by J. M. Madden
Flicking the remote, she pulled up her list of recorded shows. Maybe this little hiatus would give her a chance to catch up on all the crap she’d recorded over the past year. Chester deigned to hop onto the couch behind her and flick his tail in her face.
Within an hour she was bored off her ass. Crossing the room to her laptop she started scrolling through a few social media sites. Nothing grabbed her interest here, either, and she wondered what the heck she was going to do with herself.
She could go talk to Duncan again, and tell him that she’d found Aiden. For some reason she felt like Aiden hadn’t contacted him deliberately. Why be in the same city yet not in touch? She’d thought, from the way Duncan had reported it, that they’d been friendly, at least, when he’d gone to Kansas City to collect him. If she remembered right, Duncan had stayed for several days then returned, but Aiden had stayed in Kansas City.
So how and when had he returned? And most importantly, why? What was it about Denver that made him keep coming back? Was there some military connection? Was this his hometown?
Again, too many questions and not enough answers.
Unfortunately, Aiden was the only one with those answers.
Frustrated, she headed to the bathroom and her overflowing laundry hamper. She could at least get some housework done while she was stewing.
Chapter Seven
Aiden wandered the warehouse after Angela left, feeling restless and out of sorts, but he wasn’t sure exactly why. Yes, she’d gotten close and dragged a few answers from him, but he didn’t think that was necessarily the reason why he felt off.
He climbed the stairs to his loft and headed to the desk. The computer screens were dark right now. Sitting in his favorite chair, he went through the exercises the men had come up with to center themselves.
When the four of them had broken out of the camp, they’d been able to click as a team because of their military experience, but their emotions had been running high and volatile. Within just a couple of days they’d realized that they needed to strengthen the barriers around their minds. When they interacted with people, they couldn’t always control the emotions flowing their way. They needed to be able to shut everything out. As they headed toward the coast and safety, they worked on a process to first connect more strongly with each other individually, then a reverse process to block each other out. Connecting was always much easier than blocking out, but the blocking out was more important to everyday life. They realized as they began to have contact with the population that as close as the contact was between the fire team, there was just as much ‘static’ from the people around them.
The trials of everyday life were hard to deal with in a country as destitute as Brazil. The men had traveled through areas of rainforest and some pasture land but precious little farming. People were starving in the rural areas because there was no food coming into the country. As they came into contact with these people, they realized that the level of their desperation coincided with the level of ‘static’ the men had to block out with their minds. The more destitute and downtrodden the people were, the more the men had to work to block out the sounds of their suffering.
Then he realized what had him anxious. There had been no static from Angela. No feedback either good or bad. He’d been trying to read her just by her facial reactions. And even those were minimal, thanks to her law enforcement training.
Aiden blinked, rocking forward in the chair. How was that possible?
It had taken the men weeks of focused, hard, physically and emotionally draining work to figure out how to block each other out of the five million minuscule thoughts that plagued a man every day. They’d broken into twos and practiced blocking one another out first, then two men, then three. It had been a process to get proficient enough to block all three out at once, but the more they did it the more easily it had become until they did it without a second thought. Barrage and shield. Barrage and shield.
Tactically, when they were all open and the communication flowed to and from each other, it made them an unbeatable team. With, literally, a split-second’s thought, all four of them knew what the plan was and how to implement it. They had become what the Collaborative had set out to create— super soldiers.
That time in the jungle after they’d broken out had been an incredible learning experience. That was when they’d stitched together the incredible fabric of their friendship.
And now, this woman had created a silence in his mind like no one else ever had before. Aiden crossed to the fridge and slapped together a ham sandwich then grabbed another bottle of water. He wanted to go to her and see if he was imagining her silence. Maybe he’d been suppressing her noise without even realizing it. He chewed thoughtfully, then shook his head firmly.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said aloud.
He had other things to worry about.
Crossing back to the desk, he woke the computers and looked down at the gibberish on the screen. He’d been trying for almost two years to decipher what it said, but he didn’t have the technical knowledge to do it. Everything he’d learned about computers he’d taught himself. When Rector had delivered his thumb drive, then been killed, their worlds had gone spinning. The connection between the four of them had been more vital than any of them had suspected, because as soon as he was killed, the mental backlash had struck them all. Aiden had been hit the hardest because he’d been closest. For days, weeks, he’d been out of his mind with fear and agony. When he’d finally come around he’d been strapped down to that bed in Kansas City with Duncan Wilde at his side, hundreds of miles from where he’d started. It had taken every tiny minuscule grain of reasoning power to convince them to release him from the handcuffs. If they hadn’t, well, he would probably still be in the psych ward, spouting conspiracy theories about companies creating super soldiers. And thanks to the cash card Duncan had given him, he’d returned to Denver as fast as possible, afraid to be away too long in case they sent someone after his brother.
