Catalyst (Dogs of War Book 4)

by J. M. Madden

  Once it had all been said and done, though, Blake returned to his mother unharmed, Senator Hall had declared himself innocent. He had told the Senate that he had tried to foil the kidnap plan and many of his own men, as well as several Secret Service agents, had died in the process. Noah, Elizabeth, Rose, the Dogs of War, all knew that was a crock, but the senator’s influential allies had taken his word, praising him for his efforts.

  What an asshole. It was time Senator Hall was taken down. As well as all of his associates. They just had to figure out how to do it without getting Haven killed.

  Raine stepped up beside him at the window, looking down on the people moving along the street. It was a weekday morning, so everyone appeared to be on their way to work. She crossed her arms beneath her full breasts and he tried not to notice. Now wasn’t the time or the place.

  “Are you okay?”

  He nodded, pulling the earbud from his left ear. He liked to listen to her breathe, and the soft, subtle twang of her voice. “I’m fine. How ‘bout you?”

  She shrugged, her expression disheartened. “I’m worried,” she said simply. “His wound probably wasn’t life threatening, but it could have nicked his lung or something and I just didn’t notice.”

  He lifted his brows. “I think you would have noticed that. You need to not beat yourself up over this. We both lost him.”

  Sighing, she glanced at him from the corner of her eyes. “I really do know that, but I was literally right there with him. Maybe I should have insisted upon going with him inside the ambulance.”

  “They probably wouldn’t have let you since you weren’t family. And if you had gone, you might be dead right now.”

  The thought chilled him, but he knew he was right. Raine’s shoulders slumped. Lifting an arm, he tugged her into his side for a light hug, but she turned into him and wrapped her arms around his waist. Noah was a little taken aback, but he couldn’t say he didn’t like it.

  A few months ago, when Raine had gotten it into her heart to create a Holiday room for the residents, he’d helped her out. On the pretense of offering his SUV for her use, he’d gotten to drive her around for the day. He’d noticed her in the halls— she had a heart stopping shape and a smile that went on for miles— but hadn’t had a chance to get to know her. So, he’d taken that gift of time and let himself relax. It had been one of the best days he could remember in years. The woman was as sweet as she appeared, but way more genuine than he’d expected. All she’d wanted was a room to celebrate the men’s heritage and traditions, and to remind them that there was more to life than the Elton Recovery Building.

  That next night Paul had rolled Haven into the room. Noah remembered feeling his body go tense in expectation of danger. Raine had gone over to Haven, kneeling on the floor in front of the wheelchair. She’d been crying and holding Haven’s hand. That was when the vision happened. There were more than a dozen people in the room and every single one of them had gotten a chance to see the loved one they’d been thinking about. Noah had gotten to see his grandmother, and Raine had seen her mother, who had passed on a couple of years ago. It had been a magical night, and when he’d walked Raine to her room they’d shared a kiss.

  Even now he could remember the taste of her lips, and the way her full breasts felt against him as she leaned into his body. He woke up hard, some nights, remembering the feel of her in his arms.

  Noah had almost convinced himself that she couldn’t have felt as good as he remembered, but she was proving him wrong right now. He had tried to maintain his distance, for many reasons. But they all flew out of his head as she wrapped her arms around his waist. Her head tucked under his chin and there was no way he couldn’t lift his arms to hold her.

  Noah had had a few relationships over the years, though nothing recently, and holding Raine in his arms was seriously messing with the distance thing he was trying to maintain. It had been a long time since he’d just been held with no expectation for more. Even as the thought went through his head, though, his lower body began to respond. Fucking dick…

  Without letting her go he tried to control his reaction, but it was a losing battle. Raine had showered recently, her golden hair hanging long and damp down her back. It smelled… he couldn’t even describe it. Sexy, fresh. Her breasts were pressed against his stomach, two points of heat he could identify without even looking. This was really going to get him into trouble.

