She didn’t want easy.
He didn’t want to disappoint a lady. This lady.
As sweat gathered across his shoulders, as heat coiled tighter and tighter in his gut, his balls, Parker writhed and panted and moaned his name. Until her internal muscles clamped down around him, dragged at his sensitive cock and wrested all control from him.
His lips found hers; fused as she cried out, a scream every bit as intense as the one he’d already coaxed out of her. As his body began to shudder, as spasms of his climax rippled out from his tightened balls and Parker’s fingernails sank into his back, Simon groaned in echoed release.
The fucking world flipped over.
Parker Adams, the woman who’d haunted his every waking fantasy, shuddered underneath him, her eyes blissfully closed, her lashes spiky against her sweat-damp cheeks. As his cock twitched and leaped and shattered every preconceived notion of objectivity he’d built around him—around them—Simon’s arms gave out.
His body covered hers, pinned her, and he dropped his face to the bedclothes by her shoulder. He had to breathe. He had to remember how.
He had to disengage—his body from hers, his mind from the dangerous path it traveled—and he had to do it now.
But he didn’t.
This was a problem.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Jonas Stone wasn’t completely honest with the world.
No missionary was—that way spelled a messy end—but he didn’t like that the world wasn’t always honest with him, either. It was a complaint he’d long since learned to handle, his way. In the flickering light of the tech van he’d made his own, he watched the city through half a dozen feeds mounted against one wall.
“The police department has gone on record stating such figures are overblown, but that the public should continue to be vigilant. However, there is no statement from either the New Seattle Riot Force or the Mission—”
The shelves built into the van were custom designed by him, allowing just enough room for his chair to slide on tracks between them. Computers, screens, a veritable cornucopia of technology traveled with him wherever he went.
This was home. More than the apartment he claimed on his paperwork, more than the offices where Alan Eckhart kept track of the lower level street teams, this van had everything he needed and more.
Including a small fridge and a crate of energy boosters for the overnighters.
He’d had a lot of overnighters lately. Not all courtesy of the Mission, either.
Damn, he was skating along a thin line.
“—say they never would have suspected Walters to be a witch. Missionaries were on the scene shortly after his attack on the family—”
Jonas rubbed one thigh absently, thumb dragging across aching muscle. His chair, also custom, cradled his weight evenly, but no amount of padding could take the pain from his body forever. His right leg hurt more tonight, probably from the physical therapy he’d insisted on pushing.
At least he could walk, albeit with crutches. It was a far cry from his prior confinement to his chair.
“Witnesses say two men burst into the Avenue Café moments before the attack on an employee.”
Jonas’s attention dialed in to that one. Reaching over, he tapped two keys on the interface he’d built himself. Compiled of three keyboards and an array of wires, it controlled every last aspect of his tech van.
On command, the other feeds muted. Figures passed through the glass in silence.
A pretty brunette looked solemnly out through the monitor. Behind her, people milled outside the very same café Simon Wells’s message had directed him to. “Although no one was seriously hurt, all three men have vanished into the chaos that followed. The police encourage everyone to keep calm and be aware for any suspicious activity.”
Of course. Not that it’d help. New Seattle was rife with suspicious activity, not the least of which came from the Church itself.
He adjusted his glasses, reaching for the comm he’d slotted into its dock. The message had been wiped, but he’d already traced the source. Winston Wilkes, one of many employees at the New Seattle bank. Topsider. Clean record, workaholic, divorced once, no kids.
Nothing suspicious there. Except for the fact it came with Simon’s name attached. And a set of instructions he’d already investigated.
Jonas knew what the pretty reporter didn’t.
Hacking into the sec-comps didn’t take any effort anymore. Jonas had so many back doors into the city’s network that he could spy just about anywhere outside of the Holy Order quad. Most of the time, it came in handy for Mission operations.
Sometimes, he did it on his own.
Sad to think that despite all of that, the hacker he’d spent too many hours chasing down still managed to give him a run for his money and then some.
The data he’d accrued tonight puzzled him immensely. Why had Simon Wells been at that café? Why had the director been with him when she was supposed to have been meeting with the team leads topside? He’d watched them exit in the chaos, tracked them in their stolen car to the condos overlooking Testament Park.
He’d had to dance a finger-jig on his keyboards to do it, but he’d managed. And he’d remotely turned off the silent alarm the director’s clumsy vehicle-sec hacking had triggered.
But he couldn’t even say why.
Jonas had a bad feeling about all of this. And only half of it came from the bone-deep pain he lived with on a daily basis.
Fifteen years was a long time to rebuild himself. The fact he’d managed to do it after a coven nearly blew him up with his tech van was pretty much a miracle—even he thought so. He’d seen a lot of missions, a lot of screwups, and a lot of bad choices in his time.
But he liked to think that he’d been given a second chance. He recognized the good people he worked with. The director, for all her aloofness, was that type. Scads better than David Peterson ever was.
Something about her reminded him of one of the few people he counted as a friend. Although Naomi would hate to be compared to the woman she called little Miss Parker in that way of hers.
