by Karin Harlow
“How’s Cross?” Nikko asked as he strode past her to his seat on the opposite side of the table.
“He’s fine,” she slowly said. “How are you?”
He sat back and folded his arms behind his head and looked at everyone in the room. “On top of the fucking world.”
Godfather scowled. Stone, Satch, and Dante shook their heads.
Cassidy slowly stood, her gaze riveted on him. As she approached, her nostrils twitched. He knew she had enhanced senses and strength. That happened when you sucked vampire blood regularly. Nikko harbored no hard feelings toward her boyfriend. In fact, while vampire Marcus Cross wasn’t officially L.O.S.T., he was a huge asset to the team. Even more important, Cassidy wasn’t as grumpy since she and Cross had hooked up. Apparently, vampire sex had its benefits. Images of the last time he and Selena had made love sprang into his mind’s eye. He squashed them. No. He wasn’t going there. She’d been a hallucination. She was dead. His powers, however, were very real.
Nikko knew how Cassidy had gotten her superhuman strength, but he was still floored by his own. How the hell had he gotten so sensitive? And strong? This morning, when opening his car door, he’d yanked it off its hinges. He’d had to ride his Harley in. Carefully.
“Who’d you bite?” Cassidy asked, her question quieting the room to dead silence.
She knew! Could she smell it? The way he could smell her? His skin frosted. Christ, had he been juiced with vampire blood? A year ago the thought would have repulsed him. Now? His body vibrated with power. It intrigued him on every level.
“Cruz,” Godfather began, coming around to stand in his place at the large, round table, “what the hell happened to you out there?”
Nikko shook his head and looked straight into his commander’s irritated scowl. “I was blown to hell. I woke up healed and superhuman.”
“I read your report. Tell me again about the woman.”
Nikko looked around at his team. Only a few of them were there, the others being off on missions. He let out a long breath. As soon as he said her name, Godfather would have him pulled from the field and thrown into the psych ward. With the exception of Cassidy, each person in the room knew how broken he had been when they dragged him through the very same doors he had just walked through. Beaten, angry, and wanting to destroy himself. It had taken almost a year before Godfather was sure Cruz could function in the field as a L.O.S.T. operative. His first mission was to slip inside an Iranian compound and extract the kidnapped daughter of a prominent American political family. In some ways, he felt as if he’d saved his own daughter. It was the exact mission he needed. He’d never looked back. Now he felt as if his emotional seams were about to rupture. He gritted his teeth, frustrated that after all these years, despite how much he fought it, she could still hurt him. He sat up straight. She could go back to Hell where she belonged! He’d be damned if he’d let a ghost screw up his life now.
“Who was the woman?” Godfather asked again.
Nikko looked straight at his commander. “Selena Guerrero.”
A collective round of gasps shivered through the room.
“Impossible,” Godfather said.
Nikko shook his head and swiped his hand across his face. “I know she’s dead. I killed her!” He shook his head again, doubting his own instincts, which screamed it was she. “Maybe it was my mind playing tricks on me. Whoever it was, was the spitting image of Selena.” Grinding his jaw, Nikko could not ignore one vital fact. “Whoever it was saved my life. She injected me with something, directly into my heart. I want to know what and why.”
Godfather pressed a button and a state-of-the-art touch screen popped up before them. He tapped several apps; then a phone chirped. “Fulton County Coroner,” a brisk female voice answered.
“I’d like to speak to Dr. Meade,” Godfather said.
“Who may I say is calling?”
“Mr. Black.”
“One moment please.”
Several seconds ticked by. “Mr. Black,” a deep, authoritative voice said.
“Doctor, I need a report for one Selena Guerrero, DOD June first, ’03. I’ll wait while you pull it up.”
“One moment.”
Godfather looked down at Nikko, who suddenly felt warm and not so sure of anything. A heavy sense of dread coursed through him as he waited for the coroner. Had he imagined her? Believing he’d seen her had pumped him up almost as much as whatever had rejuvenated him. If she was alive, she’d saved him—why? Did it matter? She had killed more than their daughter the day she aborted her. She’d killed the fire in his heart, and he in turn had extinguished hers. Or had he? He felt as if he were going to puke. His daughter, she was almost seven months! Viable! What Selena had done was morally and legally wrong. She had murdered her! He squeezed his eyes shut, unable to bear the images his mind conjured.
The ME came back on the line. “Guerrero, Selena Honorea, twenty-five-and-a-half-year-old Latina female, DOA, cause of death, asphyxia due to strangulation. Do you want the autopsy details?”
