Under Pressure

by Zoë Normandie

  “I am,” Kendra replied, watching him connect the wires to her new security system. “Full monitoring with video.”

  He took his card out of his pocket, handing it to her. “This is the best system on the market. You won’t have to worry about nothing. I’ll get you registered.”

  She held his business card, feeling the hard edges. It was the first time in her life she’d felt the need to install a comprehensive security system in her home, and she’d lived in LA for a long time. She wasn’t sure if it was Delta or Hunter that had changed that need, maybe both—but she had to protect herself.

  And her family.

  The distant sound of a baby crying flooded the house.

  “I’m all done here. I’ll let you get to that,” the technician said, packing up his tools and moving to the front door.

  Kendra nodded, seeing him out and locking the door behind him. She glanced up and down the street before shuttering her blinds.

  She moved quickly toward the baby room, hearing the cries growing louder and louder as she approached. Pushing the door open, she proceeded to coo and assure the little guy that everything was okay. She was never going away again.

  “Good afternoon, sweetheart,” Kendra sang to Leo in his crib as she bent over to scoop him up.

  Cradling him in her arms, she asked him how his nap had been and checked his diaper. He smiled back up to her with his darling little face. She shuffled backward until she found the rocking chair and plunked down. Rocking ever so gently, she kissed his soft forehead. God, he smelled so good.

  “I love you more than anything,” she whispered to him, hoping he understood.

  Leo settled in her arms, staring back up to her in delight. As she rocked and rocked, she sang him nursery rhymes, making him smile. His rosy cheeks were enough for her to do that all day long. She was all he really knew, but one day, she was going to have to tell him. She had no idea what to tell herself, either.

  One thing was for damn sure. She was never, ever going to have a relationship with Delta. She couldn’t even process how that had ended, still stunned at what she’d seen. The only thing that still mattered was her son and doing everything she could to protect him.

  She wasn’t sure how long she sat there, holding Leo close, but eventually Sienna popped her head into the room, holding a warm bottle.

  “Is someone hungry?” Sienna beamed at the baby, handing the bottle to Kendra.

  “You should just relax. I’ve been putting too much on you.” Kendra grinned up at her big sister, taking the bottle to feed the baby. Leo latched on immediately, hungrily drinking the milk.

  “I told you. You are working, and I am not,” Sienna reminded her, crossing her arms in the doorframe. “You’ve been looking so exhausted lately.”

  “Thanks,” Kendra replied sardonically.

  Sienna tilted her head. “Emotionally exhausted.” She paused and walked into the room to start folding the baby blanket on the back of the rocking chair.

  Kendra focused on Leo, feeling the warmth and support of her family all around her. Times like those, she didn’t know what she’d do if she was well and truly alone.

  “That’s a pretty intense security system,” Sienna probed. “You think that’s really… necessary?”

  Kendra bit her lip nervously, unsure how to reply. Yes, she thought it was necessary—but didn’t want to scare her sister. She was holding Leo tight, but she didn’t know if she could handle it if Sienna left.

  “Is this about Delta?” Sienna continued. “He’s making you think you need it?”

  Kendra looked up, giving her sister a serious look. “Yes.”

  Sienna launched into it, venting, “That asshole. He’s always trying to control you.”

  “It’s not about him trying to control me,” Kendra started, taking in a deep breath. “It’s about what he can’t control.”

  “Which is?” Sienna drew closer, waiting on her.

  “Himself.”

  A little stunned, Sienna parted her lips as she absorbed Kendra’s statement—darting her focus across her sister’s face to better understand. Kendra pulled Leo in tighter as she repositioned him to start burping. Holding him against her shoulder, she methodically tapped his back.

  “What do you mean?” Sienna finally responded.

  “There’s something inside Delta that he can’t control, like a switch,” Kendra said, rubbing circles on Leo’s back. “I’ve seen it. It’s not normal.”

  “Well, what about the lab results? His glove?”