  Though it was the last thing he wanted to do, he pulled back from her. Raine blinked up at him, her vibrant blue eyes half-lidded. Morning sunlight beamed through the window, making the color even more stark against her pale face. And from this distance he could see the rim of thick dark lashes that were hers alone. She didn’t appear to have any makeup on at all.

  And her lips… they were parted just a bit, as if in preparation for a kiss. His kiss? Noah pulled back even further and her arms fell away. She blinked, looking a little hurt.

  Noah turned away so that he couldn’t see that look in her eyes. “When will Rose be here?”

  “I’m not sure. Poole is still sleeping. I think he only just went to bed a few hours ago.”

  Yeah, the computer guy had been scanning traffic cams and pages upon pages of who knows what for most of the night. Noah had asked him at one point what he’d done to earn Rose’s control. Poole had given him a sad smile and shaken his head. “Nothing I’ll ever admit to.”

  Noah was aware that the CIA sometimes walked a legality line, but he was glad it was working for them right now. “Yeah, let him sleep. He was gathering a load of information on the senator.”

  Noah waved at the dining room table where Poole had set up his office. Taking the distraction, Raine wandered over and flipped through a few papers. Then she stopped. “Hey, this guy was on the street yesterday.”

  Noah moved closed, looking down at the printed picture. “That’s Roger McCullough. He works for the Secret Service. Rose has documentation of him cleaning up the mess in Florida.”

  “What mess in Florida? When Blake was taken?”

  Yeah, was that all she’d been told? “Blake was taken to get Elizabeth to hand over money, but in the middle of all this Damon was trying to sell off the remaining vials of Marathon to the highest bidding nation. Several of his security guards had been enhanced, including me. I was eventually assigned to Blake and I didn’t have to deal with his idiocy as much, but the other guards were often put on display to show their abilities and healing capability.”

  “Are you serious?”

  “When Damon took Blake, we thought we were just going to the Senator’s house, like we had before many times, for a meeting or whatever. This time Elizabeth wasn’t with us though, so I knew something was up.” He crossed his arms, thinking about what he had to tell her. “I had a feeling, just from things I’d overheard, that things were going to explode in the house. The Senator received one vial of Marathon for helping Damon for the past few years, which he kept in a safe. Hall’s wife Victoria was sleeping with one of Damon’s guards and they had their own plan to sell the vial, which she stole from the safe. The night Blake and I escaped was a true clusterfuck, excuse my French.”

  Raine merely nodded.

  “There was a firefight as we left, and I had to shoot our way out. Damon’s men and the senator’s men clashed and there were a lot of bodies left on the ground. Mr. McCullough, there, was called to clean up the mess. The CIA has been watching him for a long time. You’re sure you saw him yesterday?”

  Raine nodded. “Definitely. He was staring straight at us from across Seventh Ave. when the cop stopped us from accessing the alley. Actually, it was when you held me against the wall when the shooting went off. When you pulled back, I saw him. Even with everything going on, it was obvious he was staring at the two of us.”

  Noah scowled, wondering how that could be possible. He had had no interaction with McCullough at all. Never met the man. And the guy had no reason to eyeball Raine.

  Poole walked out of the hallway,
rubbing his face blearily. He shuffled through the kitchen for the fridge, retrieved a Mountain Dew and popped the top, chugging it down. Raine wrinkled her nose. Then he headed for the computer.

  Noah tapped the picture of McCullough. “What’s going on with him right now?”

  Poole squinted at the picture. “Not sure. Why?”

  “Raine saw him on the street yesterday, watching Haven’s… display.”

  “Where,” Poole asked, swinging his chair around to the computer. Raine told him and he tapped instructions into the keyboard. Traffic cams popped up on the screen and he started scanning.

  “Son of a biscuit. There he is.”

  The appropriate camera stopped, a man frozen on the screen.

  “That’s him,” Raine said. “He wasn’t watching the police altercation, he was watching Noah and me.”

