The clean-cut guard at the gate perked up as Raphael’s hydrogen fueled vehicle approached. He pressed a button so the maglev shuttle would hover in place. “I.D. please,” the guard said, giving Raphael a bored expression as if he could barely be bothered to do his job.
Raphael knew it was a ruse. Even now the man was taking in details about his appearance just in case his chip and I.D. came back stolen or invalid. He handed over the paperwork and exposed his neck. It took a minute for his Republic of Arizona chip to register. By the time the light turned green and the guard waved him through the gates, Raphael was sweating.
That was twice he’d been caught perspiring. First with Catherine and now here. He’d have to check himself into the emergency care center if it didn’t stop. Vamps shouldn’t sweat, especially ones as old as him.
Raphael drove past the green manicured parks and rising skyscrapers straight to Michael’s home. It was a modest two-room unit—inside a multistory steel and concrete building—that had a private cleansing room attached for convenience and comfort. The amenities were rare given the communal bathing facilities located throughout the city. He couldn’t afford to stop by Michael’s office in case Roark Montgomery was in. Raphael wasn’t sure if the politician could identify his face as being one of the men who’d come to break Red and Morgan out of his prison, but he had no doubt he’d recognize him as Michael’s brother. Raphael would just have to try to contact Michael via comlink if he wasn’t home.
He used the code his brother had given him after their reunion a couple of months ago. Reunion probably wasn’t the correct term to describe their encounter. His brother had been about to assassinate Morgan Hunter when Raphael came upon him in the desert.
Until that point, Raphael had thought Michael was dead, along with the rest of their family. It had been a happy moment and one of utter disbelief. So much pain endured and years lost, but that was over now. They’d found each other once again and Raphael wasn’t about to let anything or anyone tear them apart.
The lights were off when he entered Michael’s living quarters. Normally obsessively neat, his home lay in disarray. More like ransacked. Clothes and rest pad linens lay strewn across the floor. Empty blood bags had been tossed haphazardly next to toppled furniture. Had Michael been robbed? If so, the thief was probably buried out in the desert by now. Michael had little patience for thieves or anyone else for that matter.
Raphael stopped and looked around, but didn’t immediately see any broken items. He inhaled, but noted no scent of Michael’s blood or of strangers. What had occurred that would make Michael do this to his home? Was it the chip? And why hadn’t he contacted him if he was in trouble? Raphael had tried to find him after the impromptu prison break, but had been unable to locate him. He realized now he should’ve tried harder.
Morgan had said that he’d heard screams when Roark chained him to the wall. He’d also told Raphael that Michael seemed different. He walked over to the storage bins under Michael’s mini–water dispenser where he kept his equipment bag as he called it. Raphael knew the assassination kit contained a laser rifle, a knife, and at least one pistol. He opened the bin. The bag was gone.
There was no need to call Roark’s office now. Raphael knew for certain Michael wasn’t there and he had a pretty good idea where he’d find him. He pictured Morgan and Red running for their lives. There would be nowhere safe they could hide. Not with his brother on their trail.
Michael was an efficient hunter, and Raphael had no doubt that he was a deadly assassin. The old military had trained them well, but Raphael’s skill was nowhere near his brother’s. Working for a man like Roark had only honed Michael’s awesome skills. Couple that with his telekinetic abilities and he was unstoppable.
Panic and fear gave his gut a one-two punch, leaving him breathless. After everything they’d been through and all the time they’d lost, only one question remained.
Why?
It took the whole afternoon, but Chaos finally located the maglev shuttle wreckage. Someone had gone to a lot of trouble to keep it out of sight. Whether it was Roark, Red, or Morgan she didn’t know. The craft was half buried in the sand and from a distance resembled a boulder. No wonder IPTT hadn’t been able to find it.
Twisted metal radiated heat. She approached, weapon drawn. A hole the size of two laser cannon blasts gaped obscenely at the desert sands, its metal teeth frozen in a perpetual roar. Chaos ducked inside with her pistol raised, but the shuttle was empty. She holstered her weapon, then began a slow search.
