by Lucy Monroe
A very pointed throat-clearing happened near her ear.
She tried waving her hand again, but it was caught this time.
“No,” she said firmly.
“Uh, Lana…”
She definitely didn’t have an appointment with this guy.
One dark brow quirked, but he had yet to say anything.
“Dr. Ericson!”
Lana’s head snapped up again and she saw that the stranger was accompanied by others. Her boss, Frank Ingram, and ETRD’s security consultant, Elle Gray.
The tall, supermodel-beautiful woman was the one who’d grabbed Lana’s hand. Was it fair that Elle could incapacitate a man twice her size, was probably as smart as Lana—well, close to—and was that amazing looking?
The only amazing thing about Lana was her brain.
Wincing at her thoughts as well as the small throb below her left eye from her run-in with the microscope, she said, “There was no need to shout, Frank.”
Elle shook her head and laughed. “You were staring, Lana. Hard. At unmentionable places.”
Oh, those pesky taboos again. Men got away with staring at breasts all the time, but a woman, particularly a geeky scientist, wasn’t supposed to stare at a man’s crotch. Still. “I was studying. It’s what I do.”
“You study men?” the stranger asked in a voice that made her thighs clench.
Wow.
If he could do that with his voice, what would he be able to do with other things? Maybe show her what all the fuss was about finally?
“I study everything.”
Frank chuckled. It was an indulgent sound, one that she seemed to bring out in him more than the other scientists on ETRD’s staff. “To the exclusion of noticing anything else around you. Hence the shouting.”
She sighed, knowing her boss had a point. “I’m sorry, Frank.” Meeting the dark brown depths of the stranger’s eyes, she stifled a second sigh. “I also apologize if I made you uncomfortable.”
She’d been told she did that sometimes. It was one of the many reasons she preferred her lab over social settings. Really, really preferred.
He adjusted his stance just a little. “Uncomfortable isn’t the word I’d use.”
Elle groaned. “Myk, you are so bad. Baba would slap you with the wooden spoon.”
Things clicked together in Lana’s extremely productive brain. “You two are related. He’s your brother. Mykola, the one closest to you in age and an INS agent. You haven’t seen him in over a year and you’re hoping he gets along with Beau as well as Mat does.”
Mykola turned a less-than-pleased look on his sister. “When did you get to be such a blabbermouth?”
Elle rolled her eyes. “Don’t be an idiot. Lana remembers everything she hears, even in passing.”
“And she puts it together like she does her formulas.” Frank smiled proudly. “I bet she knows the name of my podiatrist.”
“You don’t have a podiatrist. There’s nothing wrong with your feet, but have you considered seeing an allergist? I think you may have allergy-induced asthma brought on by something in Nisha’s lab.” She’d been meaning to mention that for a while, but had gotten sidetracked.
More than once.
It was the story of her life.
She’d never have a committed romantic relationship. No man would be able to tolerate the way her brain worked on a long-term basis, but she wasn’t opposed to something less involved with the gorgeous bad boy in front of her.
“Lana!” Frank and Elle shouted in unison, both sounding equally scandalized.
Uh oh. “Which part did I say out loud?” she asked in resignation.
Elle gave her a look that hovered between pitying and hugely amused. “The part where you implied you wouldn’t mind having sex with my gorgeous bad boy of a brother.”
Chapter 2
Mykola leaned forward just a little. “What I’d like to know was the part you didn’t say out loud.”
Oh, he was a wicked, wicked man. Lana rarely got embarrassed because she was so used to doing embarrassing things, but this? Definitely mortifying.
She bent her head, sighed, and covered her eyes with her hand. “I need to get out of the lab more.”
“Maybe I can help with that.” Mykola’s voice sounded like liquid sin.
She raised her head and frowned at him. “Clearly, I got the bad boy part right.” She only wished he was serious.
He just shrugged.
“I’m telling Baba.” But Elle’s voice was amused, not threatening.
Mykola didn’t smile, but he didn’t glare at his sister, either. He just looked, well, he looked unaffected. Except where Lana wasn’t supposed to be looking.
Was. Not. Supposed. To. Be. Looking.
Darn it.
She forced her gaze elsewhere, but if he was unaffected there then he was even more impressive than her first impression. Really, hugely.
“Do we have more security upgrades?” Lana asked, finally wondering why these people were in her lab.
“Not exactly.”
Mykola’s lips flatlined. “Some very bad people are interested in your work.”
She was still looking at him. At least her eyes were settled on something above his waist. “Yes?”
“You don’t seem surprised.” His left brow quirked.
She’d never been able to do that. Good thing her desire to be the female version of Spock had not lasted past adolescence.
“Maybe because I’m not. I practice modern-day alchemy. Just as in times past, that sort of thing is going to attract both the idealist and the opportunist. Mr. Smith is the former, but I’d have to be naïve not to believe there were plenty of the latter.” She also had personal experience that confirmed her belief, but she wasn’t about to discuss that now.
Or ever.
Mykola glared. At her.
Weird. People didn’t usually start glaring at her until they’d known her at least a couple of hours.
