Stronger than Sin (Sin Hunters)

by Caridad Piñeiro

  “Yes. Some kind of compact bone. Your body seems to be producing it in response to certain kinds of inflammation or injury.”

  Jesse nodded and looked back up at the ceiling, avoiding her gaze. “So I guess that’s it. Don’t get hurt and I don’t get any bone, right?”

  “Possibly. Except that your body is making too many bone-producing proteins. If we can’t get that under control—”

  “But if you could, it would help someone with the problem I had—fragile bones.”

  She didn’t miss the hopefulness in his voice, but she couldn’t give him false expectations. “There are so many diseases that eat away bone. We don’t know what caused your bone loss—”

  “But you know I’m building bone. Just look at me,” he said, pulling his hand out of hers and sitting up.

  She did look at him. At the dichotomy of his male beauty and the ugliness of the damage.

  Somewhere within him lay the key to both his curse and a possible cure. The problem would be finding out which before the mechanisms in his body got totally out of control and turned him into cold, hard bone.

  Inside, her stomach twisted at the thought of that. At the possibility that if she and her team couldn’t find out what was going on, he might die.

  She felt compelled to touch him again, as if her touch could somehow soothe the hurt and damage he had suffered. And so she cupped his jaw. Strong and straight and masculinely perfect.

  With him sitting on the table, their faces were closer to level, providing her an amazing view of the blue of his eyes, like the ocean he craved outside his window. And like the ocean when a storm came, his gaze grew a dark gray as it met hers and he mimicked her action, cradling her cheek with his large hand.

  “I know you can help me, Liliana,” he said and traced the line of her cheekbone with his thumb.

  “I will try, Jesse, only—”

  He silenced her by moving his thumb down across her lips. Her heartbeat kicked up a notch as he ran his finger along the edges of her lips, a prelude to a kiss. When he slowly bent toward her, she skipped back and away from his touch, sure of only one thing.

  She was attracted to him.

  What right-minded woman wouldn’t be, she thought, reconsidering her whole “not into the surfer dude” thing.

  But he was her patient, and he was capable of violence. Extreme violence. He had confessed as much himself when he had explained about his need to vent his anger on the body bag. And to him, she was probably just another conquest.

  All of those factors outweighed any kind of physical attraction from which she was suffering.

  “I need to run another test,” she said to put things back on track.

  Jesse smiled, both amused and saddened by her reaction to him. She found him desirable, but then again, he was used to that reaction from women. After a while it got stale without anything more behind it. He had found that out the hard way after a parade of unsatisfying relationships.

  And she was also still wary of him. Not that he blamed her. She was aware of his capacity for violence and unaware of the secrets he was keeping. Plus there was his past. He had done little to reassure her that he was a changed man from the one with whom she was familiar: the Jesse Bradford of the tabloids, with his brawling and womanizing ways.

  “What kind of test, Doc?” he asked, acknowledging that she was back to hiding behind professionalism. He preferred Liliana the woman but would settle for Liliana the doctor for now.

  “Just like that, Jesse? What kind of test?” she asked, narrowing her deep brown gaze to consider him.

  “What choice do I have, Doc? Let you use me for a pincushion or turn to bone?” he said, mindful also of the bargain with Whittaker that he had to keep. One that he knew the beautiful doctor would not like. At that thought, guilt set in that he was deceiving her by allowing her to believe that Whittaker and his friends were actually good guys, when all they wanted was a way to improve the humans they planned to sell as weapons.

  She must have sensed his guilt, since her expression remained thoughtful, as if she didn’t quite believe he could be that cooperative. But he had little choice. If he didn’t help Whittaker, his sister would pay the price. So he pressed Liliana again, “What kind of test?”

  “The blood we drew from you isn’t exhibiting the same behavior as the other samples we have.”

  “The other samples being from Caterina Shaw?”