“Who performed the autopsy?”
“Dr. Elena Mira.”
“Who identified the body? And who was the body released to?”
“Roberto Montoya-Balderama on both counts.”
Who the hell was that? Nikko wondered. Selena had never mentioned him. In fact, with the exception of himself, she’d shied away from the opposite sex.
“I’d like to speak with Dr. Mira,” Godfather said.
“That’s not possible. She passed away, almost eight years ago.”
“How?”
“She seized on the way to work, lost control of her car, and crashed.”
“Was an autopsy performed?”
“I performed it myself. She hadn’t been taking her seizure meds.”
“Don’t you find that unusual for a doctor?”
“Yes. So much so I listed her death as suspicious.”
“Was there an investigation?”
“Yes. It was closed and her death was listed accidental.”
“Thank you, Dr. Meade.” Godfather hung up before the doctor could respond. He looked at Nikko. “Do you know who Roberto Balderama is?”
“No. And Selena never mentioned him.”
Godfather looked past Nikko and around the room. “Do any of you know who he is?”
There was collective head-shaking.
Godfather tapped the screen several times and typed in a few words; all around them the flat screens lit up. A handsome Latino man flashed up. “Roberto Estefan Montoya-Balderama, head of Los Cuatro, a consortium of four heads of Latino states who in the name of preserving the Latino culture as a whole fight those who would destroy it, i.e., drug cartels and unfriendly non-Latino big business.”
“Never heard of it,” Cassidy said.
“That’s because they don’t want you to know. In their own way, they are as covert as L.O.S.T.”
“What means do they employ?” Nikko asked.
“On the surface, humanitarian. Their intentions seem noble. But there has been recent evidence that they have a little terrorist in them.” Godfather pressed another icon and more pictures of Balderama flashed up on the screen. Shaking hands with various heads of state, including the last three US presidents. “Too noble,” Godfather mused aloud.
“How ironic then,” Nikko said, trying to tamp down his anger that Selena might still be alive, “that among the Russian voices, I heard Spanish voices. And how coincidental that Selena is there in the middle of a uranium heist.”
“It’s not coincidence. Somehow she survived your attack, Cruz, and Balderama paid a lot of people to make it look like she had died, then killed to cover it up. I’ll bet my retirement she’s alive and well, and working for Balderama.”
“I’ll lay odds it was her trailing the convoy,” Gage said. “Damn her!” Nikko whispered. Then more loudly: “Damn her for everything!” He shot out of his chair. “I went crazy when Selena killed our daughter. For God’s sake, I strangled
her!” He looked around the room at the silent faces of his team. “She died, right there, by my hands.” He looked down at his hands as if her blood still stained them. “There were witnesses. I was tried, found guilty, and sentenced to death. She’s dead.”
“Look at it this way, Cruz,” Godfather said. “Had you gone to jury trial, maybe the cover-up would have come out, and instead of being convicted of first-degree murder, you would have pled guilty to attempted murder.”
“Because you refused a trial by jury, no one questioned any of it,” Stone calmly said.
Nikko stared at the screen, then at his team. He’d killed her. Murdered the woman he loved, the one who’d destroyed a life he so wanted to be a part of. She had made it impossible for him to forgive her.
“With the kind of money Balderama has, and the pull he has in the Cuban community, he could have pulled it off, especially with there being no trial.” Godfather stared at the screen and Balderama’s smiling face as he kissed a chubby baby as if he were the damn pope. “But why?”
“What value would your ex have to a man like Balderama?” Cassidy asked.
Nikko shook his head, a sudden migraine erupting behind his eyes. He wanted Selena to stay dead. He could live with what he’d done, but he couldn’t live with her alive after what she’d done. He inhaled a deep breath and slowly exhaled, then said, “She’s half-Cuban. Her mother committed suicide the year before we met. She never spoke of her father.”
“Do you know where she was born?” Godfather asked.
“Havana.”
Godfather worked his magic, and in less than a minute Selena Guerrero’s birth certificate sprang up on the screens. Father: Unknown. Mother: Marta Famosa.
“How did she end up with Guerrero as her last name if her mother’s was Famosa?” Cassidy asked.
“Guerrero means ‘war’ in Spanish,” Nikko said. “Selena was a fighter. Pissed off at the world. She was probably born with an AK in her hands.”
“Could that be what drew Balderama to her?” Satriano asked.
“Maybe she’s his daughter. Maybe the mother tried to keep her daughter’s paternity a secret so she wouldn’t have to share her with Balderama,” Godfather said.