But the psychic fracture had lingered there in his mind. It was like an old scar across his consciousness. If he prodded, it would flare with pain. It had taken him a while to figure out how to wall it away. Even weeks later he could still feel the echo of TJ’s death in that alley.
When he’d finally been able to focus on the information on TJ’s thumb drive, he’d been just as clueless as before. He’d thought that when the two were connected side by side he would be able to make sense of the symbols and characters, but instead, it just confused him further. Until he had the other thumb drives, there was a very good chance he wouldn’t be able to do anything with the information he had. He didn’t dare log any of it online to try to decipher. Even though it had been a while since he’d seen anyone from the Collaborative, he knew they had bots searching the net for them. Aiden considered himself better than proficient with computers, but these files left him scratching his head.
But the information that Rector had gathered on his own thumb drive was pure gold. It listed times and dates for every shady business deal that the Silverstone Collaborative had ever been even nominally connected to. It also had TJ’s summary, and he’d drawn some fascinating conclusions.
Fontana was due to check in in three days and if all was well, they would be meeting to transfer the drive he carried. Meeting TJ after only six months’ recovery time hadn’t worked well, so they’d decided to stay underground for another year. And now they were getting ready to meet again. Maybe with all three of the other Collaborative drives, as well as TJ’s information, Aiden would have a better understanding and something would magically click in his brain to decipher it all. Last he’d heard Wulfe was still on the east coast, but he would be heading in this direction soon. They were all supposed to meet next week to plan.
When they’d split up, they’d thought that each of them taking one of the pieces of collateral would protect them, they hadn’t known then that each piece was useless without the other three.
If nothing ch
anged … well, maybe he would think about taking the information to LNF.
No. Fuck. That would be a disaster if he brought the Collaborative down on all of their heads.
He would see what was on Fontana’s drive and play it by ear.
Aiden closed things down, removed the portable thumb drives and locked them in the safe he’d hidden in the wall of the office. The interior of the room was pretty unremarkable. Metal walls with panes of glass looking down onto the shop floor. If anyone entered the far door he would see it from this vantage point, with its wall of computer monitors, almost immediately.
For the next few days he would spend more time out on the streets, keeping his ear to the ground. When the last assassin had come to town and started hanging around the Lost and Found offices last winter, the homeless vets had noticed him immediately, so Aiden had known that something was up. That was too specific a choice of location to be random.
He was glad he’d followed up on the info because François LeBoutin had made an attack against Shannon, his brother’s fiancée. She’d been about six months along with twins, then, more vulnerable than she’d known, and Aiden had had to intercede on her behalf.
It had been exactly what LeBoutin had been waiting for.
The hospital had held Shannon overnight for observation and the next morning LeBoutin had made his move. He’d known that Aiden’s brother John would be there to escort his fiancée home. LNF had had a security contingent there, but Aiden’s gut had told him that it wouldn’t be enough, so he’d had to intercede again.
The LNF sharpshooter had spotted LeBoutin and fired off a round, just milliseconds after LeBoutin had fired his own. Aiden had been forced to throw himself on top of John to protect him. The bullet struck him in the shoulder, burning a path of fire across his shoulder muscle. It healed within a few hours, but he’d basically been brought out into the open. He’d been so excited that he’d saved his brother that he’d blubbered about it to Dr. Hartfield when she’d grabbed him and tried to triage him.
LeBoutin had been shot, but they’d never found the body, just a huge amount of blood. Aiden hoped that the man was dead and in pieces as the Collaborative dissected his brain.
The Collaborative had been sending people after him more often after that but LeBoutin had come the closest to taking his family from him. He’d been a crazy son of a bitch. Aiden didn’t feel him in the area anymore though. In the days leading up to the attack, dread had been crawling his spine. Afterward it had been gone. The general sense of foreboding was a very good indicator that something was about to happen.
The worst part of the attack was that Duncan Wilde, the owner of the company, had been injured in the melee and hospitalized with a broken pelvis. It had ended up working out for him though, he’d had much needed surgery and Aiden had never seen him moving better.
That was the day he’d finally met his brother again. It had been surreal seeing John up close. He’d surveilled him for months, but they’d never actually spoken. It had been illuminating.
It was one thing to see to familial resemblance in a picture, but totally another to be six feet away from his closest, probably only living relative. He wished he’d have been able to spend more time with him, but the Collaborative was already too close. He refused to put any more of a target on his brother’s back than he already had.
Chapter Eight
Angela hated being off work. It left her too much time to think about her life and what she would have done differently if she could.
Her most recent regret was walking out of that deserted warehouse without getting more information from Aiden Willingham. Actually, it was more than that. There was something about the man that drew her. She flashed back to the bone-melting kiss he’d planted on her two days ago. If she thought about the situation without the anger, she could admit to herself that for a split second, just before he’d snicked those cuffs on, she’d been drawn into the kiss.
