Sins of the Flesh

by Caridad Piñeiro

  He said nothing else. She sensed his continued presence by her side; heard the slight groan of the wood frame on the chair by the bed as he sat down, and the swoosh of fabric sliding against fabric, maybe when he covered himself.

  Covered all that wonderful muscle.

  She forced that thought from her mind, bringing other images instead of the assorted small scars on his body, the shocking white of the tape on his stitched-up forearm, and the bruises he had earned on this latest assignment. An assignment intended to deal with her existence.

  One hundred million dollars on her head.

  Quite a bounty.

  A difficult temptation to ignore and yet she had no hesitation about Mick’s earlier promise.

  After resting her head silently on the pillow, she said his name, not sure if he had already fallen asleep.

  “Hmm?” he answered sleepily, although she knew just how quickly he became alert.

  “You’re not the hard-ass you try to be. There’s a big soft spot inside that you hide.”

  No response followed. Before she could question if he had heard her, the rustle of fabric came again. The bed dipped her toward the center and over the corner of her shoulder she caught a glimpse of him as he eased himself next to her. Too quickly for her to protest, his front was pressed to her back and he had thrown his arm across her waist.

  “Go to sleep, Cat.”

  Easier said than done, she thought, but closed her eyes anyway.

  Mick lay awake long after the cadence of her breathing announced that she had finally fallen asleep.

  He couldn’t rest. His mind was too busy working out all the possible permutations of what might happen once Mad Dog figured out where they were.

  He had already set some of the gears into motion. Franklin. His cousin Ramon and his police force. Hospital security.

  When he thought about the way Mad Dog had tossed his place in Philly, it tore at his gut that he might do the same here.

  This was his safe house in more ways than one.

  No matter what mission he had been on, from his time in the Army to his life as a hired gun, this place had always been his escape from it all. This home had always been where he could go for comfort and peace.

  This mission had threatened that.

  He could take Caterina and run. Find a different place to hide.

  Or he could take a stand.

  Force Mad Dog to bring the fight to him, because the only way Mick would allow his old nemesis to trash this home and hurt his family was if he was dead.

  “Mick?” Caterina asked and turned to face him.

  He caressed the satiny skin of her cheek. “Didn’t mean to wake you.”

  “You haven’t slept yet, have you?”

  He shook his head, rubbed his thumb along the elegant ridge of her cheekbone. “Too much to think about.”

  “This Mad Dog guy has you really worried? It’s about more than this assignment, though, isn’t it?” Caterina covered his hand with hers, stroking it tenderly. The pressure of her hand light, but disturbing nevertheless.

  He met her gaze in the dark of the night. The deep blue of hers interrupted here and there by bits of blue-green glow. A testament to how little time he had to set things right. Something he hadn’t been able to do the last time Mad Dog had been involved in his life.

  “Three years ago, Franklin, Mad Dog, and I were on a private security detail down in Miami. Should have been an easy gig. Keep an eye on the wife and nine-year-old son of some bigwig politico who had been receiving death threats.” He sighed deeply and looked away as he recalled that day, but Caterina would not allow his avoidance.

  She cradled his jaw and urged him to face her. “What happened?”

  “We had a protocol if we were threatened. Call the police and head to the nearest secure location. Easy enough to do.”

  Tension radiated from Mick’s body. It was what had awakened Caterina from a sound sleep. Beneath her thumb, the vibrating anger in his body communicated his anger. She ran her thumb across the hard line of his lips and urged him to continue with a soft, “It should have been easy, but Mad Dog wasn’t on board with that, was he?”

  Mick shook his head. Against her face, his hand trembled. “We picked up a tail going over the McArthur Causeway on the way to the politico’s home on Star Island. Mad Dog was driving and he could have kept on going to the police station on Washington Avenue in Miami Beach. Instead he pulled into the entrance for Star Island.”

  A shudder snaked across Mick’s body and he closed his eyes as he continued the story. “A guard came out to see what was up. The car behind us opened fire, killing him. Our car was armored, so we were safe for the moment.”

  Another more violent tremor traveled through his body.

  “It got worse,” Caterina whispered, and gently stroked his face again, trying to soothe him.

  Mick’s eyes snapped open, pupils contracted from his distress. “Franklin tried to grab the wheel to get Mad Dog to move forward past the gate, but Mad Dog threw open his door, got out, and returned fire.”

  Mick sucked in a breath, and then expelled it roughly. “We had no choice but to defend ourselves. In the firestorm that followed, one of the bullets ricocheted off the door, killing the nine-year-old.”

  “I’m sorry,” she said and embraced him.

  Mick was stiff in her arms at first, but gradually he relaxed against her. He slipped his arms around her and brought her close, until every inch of their bodies touched.

  She was soft. Warm. Too warm.

  “You’ve got a fever again,” he whispered by the shell of her ear.

  “It comes and goes,” she replied with a nonchalant shrug.

  She was trying to be strong.

  No, correct that. She was strong and Mick admired that strength. She was more woman than he had ever encountered.