He crossed his arms, making his biceps bulge deliciously. “Maybe you should have considered that before you came up with a formula for turning lead into gold.”
She dismissed that with a flick of her wrist. “The formula for that particular transformation has been around for quite a while, but it takes too much energy to make it a viable alternative.”
“Your enzymes don’t.” There was that anger again. Directed at her.
Had she missed something? That wouldn’t be anything new. Her brows drew together and she looked at Elle. Did the other woman know why her brother was mad at Lana? But no help there. Elle wasn’t looking at Lana. Her gaze was set firmly on her brother and her eyes were filled with concern.
Lana stepped back toward her lab bench and started organizing her samples for the microscope while her brain struggled to figure out what heinous act Mykola thought she’d committed. “Um…my enzymes were developed to enhance the yield from edible or usable biological crops.”
“Then why the hell did you put a side-note on your observations that said, and I quote: lead into gold?”
“Um…because that’s exactly what it does? Or as good as. The enzymes take a dormant or already harvested plant and change it so that it will yield a crop. Once we have the enzymes working properly, they will make it possible to get a secondary crop from every planting, decreasing the stress on the resources needed to farm in areas that are suffering from drought or a naturally low supply of water, short growing season, et cetera.”
She was very excited about this project. She had hopes to have a prototype enzyme ready for wide-scale testing within the year. Among other things, one of her most frustrating problems with the product, though, was the awful smell that emanated while the enzymes did their job. It had prompted Frank to ask if she was using decomposing bodies for fertilizer.
Eww…just eww. She’d bought gas masks for use by her and her staff and put an order in for a hermetically sealed door to be installed on her growing room. The order had been approved posthaste.
The soil exhaustion was an issue as well, though other biochemists worldwide were already working on that particular problem. And the use of her enzyme resulted in far less depletion of soil resources than an actual additional crop would.
Mykola looked unimpressed. “But can your enzyme be used to turn lead into gold?”
“Why would anyone want to?”
“Please.” Now the yummy man just sounded snarky. “You might not be in it for the profit, but that doesn’t mean others won’t want to capitalize on its potential. Those opportunists you were talking about.”
“I am in it for the profit, that of improved lives and a decrease in worldwide starvation.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“I know.”
She could swear the sound coming out of his throat was a growl. “Lady, has anyone ever told you that you’re damn annoying?”
“Among other things.” Her father’s favorite question while she’d been growing up was, Do you have to be such an f-ing pain in the ass? Her mother was less antagonistic, but no more accepting. Her most frequent refrain was, Just try to be normal, Lana.
“It’s not intentional, though.” That didn’t usually matter, but she always tried saying it. “What I meant was that turning lead into gold when you could turn it into platinum would be silly. Platinum is rarer and has far more practical uses than gold.”
“So, the enzymes could work on metals, too?” Elle asked.
Lana shifted her attention to Elle. “I don’t know. Maybe? If you got the genetic coding right. It’s essentially the same process.”
“Explain,” Mykola demanded.
“You’re kind of snarly, aren’t you? And nosy. You read my notes.”
“Yes.”
She liked that he didn’t deny it, or sound particularly bothered that she’d made the observation. “I’m easily distracted.”
“I noticed.”
“We both have annoying character flaws.”
“I’ll tolerate yours if you tolerate mine.” He didn’t sound very tolerant. More like on the edge of losing control over the barely banked fury she still didn’t understand.
“You’re mad at me. Really angry.”
“You put my sister at risk. That’s not something I take lightly.”
Elle protested and so did Frank, but Mykola ignored them. So did Lana. It wasn’t their opinion she was interested in right now. It was his.
“How?” she asked.
She liked his familial loyalty. She’d never experienced it personally, but she admired it nonetheless. Her family had done nothing to find her, or get her back, when she’d disappeared seven years ago.
“You explain first, then I will.”
“Explain what?”
“The enzymes and how they work.” He hadn’t even rolled his eyes at her, or sighed like he’d rather be anywhere but here talking to the blinky scientist. Despite his obvious anger, he sounded almost patient.
“Oh, right.” That was easy. “As you already know, the transformation process is done with enzymes. They have genetically modified markers that convert the cellular signature of the plant.”
“Essentially, they rewrite a plant’s DNA,” Elle clarified.
Lana nodded. “Right.”
“And these enzymes could work on metals?”
“I don’t know. I’ve never pursued it, but the process would be much the same. The enzymes would be modified so that they changed the crystal structure of the base metal. The lattice arrangement of metal is similar to the DNA strand of carbon-based life forms.”
“You’re saying you’ve never tried it?”
“Why would I? I’m interesting in ending world hunger, not undermining world financial markets.”
“Undermining?”
“If you did the transformation on a large enough scale, financial markets would crash. Think about it. They are based on a balance of precious and common commodities. Imagine if platinum was suddenly more common than lead. Prices on the most precious metal in the world would plummet and so would millions of financial portfolios.”
Frank grinned. “I told you her mind worked like a puzzle.”