At first glance, the only damage appeared to be the hole in the side of the shuttle, but upon closer inspection Chaos found that the navigation system had been carefully removed, not yanked out like she would’ve expected if someone were trying to disable the vehicle. The instrument panel and tracker cell were also missing. Almost like the parts had been harvested to sell.
Why would someone take the time to do that, when the whole point of the attack was to escape or at least make it look like Red had escaped? Did they need credits? Who would they take the parts to if they did? It wasn’t like Red or Morgan traded in this area. It didn’t make sense. She pushed charred pieces aside with the toe of her boot. They crumbled under the pressure.
After several minutes of futility, Chaos was convinced she was on the wrong track. No one had left any clues behind, only an empty shell filled with more questions. She was about to leave when an exposed wire caught her attention. Chaos brushed the debris aside and found the remains of a navcom buried beneath. It was an old model and severely damaged, but definitely IPTT issue.
Chaos carefully picked up the pieces and placed them into a preprogrammed courier pouch. She punched her I.D. number into the side of the pouch and addressed it to Commander Robert Santiago. The courier would fly directly to IPTT. He’d have to put in his I.D. number and thumbprint to get it to open, which would keep it from falling into the wrong hands once it arrived at headquarters.
The pouch also generated its own electromagnetic field to prevent it from being shot down outside of IPTT. Every security measure had a countersecurity measure to ensure the contents’ safety.
Chaos stepped outside of the shuttle. It was only then that she noticed the sun was starting to set. She shook the contents of the pouch to make sure it was secure. The bag was silent. It may not be anything, but it was all she’d been able to recover. Chaos set the courier pouch on the ground and pressed a button on its side.
The pouch took off like a guided missile, which was apt, since that’s where the technology originated. She watched the pouch rocket through the air, leaving a fiery contrail behind. When it was out of sight, she turned back to the shuttle to reexamine the hole.
What had Morgan used to make it, since a laser cannon was far from portable? He’d been on the run, so he’d had to travel light, but there wasn’t anything out there to her knowledge besides the cannon that could do this kind of damage. Was that when Roark had captured him or had he already been imprisoned? She should’ve asked when she helped Raphael break them out.
Chaos ran her finger over the edge of the opening. It wasn’t sharp. It had been fused, which meant heat. Roark should’ve had this hauled in as evidence when he reported the incident. It would’ve backed up his story and been damning to IPTT. Unless he didn’t want it to be found. It was one thing to show a vid of the damage. It was quite another to produce examinable proof. Nothing would surprise her at this point.
“What are you up really to?” she said aloud.
She reached for her backpack and took out her solar light to disperse the growing shadows. With a twist, it glowed to life. Chaos went back to examining the blast pattern. There was no way Morgan could’ve done this on his own and Red wasn’t known for her demolition skills.
Besides, now that she’d reexamined the hole it was clear from the edges that the blast had come from the inside. No wonder Roark hadn’t wanted the vehicle to be found. The portable equipment IPTT held in its vault wasn’t capable of
this kind of damage. The only thing that could’ve made a hole this size was a blast cannon and they weighed two hundred pounds. Chaos looked around, but didn’t immediately spot anything that could hide a weapon of that size.
Roark had obviously caught them at some point or they wouldn’t have ended up inside his personal prison. But where? And how? She really should’ve asked Raphael. It’s not as if Red and Morgan were easy targets. They’d know how to hide in the desert. It was part of law-enforcement training.
Heck, Roark even had the same training, although it had been a long time ago. Chaos stilled. If he was willing to drug her, a total stranger, how far would he go to get Red and Morgan back? She shivered as the answer stared her in the face in the form of a manufactured hole. Chaos punched the shuttle coordinates into her navcom and sent them to the commander. He could decide how to proceed.