  Rubbing his face against the curls of her hair roused the smells of summer—hints of pine from the woods they had traipsed through earlier, chlorine from the pool.

  “We’ll make you better, Cat. Trust me.”

  She laid her hand flat against his chest. “I do trust you, Mick. Like I said, you’ve got a soft spot.”

  He had a soft spot all right—a soft spot in his head to maybe think that somehow this would all turn out right. He couldn’t afford such softness because it might lead to a misstep, but he also couldn’t harden his heart against her. Against the concern she was showing for him and his family. A concern he had never experienced with any of the other women who had spent a minute or two in his life.

  Despite that, he forced some command in his voice in an effort to create distance between them. “Go to sleep, Cat. There’s a lot to be done tomorrow.”

  “Good night, Mick,” she said, but remained close. Her body pressed to his, the beat of her heart strong beside his, the out-of-sync cadence merging with his until the beats became one.

  A dangerous one, he thought for the barest of seconds before he allowed sleep to claim him.

  CHAPTER 30

  Forewarned was forearmed, Liliana thought, cautious as she exited her car in the hospital parking lot the next morning. She was early for rounds much as she had been on several other occasions, needing to see Carmen Rojas and have her friend take another look at Caterina’s blood.

  She was walking toward the entrance to the hospital when Harrison exited the building. He sported a white bandage across his nose and two black eyes.

  She had done this to him. Despite the many times he had hurt her, Liliana took no joy in seeing his injuries. If anything, she feared such a visible testament to his failure would only create more problems for her.

  He hadn’t seen her and for a moment she considered going back to her car to wait until he had left, but then decided she’d had enough of being afraid of him.

  Picking up her head and straightening her spine, she walked toward the hospital entrance and Harrison.

  He noticed her then and came straight toward her.


  “What do you want?” she asked as she stopped a good distance away from him, wanting to be beyond his arms’ reach.

  He looked around, clearly wanting to make sure that no one would witness their exchange. Then he took a step toward her and whispered, “You got away the other night, but don’t think it’ll be so easy the next time.”

  She thought about the bullies in the world and the one thing they all had in common. They were inherently cowards when someone stood up to them.

  “There isn’t going to be a next time, because if you even come within one foot of me again, I’m going to take the tape of what happened the other night to the police and then the hospital board. Understood?”

  His face paled, making the dark bruising beneath his eyes even more stark.

  “You wouldn’t do that. What would people think about you?”

  A month ago or even a week ago, the shame associated with people discovering how he had hurt her might have actually made her reconsider her threat. Even the fear of how it might hurt her career at the hospital no longer held sway with her.

  With a harsh laugh, she said, “They would think that I was smart enough to get away from you.”

  She shoved past him, intent on starting her rounds. Hopeful that Harrison finally got the message that she would no longer serve as his punching bag.

  Once she was within the hospital, Liliana headed straight toward the lower levels that housed the labs and other non-patient areas.

  Like always, Carmen was at her station in the pathology lab, making Liliana wonder if her friend ever left her spot. As she entered, Carmen shot her a bright smile.

  “Hola, amiga. What interesting thing do you have for me today?” Carmen said.

  “Are you always so cheery about a blood sample?” Liliana chided as she pulled the tube out of her pocket and handed it over.

  “Only when it’s packed with GFPs and all other kinds of interesting anomalies.”

  Liliana shook her head and chastised her friend. “Sabes that there’s a person behind that sample. Someone who’s not well.”

  Carmen remained unremorseful. “It’s why I’m down here. No people skills.”

  “You’re underestimating yourself,” she said, but Carmen ignored her, removing a drop of blood from the vacutainer and putting it on a slide. She slid a slip glass over the specimen and placed it beneath the microscope.

  “Whoa,” she replied and immediately looked up at Liliana. “We’ve got an excessive number of white blood cells present as well as lysis of an assortment of other cells.”

  Liliana thought about the inhibitor drug and what it might do. Was it the aftereffects that were creating the fever and the need for plasmapheresis after multiple treatments? she wondered.

  “Do you think the lysis is a result of the white blood cells or something else?”

  “A chemically induced lysis?” Carmen posited out loud and returned to examine the sample under the microscope once again.

  After long moments spent staring at the specimen, Carmen backed up and said, “There’s a lot of cell damage, plus the leukocytes contain a large percentage of macrophages and basophils.”

  “As if her body had an allergic reaction and is trying to mop up all the destruction afterward,” Liliana noted.

  “There may be too much lysis for her body to handle.”

  Liliana nodded, understanding now the need for the plasmapheresis. Aware that they didn’t have much time to undertake the therapy in order to help Caterina. She motioned to the microscope.

  “With that sample, could you prepare the cell separator with what was needed to cleanse the patient’s blood using plasmapheresis?”

  “I could. I will. Just let me know when you need it done,” Carmen confirmed, understanding the urgency of the matter.

  “You call me when you’re ready so I can arrange for the treatment,” Liliana said and walked out.

  CHAPTER 31

  Caterina’s fever had returned. The heat of it had warned Mick of her fragility when she had taken hold of his hand earlier that morning before dozing off to a fitful sleep.