  Liliana nodded. “Wardwell was a leader in creating fluorescent proteins for tracking genes. They used them in the genes transplanted into Caterina and Santiago, producing fairly obvious ways to see the gene expression.”

  “Translation, please, for us non-science types,” he teased, although he found her kind of sexy in scientist mode. Brains and beauty were a potent mix.

  “Caterina’s blood glows. The glow was starting to become visible on her skin and in her eyes because of how the genes were multiplying.”

  “And you’re not seeing that in my blood?” he said and rested his forearms on his thighs as he sat on the edge of the massage table, swinging his legs back and forth.

  Liliana moved away from him to root in her medical bag. She withdrew a test tube with some clear liquid, a long, thick needle, and a syringe. She faced him once again and said, “There is some glow in your blood, but not what we expected to see.”

  He gestured to the needle. “I suppose you think that might help?”

  She nodded. “There are bone-producing proteins in your marrow. We think the genes that are expressing—”

  “As in glowing?” he interjected and leaned back on his elbows.

  Her gaze flitted across his body for a moment, bringing a flush of pink to her olive skin and a stammer when she spoke. “The test… a bone marrow procedure, will help us get a sample to see if that’s where Wardwell’s genes are working.”

  He sat up and held his hands out wide in a gesture of surrender. “What do you need me to do?”

  Liliana considered him. So damn handsome. Too damn agreeable, but then again, his life depended on his helping her. Maybe whatever vibes she was picking up about his willingness to be poked and prodded were wrong.

  “Lie down on your stomach. I’m going to make a little incision below the small of your back near your ilium. It’s the best place to get a sample,” she explained.

  “Will it hurt?” he asked as he turned onto his stomach and brought all of his body to rest on the table.

  Finally some hesitation on his part. Good, she thought as she went on with the explanation. “The cut will be minor and the needle shouldn’t hurt all that much. You may have some pain when I connect the syringe and extract the marrow.”

  “You may want to get Bruno in here, then,” he said, resting his face on its side so he could see her.

  “Why?” she asked as she plucked a scalpel from her medical kit along with some alcohol pads, butterfly bandages and gauze.

  “Pain brings anger. The greater the pain, the worse the reaction, so just in case…”

  She recalled the notations in the Wardwell file and his words about fighting Santiago. She had personal experience with that psycho and his rage. If Jesse could fight someone that powerful…

  Fear settled in her gut.

  She took him up on his suggestion, walking back to the kitchen to get Bruno and have him escort her to the gym.

  Jesse was still lying there, facing her as she approached the massage table. She grabbed the scalpel she had left by his side, raised it, and said, “Are you ready?”

  A footfall came behind her, and Jesse’s gaze shifted to Bruno as he entered. “Don’t be afraid to use that cap gun if you need to,” Jesse said.

  Bruno laid his hand on his gun, but his next words diminished the menace in that gesture. “And kill Whittaker’s golden goose? No way.”

  Whittaker’s golden goose? Liliana thought, the words distracting her until Jesse urged her on.

  “I’m ready for you, Doc.”

  CHAPTER 10

&n
bsp; Morales, Edwards, and Whittaker stared at the patient’s body as it rested on the stainless steel table in their laboratory warehouse. A “Y” incision marred the patient’s colorful skin and was pulled back to reveal the tangle of organs beneath the vibrant flesh.

  “You’re sure about what’s happening?” Whittaker questioned, jangling the change in his pocket as he glanced at Morales in his blood-stained white lab coat.

  “Massive organ failure. Genes were replicating too quickly and the plasmapheresis couldn’t clean the blood.”

  Edwards tsked and leaned toward the body. Peered within. “How many others are exhibiting these symptoms?”

  Morales walked to a worktable a short distance away and snared a clipboard from its surface. He flipped through the papers on it, then peered at his partners. “One other patient is close to organ failure. Then there are another four with similar problems. We may lose the one, but it will likely take at least another week or so before the others become critical,” he said.