“More like a puzzle solver.” Mykola’s smile was nowhere in evidence. “Shit.”
“Now, it’s your turn.”
He nodded, apparently not having her problem with getting sidetracked. “Your notation caught the attention of some very dangerous people.”
“Who?”
“The Vega Cartel.”
“It’s a South American drug cartel,” Frank elucidated.
“Headed by one Anibal Vega,” Myk said grimly. “He doesn’t limit himself to the cartel, though. He’s got his fingers in lots of pies like slavery, assassins, and stolen merchandise. The bastard believes himself to be a direct descendant of Tomas de Torquemada.”
“The original inquisitor-general for the Spanish Inquisition?” Lana asked with a squeak she couldn’t suppress. That was one heritage she’d keep hidden. Yuck.
“The one and only. Vega has been known to use his ancestor’s torture techniques in testing the loyalty of his followers, or when extracting information from people of interest.”
“That’s disgusting.” And horrifically scary.
Mykola’s face had become an unreadable mask. “Agreed.”
“And this man is interested in my enzymes?” Lana felt her gorge rise and had to fight to conceal her distress.
Mykola’s eyes narrowed. “You had to be aware your enzyme would be of interest to people like Vega.”
“I don’t spend my time thinking about people like Vega at all.”
“That doesn’t make them go away, Lana. He’s still out there, whether you think about him, or not.”
“I am aware of that.”
“Knock it off, Myk.” Elle’s tone could have frozen concrete. “You’re scaring her.”
Too late. Lana was past scared and on her way to terrified.
Mykola fixed his sister with his glare. “She needs to face the truth.”
Lana was getting tired of his accusatory attitude. Frightened or not, she was no pushover. “What truth might that be? That my research could be misused? Scientists working on improved fertilizers and growth-yield hormones are also aware their research won’t only be used to increase beneficial crops.”
She got right into Mr. I-Know-Better-Than-Everyone-Else’s face and did some glaring of her own. “If we allow the Vegas of the world to stop us, then they win—just like his ancestor won when all of the practicing Jews were evicted from Spain in 1492. More than five million children die every year from hunger-related causes. I’m looking for ways to bring that number down. God willing, it will one day be completely eradicated. I am definitely not going to stop doing what I’m doing because of the risk that someone like Anibal Vega might misuse my efforts.”
Her enzymes were far less likely to be misused than a growth hormone or a new fertilizer. “I don’t have enzymes developed for harvest duplication on drug crops, much less those that would work on transforming lead into platinum.”
Not that a fact like that was likely to matter to the Vega Cartel. She had learned that those with a myopically self-centered view of the world weren’t worried about little trivialities like reality. They believed that with the proper inspiration a scientist could create anything.
“Lana’s working enzymes have taken three years to develop; they’re still not ready for mass prototype testing.” Frank’s wrinkled nose reflected his uncertainty she’d ever be able to deal with the odor problem.
She nodded. “The exchange of energy and negative side effects are such that they aren’t yet a practical solution for plant life, much less metals.”
“Unfortunately for Elle, these people don’t know that.”
Elle? “Why Elle?”
“They’ve identified her as their first target.”
“They probably thin
k I’m in the way.” Elle didn’t sound particularly bothered by that fact.
In fact, she seemed pretty pleased about it.
Lana’s lips quirked, but she was careful not to let the grin she felt inside show. She liked the other woman’s attitude and lack of fear.
“You aren’t indestructible,” Mykola ground out between clenched teeth.
Elle gave a gorgeous runway smile. “I never claimed to be.”
“But you’re flattered they consider you such a threat,” Lana guessed, unable to stop the grin this time.
The other woman shrugged, but Lana knew her supposition had been correct.
Mykola muttered something in Ukrainian. It sounded like he was calling his sister an idiot with a couple of swear words thrown in. Lana was sure of it when Elle gave her brother the glare of death and bit out something even more insulting to him in the same language.
“What are you two saying?” Frank demanded.
Lana shook her head at him. “You don’t want to know.”
Elle and Mykola gave up glaring daggers at one another and turned two equally intense gazes on her, one gray and one Hershey Kiss brown. Even his eyes were yummy. Darn it. Lana loved chocolate.
“Was that a lucky guess, or do you speak Ukrainian?” Mykola asked for them both.
She would have thought that was obvious. “Some of the best physicists in the world are Ukrainian.”
“So?”
“I prefer my own translations of their work as well as talking to them in their native tongue.” Her tone implied that most serious scientists would feel that way and that made her feel guilty for sounding like a snob. Not everyone had her facility for languages. “Mat and I have had some very productive discussions in Ukrainian about our work here. Sometimes the words just fit better.”
Even though he was American born, Matej Chernichenko spoke Ukrainian both on a social and a scientific level fluently.
“You chat in Ukrainian with my big brother?” Mykola asked.
“Yes. He’s brilliant. A bit gruff, but that seems to run in the family. At least among the males,” she said the last bit under her breath but apparently perfectly audibly, if Elle’s infectious laughter was anything to go by.