What did Morgan and Red have on Roark that made him so desperate to silence them? Chaos wished she knew. It would go a long way to solving this mystery. Despite her assurance that she’d find the commander’s granddaughter, Chaos wasn’t entirely convinced she could do it. She hadn’t mentioned that when she asked for the commander’s IOU or when she’d given Raphael her word that she’d help him. Didn’t think that confession would aid her cause.
She just wanted to keep her job and avoid arrest. If finding Gina Santiago guaranteed that, then she’d travel to hell to do it.
She’d heard whispers during training about the woman nicknamed Red because of the blood she spilled on the job at IPTT. Those rumors included a lot of dead rookies, who’d been killed trying to provide backup. How many recruits had she lost? Chaos didn’t know, but Red’s kill rate on unknowns reached legendary status.
Chaos didn’t lend the stories much credence given what the other recruits said about her. She thought about the cruelty she’d been subjected to since joining IPTT.
Her given name was Catherine, or so she’d been told at the cloning labs before they put her to work with the manufactured labor force. She’d jacked an unused I.D. and escaped on her twenty-third birthday, joining IPTT shortly thereafter. The recruits had called her Catherine in the beginning, but it didn’t take long for that to change. A couple of slips of power on her part and she’d become Chaos. Like Red, she’d turned the name into a badge of honor.
Fortunately, the recruits hadn’t known exactly what happened. They’d been left confused, disoriented, and with short-term memory loss. They had been lucky. It could’ve been much worse. Chaos had seen what happened when her power went unchecked for long periods of time and it wasn’t pretty.
The blank faces of the mindless haunted her dreams. Memories of their existence erased in a blink never to be recovered. Those faces never let her forget her past. Maybe she and Gina Santiago had more in common than she thought.
She bent over to examine the entry one more time and a warm breeze washed over her, raising the fine hairs on her arms. Her hand automatically moved to her weapon, and in that instant Chaos knew she wasn’t alone. She also had no doubt about who was with her.
Chaos couldn’t see Raphael, but she felt him like a caress of fingertips across her bare skin. She glanced over her shoulder and scanned the area. Nothing stood out. The desert remained quiet. Abnormally so. Like it knew a predator hunted in the area. She wasn’t sure how Raphael had found her. Chaos was positive he hadn’t followed them to IPTT. The motion sensors and radar at headquarters would’ve detected a shuttle stationed nearby.
The sensation of being watched occurred again and she unconsciously reached for the spot on her neck where Raphael had bitten and drunk from her. The thought sent a delicious shiver down her spine.
Despite her resolve to forget about him and the whole incident in Nuria, Chaos’ body remembered with a vengeance. Even now she could feel an ache building, where moments ago there’d been none. She growled in frustration and glared at the darkness.
“Come out where I can see you,” she said. “There’s no point in hiding. I know you’re there.”
The shadows shifted and suddenly Chaos found herself staring at her seductive kidnapper. His dark hair lifted from his broad shoulders as a warm breeze caught it. His black eyes seemed flat until they landed upon her, then they took on a predatory glow that she felt all the way to her . . . soul.
“As you wish,” Raphael said, his gaze scrolling over her.
Her breath caught. “I don’t appreciate being followed,” Chaos said. Ire and desire mixed to form a volatile cocktail inside of her.
“Hmm, I was thinking the same thing. If you wanted to see me again all you had to do was comlink me,” he said smoothly.
Her eyes widened. He had not just accused her of chasing him like some lovesick moppet. She did not chase men and she especially wouldn’t chase him. Chaos hadn’t even known he was there until a minute ago. “Your ego is astounding.” She huffed. “I’m amazed there is room to stand next to you.”
“It’s funny, I don’t recall you complaining about my . . . ego last night or the night before or the night before that and the night before that—”
“Enough! I get it.” Chaos felt a flush of heat fill her face. “We’re not discussing that anymore.”
“If you don’t want to talk about our . . .”
“Raphael,” she growled his name in warning.
“Nocturnal activities,” he continued, “then perhaps you’ll tell me what you’re doing here out in the middle of nowhere. Anyone could’ve come upon you. You left yourself vulnerable.”