  Kendra rocked her baby, letting out a low breath, and looked back up at her sister. She regretfully explained, “Lily called me this morning about the results—the paperwork had just been couriered down from Bakersfield.”

  “And?” Sienna stepped forward.

  “Someone stole the results.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “They can’t seem to figure it out. Bakersfield swears the paperwork was in the envelope when they sent it and the courier swears nothing happened. But when Lily opened it up, nothing was inside. The results were gone. Vanished.”

  “Oh my God.” Sienna gripped the side of the changing table. “How is that possible?”

  Kendra shook her head in equal disbelief.

  “What are we going to do?” Sienna ran her hands up her face, clearly shocked.

  “I don’t know”—Kendra exhaled, beginning to feel desperate—“but this can’t stop me. I need to find a way. I need to figure out what’s in his DNA.”

  Leo burped, and with a wobbly head, slowly looked up at Kendra to smile.

  Kendra kissed her son’s forehead. “I have to do this for Leo. I have to find out if his father is a monster.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  “Where the hell have you been?” an angry feminine voice called out from the shadows as Delta ascended the fire ladder, cresting the rooftop of an old red brick building on the edge of the city.

  “I’m here. That should be good enough.” His voice shot over the ridge.

  He adjusted his hood, making sure it concealed his head fully. Yanking down on the black fabric mask, he confirmed that it covered the skin on his throat. He was known on Willow Avenue, so he had to take all precautions he was able to remain unseen.

  “Where the fuck is he?” He strode toward Sky’s voice under the cold light of the full moon.

  “I don’t know what was so fucking important—but you left me on the lookout alone. I only have two eyes.”

  She pounced out of the shadow and held position, waiting for him. Looking down over the edge of the rooftop at the scientists’ lab, she fidgeted with the steel blade hanging at her waist.

  Delta glared around, calculating. “You didn’t see anything?”

  “He could have left from the side exit. I don’t know. So, whatever delayed you, it better have been worth it.”

  “It was.”

  She crossed her arms before Delta, growing silent, staring at him—clearly pissed off. Their relationship had been hanging on a knife’s edge lately, and now her eyes were electrified with wrath. He knew what it had come down to.

  His cock twitched as he thought of Kendra and the reason why he’d been so late. He’d been following, watching her like a hawk, ever since she’d left him. He had run out of options. He had to do something. Sky didn’t understand.

  Finally, after a staring contest, she ground out, “If a body turns up tomorrow and we missed him…” But she trailed off. She stared over his shoulder with dark eyes, a deadly look crossing her face.

  “Shit”—she took a step back—“he’s here. He must have followed you.” Her arms fell from her chest, grasping at her knife.

  Delta spun to see a man at the top of the fire ladder on the edge of the rooftop. He flipped back to Sky, pushing her, and growled low and firm, “Get out of here. I’ll handle this.”

  “No”—she shoved him back—“I can’t leave you without backup.”

  He pushed her again, moving her toward th
e edge of the roof. “Go…now! You know what will happen if you don’t.”

  His warning was ominous and potent. She wasn’t battle-ready and had been left that way by the scientists. Finally, she conceded and jumped over the edge, climbing down the side of the aging building. He turned back around, striding across the roof to greet his enemy.

  “Look— It’s LA’s Batman,” Hunter called across the rooftop. “I knew it had to be you.”

  Delta didn’t give a fuck. That made it easier.

  He reached into the back of his jeans for his pistol, slowly cocking it and carrying it concealed by his side. His gloved hands held the metal, so comforting and familiar. The fresh predatory aggression of his approaching enemy validated everything Delta had believed.

  “What the fuck are you doing here?” Hunter stopped in the middle of the rooftop, his own pistol in his hand.

  “I should ask the same, but I already know the answer.” Delta snarled, a rage rising inside him—thinking about everything the man had done. “I know what you’ve been up to.”

  Hunter smirked, as if it was all a joke.