He tilted the comm screen, studying its carefully clean surface. The message from Simon was puzzling by itself. He knew for a fact the man was involved with the GeneCorp issue. He’d traced a few leads at the director’s request—and shared what he’d learned with a couple of friends on the wrong end of Church law. Silas Smith and his team had been working on the same problem, different angle.
He figured better two interests than one.
He hadn’t counted on Simon cropping up as a third. By his calculations, the man fell on the wrong side of Mission loyalties. Simon’s request to meet him and the director at that café had come with alternatives. The protocols given in the same message told him to send everything he knew about the director’s interests to a particular frequency.
Tracing the frequency led to a miles-long list of dummy buoys. Ones he didn’t have time to investigate. Another player?
This news feed suggested there had been an altercation at the same place Jonas had been instructed to visit. Surveillance footage put the director there.
And yet, the all-call from the director’s frequency had requested all the leads at her headquarters. Eckhart had gone up already.
What was he supposed to do now?
Because from where he was sitting—and he didn’t think it immodest to claim he sat at the center of the wave, he could virtually tap into anything—it looked like he had cards nobody else knew existed.
Jonas blew out a breath, shoving his glasses up on his head and leaning back in his seat.
Was this it? Was this his moment?
Nerves ate at his stomach, gripped his chest with viselike intensity. He’d grown up in this Mission. Had sworn the oaths, done his duty. Through hellfire and worse, he’d overcome it. He was the best analyst out there; he knew it. The king of the wave.
Was it all for nothing?
Or was this just his chance to walk�
�ha!—where good men had walked before? To take that step, the same line missionaries before him had taken. Silas Smith, Naomi West. Missionaries he’d looked up to.
Still did.
Was he talking crazy?
“I’m talking crazy,” he affirmed to the bank of monitors. And even as he said it, his long, thin fingers darted over the keyboard. He tapped in a string of code, hesitated.
Last chance. He could stop now. He could pull up stakes in his moral code, pull his big boy pants up and do his job. He could work his technological magic on the dockets the Mission gave him and keep his nose clean.
He could forget about Silas and Naomi. About the Salem Project, and the hole in his gut. The same void that had been steadily eating at him for over a year.
Slowly, pulling his glasses back to his nose, he studied the command he’d never thought he’d find himself inputting.
The cleanest resignation he’d ever tendered.
The only resignation he’d ever tendered.
What would Silas do?
Leaving the command line in place, he flipped open his comm. Plugged the mic into his ear and dialed.
The line synched within seconds. “Tell me you have good news.”
His lips twitched at the order. “I never lie to a lady. Especially one that can kick my ass.”
Naomi West snorted, one of her many less-than-ladylike traits. “What’s up then?”
“A mystery.” He slid his glasses off again, rubbing at the bridge of his nose. Quickly, he filled her in—leaving out the bits about the extra frequency.
There were some things he’d long since figured out how to filter. If Naomi suspected another threat, she’d stop at nothing to end it.
That’s what made her a damn good missionary. But she had other problems now.
Jonas could handle this mystery player.
She was silent for a moment after he stopped speaking. And then, baldly, “What the fuck, Jonas?”
“Yeah, that’s kind of what I thought, too,” he admitted. “Nai, what did Phin give the director?”
A beat. Just enough for him to sense the lie before it came. “I don’t know.”
Jonas frowned. But he didn’t pursue it. “Well, all right,” he said lightly and slid his glasses back into place. The command line blinked at him. “That’s all I got. Sounds like someone pulled a coup.”
“Damn. I’ll tell the team.” Her tone hardened. “Don’t do anything stupid, Jonas. I’m going to send—”
“Don’t. I’m fine down here.” He glanced at the silent feeds. His eyes narrowed, back straightening as the figure of a man detached himself from the alley next to the mid-low Mission offices.
Company?
“What about little Miss Parker? Any word?”
“Nothing since the last comm wave,” he said quickly. “Nai, I gotta go.”
“Wait, let me—”
Jonas winced. “Trust me, babe. When have I ever let you down?”
Maybe the worst lie he’d told. His guts gnawed themselves apart. A bad feeling, right?
A terminal one.
As he cut the line, jammed his thumb against the security pad and let the device scrape itself clean, Jonas watched the man raise a fist outside the van.
Wham, wham, wham! Even though he’d been expecting it, the impact jerked him half out of his chair. Pain shot up his twisted legs, and Jonas grabbed the edge of the desk as he swallowed back a clenched groan. The van doors opened behind him.
“Jonas? You in here?”
Neely. “Christ,” Jonas gasped, falling back to the chair. He swiveled, rubbing his right thigh with both hands as he glowered at the missionary. Neely’s familiar face was a hell of a relief. Not the shadowy killer he’d half expected looming out of the dark. “Don’t scare me, man!”
The man leaned in, hands braced on the van floor, wincing. “Sorry. I figured you’d have seen me coming.”
He had. He just hadn’t realized it was one of his own. “Been working overtime on these new dockets,” he admitted. Mostly true. “Is it just me, or are we seeing a serious climb in activity?”