  He grabbed his cell phone and speed-dialed Liliana as he sat in the chair by the bed, hoping she would have some news about the latest blood sample she had taken. His sister answered almost immediately, but strain colored her tones.

  “You okay, hermanita?” he asked, worried that something was up with his sister. Something having nothing to do with the trouble in which he had embroiled her.

  “Lots of emergencies. There’s good news, though,” she said, and her voice actually brightened at the end, giving him hope that the earlier strain was from just too much work.

  “You were able to get something from the blood sample?” He shot a half-glance at Caterina as she stirred for a moment, but then drifted right back to sleep.

  “We did. The bad news is there’s too much going on. Lots of white blood cells and too much cell damage.”

  Mick cursed beneath his breath, but Liliana immediately said, “The good news is we’ve got a plasmapheresis setup ready and waiting for Caterina. Once we run her blood through the separator, it should relieve some of her symptoms.”

  He thought about bringing her into the hospital and the risk it presented. Caterina’s picture had been in the papers and on television for the last few days. Reaching over, he brushed the back of his hand against her cheek.

  Heat blasted from her. Too much heat.

  If he didn’t risk bringing Caterina into the hospital, she might continue to get worse.

  She might die.

  His gut tightened at the thought of losing her.

  “Where should I bring Cat?”

  Mad Dog cursed and tossed aside the bits of the pastel pink envelope. Immediately after his late night break-in, he had spent a few hours searching the Internet, but had made little progress in tracking down where Mick might be.

  His first guess had been that the address was from a town somewhere along the Eastern Shore. He’d put his money on the Jersey Shore given its proximity to Mick’s home base in Philadelphia. Probably the South Jersey shore.

  That guess had left him trying to decipher the name of the town with those few letters. It had taken less than an hour to discover they most likely stood for Bradley Beach, a small shore town near Asbury Park. At least an hour away from South Jersey and Philly.

  Whoever had sent Mick the envelope lived in that town. Possibly a member of Mick’s family, which would give him some leverage if he could get them and trade them for Shaw.

  Mad Dog’s cell phone rang. His client, based on the number on the caller ID.

  “What are you doing?” his client asked, his words laced with anger and frustration.

  “I’m doing what you paid me to do,” he said nonchalantly, not about to let some piss-ass scientist boss him around.

  “People are asking questions.”

  “People, huh? Which people?” It was easy to take care of people who asked too many questions.

  The other man nearly hissed the name. “Edwards.”

  Interesting, he thought. “You and your buddy have a falling-out?”

  “Carrera and Shaw paid him a visit last night. He’s quite dissatisfied. There’s a lot at stake here.”

  Fuck. Not only did Mick have Shaw, she seemed to be cognizant and working with him. Not good.

  “I understand what’s at stake. I stand to lose as well,” Mad Dog reminded the man. He had only received half of his fee up front. Another cool million would only be delivered once he brought Shaw to them.

  “We need her soon. The longer the police continue their investigation, the more likely they are to rule her out as a suspect.”

  “I’m on his trail,” Mad Dog lied, frustrated that the clues provided by the envelope had so far yielded no results.

  “Hurry it along, Mr. Donnelly. If the police start looking somewhere besides Shaw, everything will be jeopardized.”

  In other words, they’d stiff him for the rest of the money the
y owed him. “I’ll have Shaw for you within forty-eight hours,” he said, determined not to let Mick screw things up.

  “Forty-eight hours. If it takes longer—”

  “I get it. No cash. For either of us. Like I said, I’ll have Shaw for you in forty-eight hours.”

  Mad Dog hung up as his client continued with his dire warnings about the risk of failure. He hadn’t failed on any mission he’d undertaken. Well, none except the one with Franklin and Mick. If they hadn’t been such pussies, they could have salvaged that one as well. They had been too worried about collateral damage to handle the problem. He had no such qualms.

  He returned to his laptop and his search on the Internet. Plugging in Bradley Beach and Carrera yielded lots of results, from fan sites for Porsches to an assortment of news articles from area papers.

  Methodically Mad Dog began to go through the materials, skipping those that seemed less relevant. Finding several articles about an Antonio Carrera and his football exploits.

  Unfortunately, many of the articles had been archived or were dead links. The use of the Wayback Machine site yielded the text of the articles, but not the pictures.

  Damn, he thought. A picture might have helped him make a stronger connection to Mick if the football player looked anything like his ex-colleague.

  What he did realize from the articles was that Antonio appeared to be at least eight or so years younger than Mick.

  Additional hunts on the Net yielded another Carrera—a Liliana Carrera who had been valedictorian of her high school class. Still no picture. This woman was just a few years younger than Mick, and Mad Dog had little doubt that all of them were somehow related.

  Tracking down the names of the local high schools, he tried to see if they had old yearbooks up on their Web sites. They didn’t.

  He had the same result at the local library. Although they had the yearbooks listed in their collection of reference books, the yearbooks were not available online.

  Powering down his laptop, Mad Dog decided he needed to do some hands-on investigating.