  “Having fun with the scientists, huh?” Delta grilled, raising his pistol, steadily aiming it at Hunter’s forehead across the expanse. “How much do they pay you for getting rid of the evidence?”

  “Fuck you.”

  “So, how far into your doxycycline cycle are you? Two weeks? Three?” Delta quizzed, trying to gauge how bad it was. “Once they finish with you, ever worry they’ll kill you off, too?”

  Hunter let out a low laugh, but Delta knew it was a stunt. His head was twitching—the question clearly irking him.

  Mission-focused, Delta turned to his true purpose.

  “Stay away from Kendra,” Delta growled, “or you’ll be a dead man.”

  “You came all this way just to waste your breath?” Hunter roared back, that ferocious look on his face. “I’m doing this—all this—for her. She’ll understand.”

  “Yeah—how’s that?”

  “She needs a real man”—Hunter lunged halfway across the roof, stopping short of Delta—“and that’s going to be me. The scientists have a solution for everything.”

  “You’re fucking delusional.” Delta expanded his back, flexing. It was damn clear that Hunter was desperate.

  Hunter sneered, looking down at Delta’s gun. Delta held strong, ready to go. With both he and Hunter carrying, it was a question of who was going to shoot first. Delta wasn’t going to hesitate. He couldn’t have another monster walking the streets.

  Then Hunter spoke words that Delta hated because he knew how true they’d been.

  “You are nothing but poison. You torture her, winding her around your finger until she gets so twisted up that she chokes.”

  “Are you pretending to care?” Delta spat, finding himself beginning to circle the man on the rooftop, looking for the best angle to slay him. “She doesn’t want you.”

  The comment only enraged an obviously already-triggered Hunter, who released a loud rumble from his mouth, but neither he nor Hunter could move any closer with pistols out and aimed at each other. It was a stand-off.

  Hunter bellowed, “Mark my words—when this is over, she’ll be with me.”

  Delta stopped dead in his tracks, staring Hunter down. He should have known it would have led to this. The idea of Hunter’s possessive hands getting around Kendra’s neck flashed before Delta’s eyes and drove him to insanity. That eerie icy-hot feeling filled his veins and he just saw red.

  Out of control, Delta’s jaw tensed, his shoulders and arms fired and he lunged forward, seizing Hunter by the neck. Hunter’s pistol clattered to the ground as he fought back, clawing at Delta’s wrists, breaking the exposed skin between Delta’s glove and sleeve.

  “What the f—?” Hunter yelped, but Delta’s choking grip lifted him off the ground.

  Overpowering him easily, Delta held the man up and close to his own face, his menacing tone issuing a threat not to be ignored. A cool trickle of blood down ran down his wrist where Hunter had dug his nails into him.

  “You can’t hurt me, and I won’t let you hurt her.” Delta’s voice was dark and earthy—demanding attention and obedience.

  Hunter coughed out, grasping at his neck, “I know what’s in your blood. I know what they did to you—” But his words stopped quickly, as did his airflow.

  The sleeves of his sweater falling down his arms exposed Delta’s icy-hot veins pulsing furiously as he held Hunter’s throat, suffocating the man. A woman’s voice called to him in the background, telling him he had to let go.

  But Delta’s own fury had taken over his awareness, far worse than any doxycycline-induced hallucination. He was determined and enraged, and hell would have to freeze the fuck over before he would let anyone hurt Kendra. That eerie feeling had consumed his whole body, to the point that he couldn’t stop himself anymore.

  Hunter, not getting in any more air, was turning shades of blue. He was dying.

  And that was when Delta realized he’d lost control. There was always that thing inside him that he couldn’t handle when pushed too far.

  All he could hear was a woman’s voice screaming to stop. “Please, God—please, no.”

  Delta shook out of it. She’d brought him back to his senses. He released his grip on Hunter, blinking rapidly as he realized what the hell he was about to do. Hunter crashed to the ground, sucking in air, trying to breathe.

  “Stay the fuck away from her,” Delta snarled, reaching down to break apart his opponent’s loose pistol.