Why was he suddenly angry? It wasn’t like she’d snuck up on him. “I’m armed,” she said, tapping her laser pistol.
Raphael moved with blinding speed, quickly disarming her. “Weapons are of little use, if you’re caught unaware,” he said, handing her pistol back to her. “Now I’ll ask you again, what are you doing here? What were you looking for?”
Chaos tensed. She didn’t want to discuss why she was here. She’d given him her word that she’d help. That should be enough. As for her other reasons for being here, those were none of his business. Chaos didn’t want him to know she was trying to work around their agreement. She wasn’t sure how Raphael would respond to the news. “I’m on patrol.”
“You aren’t dressed for patrol.”
“How would you know?” she asked.
“Do not play me for a fool, my little storm.” He stepped closer, crowding her, and inhaled. “I can smell the truth—and the lies before they leave your succulent mouth. If you like, I can steal them off your lips with a kiss.”
She saw his eyes close and his face relax. Almost as if being near her calmed him, which was ridiculous, since they’d just met and not under the best of circumstances. She smiled as she recalled their hand-to-hand combat. It had been fun, albeit dangerous. Raphael could’ve easily hurt her, but he hadn’t.
The battle had ended in a bite. Chaos had never been so surprised in her life. Despite the savagery, there’d been something overwhelmingly erotic about the moment. Not that she’d ever tell him. She looked over and realized his eyes were open. Raphael was watching her, a smile playing on his sinful mouth.
Chaos broke eye contact first, then cleared her throat. “A kiss won’t be necessary.” She was not disappointed. She glanced at his mouth, taking in his savage lips. Nope, not disappointed at all.
She knew she’d have to tell him the truth or at least some version of it if he could detect a lie so easily. Chaos still wasn’t sure how he could do it, but the how wasn’t nearly as important as the fact that he could. She’d tried confusing him and look where that got her, fanged and banged. She sighed in resignation. “I’m going to find Red.”
Raphael’s expression changed from flirtatious to suspicious in a breath. “Why?”
“It’s what we agreed to, remember?” she asked. “Find proof of their innocence.”
“Yes, I recall, but I doubt that’s what brought you out here in the middle of the desert.” He cocked his head and looked at her, studying he
r as if she were a new species. Chaos couldn’t tell what he was looking for, but after a while, he relaxed. “Whose orders are you following?” he asked, straightening the sleeves of his shirt casually while he waited for her answer.
Chaos scowled. His question left no doubt that he could smell a lie. “The commander’s orders. Well, he didn’t exactly give me any orders. More like permission.”
“I see.” Raphael didn’t say anything else, only slowly looked around as if someone might be listening.
“I’m alone,” she said.
“I know you are,” he said, as if it was obvious to anyone who wasn’t a simpleton.
Chaos rested her hand on her hip. “Are you going to tell me what you’re doing here? Because I’ll be honest, this whole conversation is beginning to bore me.” She glanced at her short nails. She’d definitely have to stop biting them when she returned to IPTT headquarters.
Raphael gave her a withering look. “Nothing has changed since we last spoke. I’m still seeking my brother. I’d like to find him before he gets into trouble.”
Disappointment washed over her. That wasn’t the answer she’d expected—or hoped for. Chaos had thought he’d say he was out here looking for Morgan Hunter and Red. Or better yet, he was searching for her. But Raphael hadn’t. He was after his wayward brother. Jealousy burned through her, unwelcomed and unwanted. Chaos knew it was wrong to feel that way, when Raphael was only looking out for his family. So why did she?
And why in the hell was she disappointed? It wasn’t like she wanted him here. He was already in the way. Raphael would only impede her search further once he found out she didn’t care what happened to his friend Morgan Hunter.
The fact that Raphael was after his brother only reminded Chaos of what she lacked in her own life. If she went missing tomorrow, no one, not even IPTT, would look very hard for her. No one would care.
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