner about the test results reported by her pathologist friend.

  As he sat back, Mick realized that advances from such a success might account for the restoration of Caterina’s sight, but confusion remained about the strange halo sight and skin camo she displayed when stressed.

  Why implant even more genes to create a human chimera? Especially one half out of her mind from a powerful combination of dissociative drugs, unless…

  MK Ultra, he thought once again, thoughts returning to the CIA experiments with mind control. If Edwards thought he could create and control chimeras with useful traits, those genetically modified humans could be quite useful and profitable.

  Only nothing in any of the online articles supported such a crazy hypothesis. He leaned over the keyboard and continued searching. By the end of the night, Liliana had been called back to the hospital for an emergency and he had unearthed a small article from a financial news site.

  Edwards had recently met with the head of Gates Genengineering, a larger biotech company whose new drug application had suffered a rejection from the FDA. The NDA was for a therapy similar to the Wardwell process Mick thought had been used on Caterina. The article mentioned possible discussions of a merger. Given the size of the other company, a merger might be worth millions to the owners of Wardwell.

  Of course if anyone got wind of what Edwards and his researchers had done to people like Caterina and those unfortunates with the terminated stickers, no legitimate company would touch Wardwell. In fact, Edwards and his cohorts would be lucky not to end up in jail for the rest of their lives.

  If Wells had somehow developed a conscience and had been about to blow the whistle on the entire experiment, it made perfect sense as to why Edwards might want his partner dead.

  With a merger imminent, it also made sense why Edwards would hire not one but three hunters to go after Caterina. He couldn’t take the risk that she could expose what had happened and ruin the multi-million-dollar deal.