  Moving backward, scattering pieces of the gun across the rooftop, Delta turned to launch himself over the edge and down the fire ladder. As his feet hit the cracked pavement in the alley, a sharp breeze gusted to his right. He let out a long breath when he realized it was just Sky.

  “Is he dead?” she demanded, her eyes wide.

  Delta shot back, “No. You were screaming at me to stop.”

  “No one was screaming, Delta,” Sky said. “There’s no one else around.”

  Delta rubbed his face, perplexed. “A woman was screaming. She was telling me to stop. It had to be you.”

  “It was her.”

  He leaned back against the cracked red brick wall, rubbing his hands over his face underneath his mask. Sky was right.

  She continued, lashing hard, “Get her out of your head. Do you still even give a fuck about the mission?”

  “Do you doubt that?” He pushed off the wall, staring her down.

  She planted her hands on her hips, unmovable. “Maybe I should just call the cops.”

  “No”—he lunged toward her—“I told you. Hunter’s a cop. We have to deal with this our way.”

  “Our way—or your way?”

  He crossed his arms, unwilling to respond.

  Sky puffed, drawing in breath, seemingly trying to steady her heartrate like he’d taught her. Hell, he was the only one who’d tried. She’d always be an unfinished product—too wild for the military, too broken for further experimentation.

  After a few seconds, she conceded, gazing back up at Delta, switching tactics. He gazed down at the lithe brunette as she put her hand on his chest affectionately…his apprentice.

  “Look, Delta. Ever since she came back on the scene, you’ve been distracted,” she began, running her hand down to his waist. “I miss the old you—the cool, collected and focused man.”

  Her words hit him hard as he searched her up and down. It was clear what she wanted.

  “Focused on us. Focused on what we are doing.” She flashed a pleading look at him, hopeful and honest.

  “I have to protect her. I have no choice.” He took a step back from Sky, watching her pace after him.

  “What about us? What about what you promised?”

  “I promised nothing except to teach you,” he clarified—which was damn true.

  She gasped, lunging at him.

  Holding her wrists, heaving her back, he snarled down on her, “I told you, Sky�
�I can’t. And you know why.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  A call came through Kendra’s cell phone, linking to the car console as she sped up Southern California’s arid, hilly terrain, lit by the low afternoon sun.

  “Hello?” Kendra answered, seeing Lily’s name on display.

  “Kendra—I need to get back to the lab,” Lily began. “We’ve got a backload of cases now.”

  “Look, Lily,” Kendra started, taking a turn onto an isolated road. “I still want you to stay away. I don’t want you to get caught alone with Hunter right now.”

  “Have you reported him yet?” Lily probed.

  “I’m working on it,” Kendra replied, her destination coming into sight. “I have some questions that need answers first.”

  “All right, fine,” Lily exhaled, frustrated. “There’s another thing.”

  “What?” Her grip tightened on the wheel, about to turn into the gate. “What is it?”

  “I took another look, re-examined the doxycycline traces in the victims’ plasma again. There was something else that I saw. Whatever pills those guys were taking, they weren’t just antimalarial.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I can’t totally conclude, but they all have distinct markers of recently having a virus.” Lily let out a long breath, seeming to try to make sense of it. “It really looks like a lab-manufactured virus, benign but purposeful. I saw this exact thing at the Harvard lab.”

  “It was infused in the antimalarial drugs?” Kendra pulled her car into the gravel drive of a military base, which was non-descript and unobtrusive. “Like, a live organism, housed in the drug?”

  Lily continued, “That’s what it looks like. I just can’t figure out why.”

  Kendra pulled her car up to the massive gate concealing the interior of the secretive Navy SEAL training facility down the Southern California coast. Her destination.

  “I might be able to ask someone,” she started to explain to Lily. “I received a call from someone in the military, someone who is offering to help me, if I can help him.”

  “Oh? Is he hot?” Lily quizzed. “You know I’m single, Kendra. Don’t hold back.”