  “Fuck,” Noah growled.

  “Does he know you’re enhanced?” Raine asked him.

  “Oh, undoubtedly, if he’s in tight with the senator,” Poole said. “Can you imagine what they could do with a team of super soldiers?”

  “Who?” Agent Rose asked, walking into the room.

  “The Secret Service. Your buddy McCullough, in particular.”

  Rose leaned down to look at the screen. “Where was this?”

  “On Seventh Ave. yesterday,” Raine told him. “He was watching the two of us.”

  Rose looked at Raine and Noah didn’t like the calculation he saw in the other man’s eyes. “Are you sure,” he asked.

  Raine nodded her head. “Definitely. It was odd at the time, I thought, because he wasn’t looking at the excitement. It’s him.”

  Rose paced away, obviously aggravated. “Can you track him, Poole?”

  The younger man rattled on the keyboard faster than Noah could follow. The view on the screens flipped, changed and flipped many more times before Poole slowed. “Nope. I see where he entered the street but not where he disappeared to.”

  Rose cursed again, running his hands through his dark hair. Then he pulled out his phone and left the room.

  Noah paced, wishing he had more room to move around with less people. This was a nice apartment for New York, but he was really missing the lead-lined sanctuary Elizabeth had built him. He’d slept a little last night, but not nearly as much as he needed. He’d found himself focusing in on Raine’s rhythmic breathing in the next bedroom. It was steady and soft and had lulled him to sleep in spite of the chaos he could hear around him. Even with his earbuds planted, music playing, his hearing was sensitive enough to hear several apartments around them, even down several floors.

  And with it being the city, there were more raised voices, sirens, and general noise in addition to the normal ebb and flow of conversations. Focusing on her had helped him cut out all the extraneous buzz. And it had allowed him to get just a little bit of sleep.

  He couldn’t help but wonder what would happen if he actually slept with her?

  Haven woke to pain in his upper chest, but the sun was shining brightly, blinding him for a moment. When his vision sharpened, he found an older man with a lean face and wire-framed glasses leaning over him, withdrawing his hand. Haven shrank back, but there was nowhere to go. The man’s gray eyes narrowed and he straightened, planting his hands on his hips. “So, you’re the one causing the ruckus in my city.”

  Haven frowned. Had the man been probing his wound? He didn’t say anything to the man’s words because he didn’t have any idea who this guy was. Glancing around, he didn’t recognize where he was either.

  A chill slid over him as he remembered the visitor from last night. Had that actually been Belladonna bandaging his chest? His memory was as solid as Swiss cheese most of the time, so differentiating between reality and fantasy was hard. Had he imagined her bandaging his chest?

  No, he remembered the feel of her touching him too clearly. And the sight of her face illuminated in the doorway. Belladonna was a beautiful woman, but her soul was black as pitch. So many men had died at her whim.

  The man above him suddenly ripped the bandage from Haven’s chest and he cried out, trying to see the wound. Had the guy ripped it open again? A line of neat stitches angled just beneath his collar bone, thick rivulets of blood rolling down beneath his arm. Haven drew into himself even more, trying to protect himself by manifesting, but none of his guardians answered his call. There was a blank wall in the place where his power had been. Desperately, he tried again, but there was no response.

  “Hm, yes, you’re definitely one of them. What’s your name, boy?”

  Haven clamped his jaw shut, refusing to answer. He refused to even meet the man’s eyes. He had no idea who this guy was, so he wasn’t going to engage.

  “His name is Haven,” a soft voice told the older man. “Guyana camp. Level three telepathic.”

  Haven craned his head to look at the woman, both of his dreams and nightmares. In the light of the sun, her dark hair gleamed, captured somehow at the base of her head. Her cold brown eyes gave no hint to her thoughts, though her mouth was pinched. Level three what? Haven focused, trying to keep his chaotic thoughts under control. Guyana had been where he’d been tortured, and it had been where he’d first seen Belladonna.