“Don’t even get me started,” Neely replied, his mouth twisting in chagrin. He jerked a thumb back over his shoulder. “You able to take a ride?”
“Huh?” Jonas rubbed at his face. Fatigue always managed to catch up in those times between projects.
“Ride,” Neely repeated with amusement. “You. Me. Now.”
“Why?”
“The director wants you topside.”
Jonas stilled. Slowly, lowering his hand, he squinted at the man he’d known for almost a year.
A lie. Neely lied. Why?
“Jonas? You okay?”
Jonas shook his head, grimacing. “Approaching the point of no return, you know?” He turned around. “Let me power down. You want to unhook my crutches?”
“Got it.” Metal clanked behind him as Jonas stared at the screen. The blinking cursor.
What would Silas do?
The right thing.
He tapped the enter key. Data streamed. One by one, the monitors in the van turned black. As the overhead lights winked out, Jonas took a deep, calming breath.
This was it. No going back.
He reached behind him, grabbed the first shelf, and pulled himself along the track bolted into the floor. The oiled bearings moved soundlessly. As he swung by the final tier, he grabbed the coat he’d set there, pulled it on over his T-shirt, and grinned as he met Neely’s friendly gaze. “Sounds like a real storm up there, huh?”
“It’s shaping up to be that way,” the man agreed lightly. He offered a hand, and though every part of Jonas’s pride rebelled, he took the man’s help. Getting out of the van was getting easier with time, but he wasn’t made of steel. The van creaked as Jonas stepped off the bumper.
As his weight settled to the wet pavement, he glanced around. The gravel lot outside the lower street Mission offices was only dimly lit, and the lights affixed to the outside structure flickered as they always did. The electrical grid this far down didn’t promise anything but a headache. The Mission had generators to handle the indoor power.
Pain rippled down his twisted legs. Climbed up through his spine. He must have made a face, because as Neely set his crutches down, angled perfectly for Jonas to slip his hands through the arm braces, his dark eyes flicked to his legs. “How are you feeling?”
Some of the agents just never stopped asking. “Every day’s a win,” Jonas said cheerfully. “So what’s the director need me for?”
“Same old song and dance.” Neely steadied him as Jonas tightened the straps. “We’re good, but we’re not you up there. Hey, maybe you’ll finally accept that promotion to topside offices, huh?”
Jonas’s grin hurt. “I like my van.”
“You and that bucket.” Neely slammed the doors closed, and Jonas tapped in a series of numbers on his comm.
The other missionary watched the van. Raised his eyebrows when nothing happened. “And?”
“I’m good,” Jonas chuckled, “not flashy. She’s safe.”
“All right, then.” Neely gestured toward the dark lane between the Mission building and the training facility beside it. “This way.”
“Where’s your car?”
“I parked on the other side of that alley,” he replied, and Jonas’s chest twisted.
A lie. Another lie. They compounded into a drum of fear. As Jonas’s awkward footsteps clanked into the dark crevasse, as the padded ends of his crutches splashed through gathered puddles, he heard a subtle click behind him.
His heart pounded. Fear gnawed at his guts, but he firmed his grip on the crutch supports and set his jaw. No going back now.
The Mission didn’t allow resignation.
He looked up, squinting against the clinging summer humidity and smiled as the city rose high above him. Layers upon layers of lights, of streets built on top of each other.
He didn’t mind this city so much.
“Jona
s?”
“I’m going,” he sighed and pushed into the darkness. The alley swallowed them.
As the air thrummed with the constant flow of electricity, as lights flickered and the city thrust glittering fingers into the black sky, three gunshots echoed across the gravel alley.
The van stayed dark.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Splat.
Parker stirred. Warmth filled her, a sweet lassitude clinging to her mind as she surfaced slowly from the deepest sleep she’d had in a long time.
Simon’s body tucked against her back. A hard arm folded over her ribs, securing her tightly against his chest. She sprawled back against him, her cheek pillowed on her folded arm, her legs tangled with his.
It’d been a long, long time since she’d woken up wrapped up in a man like this.
Smiling, she raised a hand to scratch at her itching shoulder.
Froze when her fingertips encountered something warm and wet.
Splat.
Parker sat up fast, every trace of sleep screaming out of her head. The daylight filtering around the pulled drapes lit the room to a muted glow, soft enough to allow for sleep but bright enough to pick out the dark stain smearing her fingertips.
Her stomach turned over.
Blood.
“Simon!”
He was already struggling to his elbows, not quite awake but moving, as if fine-tuned to his environment. To his name.
Her presence.
As bile welled in her throat, her shocked gaze lifted to his face. Blood dripped from his nose. Splattered to the comforter as he strained to push himself upright. “Son of a bitch,” he growled.
It came out thick. As if caught in phlegm. Grasping the sheet, he yanked it to his nose.
Icy sweat broke out across her shoulders.
Unabashedly naked, Simon hunched at the edge of the bed, his powerful shoulders rounded, sheet gathered against his nose. “Sorry. Not the way I’d planned to wake you up.”
Parker stared at his back. “It’s because of that faulty DNA, isn’t it?”
Dark mission 04 - Sacrifice the Wicked Page 18