  Whittaker stalked away to the cages holding the assorted patients, who began to whimper, whine, or scream depending on their physical and mental conditions. He paused before one cage where a man lay quietly on a narrow cot. He reached in through the bars and nudged the patient with his foot.

  The patient didn’t respond.

  He hurried back toward his partners, hands jammed into his pockets. The change silent as he held himself still against the frustration building in his body. “We can’t afford to lose any more of them. It’ll make the buyers antsy if they think they’re too fragile.”

  “We need a different inhibitor complex. One that controls the replication with fewer side effects,” Edwards advised.

  “Now, why didn’t I think of that? Oh, wait, I did,” Morales chimed in snidely, looking upward and tapping his lips for effect.

  “The complex that Carrera has developed—”

  “Has to be better than the crap we have. Just look at Shaw. She’s not on a slab yet,” Morales said and jerked his hand in the direction of their dead patient.

  “Not yet,” Edwards replied and rubbed his lip with his finger before facing Whittaker. “Can you get us a sample of Carrera’s inhibitor complex?”

  Whittaker shrugged. “Carrera hasn’t needed to use it on Bradford yet. Why is that?”

  Edwards shook his head and considered all that he knew about Bradford’s case. The genes implanted would be replicating, likely as fast as with the others, only…

  “The replication isn’t going to be as visible as with the other patients. Because of that, it may take Carrera a little time to figure out what’s happening.”

  Morales immediately added his assessment. “But she will have to do something to keep Bradford’s bones from becoming too dense—”

  “And having other parts of him turn to bone,” Whittaker said, recalling what he had seen of Bradford’s body.

  Morales smiled in seeming pleasure at the mention of the unusual bone forming on Bradford. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

  Whittaker glared at Morales. “You’re a sick bastard, aren’t you?”

  His condemnation earned an amused chuckle from the other man, who replied, “And I suppose you consider yourself a Boy Scout?”

  Whittaker jangled the change in his pockets and said, “I’ll get you the inhibitor.”

  Edwards elegantly crossed his arms over his chest, rumpling the expensive wool of his suit. He turned and faced the cages with the patients.

  “If it takes too long, we may need more test subjects,” he said.

  Whittaker shrugged off that request. “There are plenty more where they came from,” he said, thinking of how easy it was just to snag a few more homeless from the streets of nearby Camden or Philadelphia.

  Edwards tapped his lip with his finger and finally said, “Then consider this a request to get us a few more.”

  Jesse sucked in a breath at the chill as Liliana sprayed a topical anesthetic along his back.

  “You’ll experience pressure from the scalpel.” She sprayed the area again and he jumped slightly but then settled down.

  “I’m going to cut now,” she said, leaned over him, and carefully made the incision near the dimple beside the small of his back.

  “So far, so good, Doc,” Jesse replied.

  Liliana exchanged the scalpel for the long needle needed to pierce through his bone and extract the sample. She also placed the test tube for Jesse’s bone marrow sample nearby.

  As she had done before, she warned Jesse about the next step in the process. “I’m going to insert the bone probe now. You may feel some pressure again, possibly some pain when I remove the sample.”

  “Thanks for letting me know,” he said and dropped his hands close to the legs of the massage table. Loosely wrapped them around the legs.

  Liliana inhaled deeply and inserted the probe into the incision she had made. Jesse shifted a bit, and his hands grasped the legs of the table a little more tightly. She pressed the needle through the small distance to his hip bone and, when it hit something hard, increased the force of her invasion to pierce the bone. A little bit more pressure than was normally necessary, since she still felt the resistance of dense, hard bone rather than marrow.

  Jesse was now gripping the legs tightly, and his breathing had grown choppy.

  “Almost done,” she said, sympathizing with the pain he might be experiencing from the procedure. With a gentle final push, the needle slipped into the marrow and she quickly attached the syringe to remove the sample.

  Jesse groaned. His body was visibly trembling from the strain, and a thin line of blood trickled down the side of his hip from the incision she had made. A second later, however, she watched as the bleeding stopped and the wound seemed to be closing up.