  Turning his gaze slightly he looked at the man. He was average. There was nothing especially identifying about him. Haven didn’t think he’d ever met him before.

  “Why are you trying to get my attention, boy?”

  Instinctively he shook his head. “I don’t even know who you are,” he whispered.

  The man frowned and looked at Belladonna. “Is he telling the truth?”

  “Seems to be,” the woman murmured. “There’s a chance he could have been affected by my energy.”

  Haven looked at her, confused. She’d been calling to him for the past several days, pulling him to her. Why was she saying otherwise?

  The man looked at the woman sharply, and Haven could tell there was something underlying… the guy didn’t like that. There was anger in his gaze, and he didn’t seem like the kind of guy to just let stuff go by. Those hard, gray eyes targeted him. “Why are you following us? You were in DC drawing attention, and now you’re here. Who are you?”

  “I’m not following you,” Haven admitted. “I’m following her.”

  There was a feeling in his mind of reassurance, like the woman was telling him he’d answered correctly.

  “I don’t even know who you are,” Haven told the man again.

  The man gave Belladonna a long look. “Maybe we’ll just keep it that way, then.”

  Then he turned and left, taking a huge amount of tension with him. The woman moved toward Haven and in spite of himself, he shrank away again. Gathering his strength, he tried to call up his guardians, but they refused to appear. He panted, praying she didn’t touch him.

  Belladonna gave him a withering look. “Settle down. I’m not going to hurt you.”

  In spite of the words, when she reached out to wipe the blood from his wound, he held his breath, dreading more pain. It did hurt, but not the way it could have. For a long moment, he watched her clean his wound, not saying anything. She didn’t say anything either, not until she had rebandaged the spot. “It didn’t go all the way through so I had to dig it out. I’m sorry if you’re in pain. I don’t have anything to give you.”

  “I don’t understand what’s going on,” he whispered.

  She looked at him, her cocoa brown eyes cold. “You need to heal as fast as you can, because if you don’t, the senator is going to get rid of you in a very deliberate way.”

  “Senator?”

  “Senator Cameron Hall. You really don’t know?” Her dark brows lowered over her intense eyes.

  Haven shook his head.

  “Well,” the woman said, smiling slightly. “Let me enlighten you. That was Senator Cameron Hall, one of the original governmental backers of the Spartan Program. He thinks you’re tracking him down to exact some kind of vengeance.”

  Haven bli
nked, his mind spinning away. He’d known there had been high-level support from the US government, but he didn’t think he’d ever heard any names connected to it. This would be something Dr. Elizabeth would be interested in.

  Haven lifted a hand to rub at his head. It was throbbing, probably because he’d been more focused in the past fifteen hours than the past fifteen days. It was taking a lot of energy to be aware, but he had to. His body was healing but his mind was using entirely too much energy to complete basic tasks. When he blinked his eyes open, Belladonna was watching him, he thought. Her eyes were kind of…glazed over. Then he had the terrifying thought that she was in his mind, and he scrambled to try to erect some type of mental barrier. She waved her hand impatiently, touching his head, and he felt his feeble attempt at protection fall away, leaving his emotions raw and open. There was no way he could protect himself from her invasion.

  There was no pain, though. Instead something washed over his mind, like aloe on a sunburn, and he gasped. It took him a long moment to realize that the level of pain in his mind had gone down, significantly. Shuddering, he closed his eyes, feeling the release of pressure that had been there for years, literally. For the first time in longer than he could remember, he could take a breath, his lungs expanding like they never had before. The anxiety and tension had eased from his body.

  The release didn’t help his energy level, though, and he fought to open his eyes to look at her. “What did you do to me?”

  “Nothing major,” she murmured, pulling a blanket up over him. “Just got rid of some of the fog in your mind. Sleep, Haven. When you wake up, I think you’ll feel better than you ever have.”