Had he?
The regret in his eyes as he’d pulled away from her told her that he may have been. She’d replayed the scene in her mind over and over again, and she was no closer to forgetting it. He’d been hard, too. Deliciously so.
The man was definitely not a good romantic bet. Hell, he wasn’t even living life legally.
She wondered if everything he told her was true. She’d run his name through every database she could looking for a match, but nothing had come up. And she hadn’t found anything in the military registry either. He was just one big dead end.
But he’d given her the best kiss she’d ever had.
She looked around the apartment. The four walls were closing in on her and she needed to move. He shoulders felt fine and most of her bruises were gone. In three days she could get the stitches out, but that time dragged in front of her. Maybe she would drop into LNF and see if Duncan was available.
No. Not yet.
Grabbing her purse, weapon and badge, she slipped a flannel over her t-shirt and headed out the door. She needed a few groceries and maybe she’d slide by Harmony House and see what was going on with the guys down there.
As soon as she walked in the back door where the volunteers entered, the director, a man by the name of Charles, waved her in. His heavy-set face was flushed with steam as he dished out plates of food and his graying, thinning hair was a wild mess around his head. But his smile was kind and hopeful. “I hope you came to work.”
Angela grinned and moved toward the sink to wash her hands. She hadn’t, but whatever. “Of course!”
For the next hour she dipped vegetable soup into bowls and handed out peanut butter sandwiches. Some of the people that moved through the lines spoke to her and remembered her name, but others wouldn’t even make eye contact. She didn’t push any of them. If they held out a hand she filled it. Or if they offered a hello she responded.
A few men she knew well from dealing with them when she was a beat cop. But they knew that if she was distributing food then she wasn’t on duty in her regular job and they were more relaxed with her.
The entire time she worked, though, she scanned the men around her, looking for a distinctive brown-bearded jawline and penetrating dark eyes. She didn’t know why she thought Aiden would be here this afternoon, but she did. Maybe because he’d been other places yesterday. She didn’t know. But she was gratified when she spotted a hooded figure moving through the line. He didn’t look up when he moved through her section and she wondered if he’d even noticed it was her handing him the bowl of soup. It wasn’t until she had almost turned away that he finally looked up at her and winked.
It was an effort to keep any expression off her face, but she managed it. She wanted to wink back at him, but she was smarter than that. She would follow his lead if it made him feel safer. If he thought someone was after him then this would be one of the places they would be watching, she would think.
An hour later she was helping Charles and two other volunteers clean up after the rush. Her arm was throbbing and she winced a few times when she reached for things, but she didn’t feel like she could leave yet. There was so much work to do.
Charles paused at her side and gave her a smile. “Thank you for coming in, Angela. I had several people back out at the last moment and you arrived to save me just in time.”
She laughed and shook her head. “I think you could have pulled in one of the other guys to help out.”
Charles waffled his hand in the air. “But I didn’t have to explain to you what to do.”
Reaching out, he turned off the water running into the soapy sink in front of her.
“A little bird told me you were injured on the job and supposed to be recovering. Why don’t you head out? We can take care of the rest.”
She blinked, wondering who had ratted her out. Aiden? Possibly. Might have been one of the other little birds that got along with the cops around here.
She glanced around but didn’t see him anywhere. “If you’re sure you don’t need any more help.”
>
“I’m positive,” Charles told her with a big smile. “Although … I might ask you talk to one of the new guys, if you don’t mind.”
That eased her mind. “Not at all. Point me in a direction.”
“I’ll have him meet you in the rec room in a few minutes. I don’t want to point him out right now.”
“Of course,” she murmured.
Charles had done this before, guiding her to counsel one of the men that were potentially about to do something detrimental to their health or safety. Angela appreciated that he was trying to head off a problem before it actually happened, so she always did what she could.
When she walked into the rec room a few minutes later there was a youngish African American male sitting at a table across the room. His back was to the wall and there was a frenetic light in his eyes. She’d seen it before. A wildness that had nothing to do with drugs or alcohol, but everything to do with being thrust into the world with no rudder.
He eyed her as she approached him, and she’d seen the look many times over the years. Antagonism, distrust and a general disdain. “Mind if I sit down?”
The disdainful look intensified. “I guess. I’m only here because the old dude that runs the place said I had to talk to you.”
Angela snorted softly. “Sometimes Charles just wants what’s best for everyone. When did you get out of the service?”
His dark eyes flared with surprise for a moment before he clamped his jaw. “Eleven months and four days ago.”
She nodded, leaning back in the uncomfortable chair. “You miss it, don’t you?”
He blinked and abruptly looked away from her, scanning the far wall. “Yeah,” he said softly.
“I did too when I got out. At first it was kind of cool, not having people screaming at you all the time, being able to sleep in when you want to. But then things started to feel weird, because I didn’t have a direction.”