  Another moan erupted from Jesse, and his hands on the legs of the table were a bloodless white from the pressure he was exerting.

  “Jesse?” she questioned, unsure of what was happening, since the worst of the procedure was already over.

  “Hurts, Doc,” he replied, his breathing rough. His body shaking.

  Liliana made a quick visual observation of the bone marrow sample she had taken, noting the bright phosphorescent glow before transferring the sample to the test tube. She quickly placed the sample in her bag and turned her attention to dealing with Jesse.

  “Where is the pain, Jesse?”

  “Hip. Back. Head,” he said, groaned, and began to bang his head against the padded top of the table.

  Liliana examined the site of the incision. A pale white line was starting to form along the cut, and as she palpated the area around the incision, she could feel a slight hardness that said additional bone was forming beneath. Probably all along the path of the probe and at his hip.

  He moaned again and warned, “Move her back, Bruno.”

  Jesse staggered to his feet, holding his head with his hands and looking almost wild-eyed.

  “Jesse?” she said, but Bruno was yanking her away and to a far side of the room.

  “It’s the pain. It makes him lose control.”

  Jesse lurched forward toward the gym equipment and grabbed hold of the handle for the bench press to steady himself. A few feet away was a body bag suspended from a chain in the ceiling. Jesse attacked it, brutally punching the bag.

  Liliana flinched at the sound and the force of his blows, imagining the destruction he could wreak on a human body. Despite that, she realized that if there was one thing that Jesse had it was control, contrary to Bruno’s statement. Despite his very obvious pain, he had managed to turn the response away from her and Bruno and to the inanimate body bag.

  The muscles in his body trembled and rippled as he struck at it, and fear took hold in Liliana, but a different kind of fear than she had expected.

  It wasn’t the violence making her worry. It was the reality that the test she had done and the beating Jesse was administering were going to create inflammation and injury. And if she was right about her earlier ass
essment, that was going to create even more destruction in Jesse’s body. Unless they could control the bone formation.

  It suddenly occurred to her just what they had to do.

  She jerked away from Bruno and to the massage table. Grabbed her cell phone from her medical bag and dialed Carmen. Her friend answered almost instantly.

  “How’d it go, amiga?” Carmen asked.

  “Not good,” Liliana admitted. “Can you create a filter for those bone proteins we detected in Jesse? Enough to get the plasmapheresis setup working?”

  “I think I can,” Carmen replied.

  “I need that done ASAP, and clear the lab. Just you, me—”

  “And our special patient?” Carmen piped in, which meant someone was in the lab that hadn’t been cleared to know about Jesse.

  “Yes. How long will it take?”

  “An hour or two.”

  Jesse was still pounding the bag, although not as forcefully. Sweat dripped from his body, and he was near the edge of physical exhaustion, probably the only thing that worked to control the anger and the pain.

  “Make it happen. We’ll see you soon,” Liliana said.

  “I don’t know if that’s possible,” Bruno advised and approached her.

  She shot a glance at Jesse as he dropped to his knees, hugging the bottom of the bag for support. She jabbed her finger at Bruno and said, “You want to lose the golden goose?”

  Bruno paled beneath his olive-colored skin. “That can’t happen. Doc. Whittaker—”

  “Will demote your ass if it does. Which means I have to get Jesse to the lab.” She crossed her arms and raised her chin to get her point across. And for good measure, she said, “And don’t call me ‘Doc.’ ”

  Bruno glanced at Jesse as he kneeled before the bag, sweat dripping from his body. His breathing rough from his exertions.

  “Fuck it. I’ll be waiting in the garage for you. Make sure he covers up his face,” Bruno said.

  She walked over to the massage table and grabbed the sweats Jesse had been wearing earlier. She also snagged a few towels from a storage unit next to a water cooler. Gingerly she approached Jesse, unsure of how he would react.