It made sense. No, it didn’t. Nothing made sense.
“Balderama is half-Cuban and half-Venezuelan,” Godfather said, pulling up an article about the young Latino immigrant who was touted by his peers as the César Chávez of the East Coast. “According to his bio, his mother, Alda Balderama, was a Cuban revolutionary. She died in Gitmo in the late seventies.”
“And so the plot thickens,” Stone said, looking up at the screens.
Godfather looked hard at Nikko. “Let’s go on the assumption Guerrero is still alive. For a man of Balderama’s status, there had to be a vital reason he would stick his neck out to make these arrangements. That she was in the same hunting grounds as we were in Kyrgyzstan, and assuming she was in the employ of Balderama, then I’d say she is a person of extreme interest. Most especially if she was the one trailing the cask. The bigger question is, did she get it?”
Nikko shook his head, refusing to acknowledge she might be alive. Because if she was, he was not done with her.
“What did she do to you out there?” Godfather demanded.
Nikko struggled with his answer. Not that he would not be honest with his team, but he was afraid he would sound like one of those crazies who insisted they had been abducted by aliens.
“Cruz,” Cassidy softly said, “I felt like a complete idiot when I suspected Marcus was a vampire. I did not want to believe my own eyes, or my gut, because it was crazy. And you know how you all reacted. Just tell us what happened. And let us decide what to do with it.”
“I was dying, for Christ’s sake. Out of fucking nowhere, a woman who looked and sounded like Selena showed up. She called me Johnny. My given name. She talked as if she knew me. Jesus, I was dying! I was hallucinating. She said she’d see me in Hell, and then she stabbed me in the chest with a needle. I woke up and felt like Superman. I still do.”
“Superman how?” Cassidy asked.
“I can run faster than a cheetah. My smell is so acute I can tell that you and Cross were at it hot and heavy a few hours ago.” He snorted as Cassidy’s cheeks pinkened.
“Fuck you, Cruz.”
“I can tell each one of you has had at least one cup of coffee.” He stood and grabbed his chair. “I can turn this into a perfect pretzel if I want to.”
Godfather turned to Cassidy. “What’s the soonest you can get Cross in here?”
“Fivish.”
“I want to pick his brain on this. If this is something vampire we’re dealing with, I want him in on it.” Godfather turned to Nikko. “I want you to head down to medical and have the doc draw blood.” He looked at the group at large. “I’ve got some work to do on Guerrero. We’ll reconvene here and figure out how the hell we’re going to locate and retrieve that cask.”
“Are you insinuating Selena is a vampire?” Nikko cautiously asked, knowing she was anything but. “It was daylight when she showed up.” He turned to Cassidy. “Wouldn’t she have fried if she were a vampire?”
Cassidy smiled grimly. “You’ve seen what happens to a vampire in the sunlight.”
“Exactly. She’s not a vampire. I’d know, and there is no way I would have fu—” He cut the word off before he said it. But he would have known all those years ago if she was—different. Wouldn’t he?
“What’s your problem with vampires, Cruz?” Cassidy demanded, thrusting herself into his space.
“They’re dead, for Christ’s sake!”
“Don’t knock Marcus for what he had no control over. He’s a good man and saved your ass in Cairo less than a month ago.” Cassidy stalked off toward the opposite side of the room. “Asshole,” she murmured under her breath.
Stone and Dante laughed. Satch shook his head.
Nikko wanted to tell them all to get screwed. Sorry if he wasn’t right with the whole having a relationship with a vampire thing.
“Let’s take a break, boys and girls,” Godfather said. “Cruz, I’ll let the doc know you’re on your way down. I want everyone to report back here at sixteen hundred. And leave your attitudes outside.”
Nikko wanted to apologize to Cassidy, not for his feelings, but for baiting her, but she exited the room before he had the chance. Damn females. He was glad they only served one purpose to him. Easy come, easy go.
CHAPTER FIVE
Nikko had been sitting in the darkened war room for almost two hours trying to sort fact from fiction. Fact: He’d been shot in the thigh and arm. Then blown to hell by an RPG. Yet he was still alive.
Fact: He was superhero strong, with heightened senses. Hell, he had just stunned the doctor by making a pretzel out of a pair of stainless steel scissors and reading the bottom of the eye chart from one hundred feet.
Fact: He believed he’d seen Selena somewhere in between getting blown to Hell and coming to in Kyrgyzstan.
Only seeing Selena was the fiction part of all this, too. Because Selena was dead. He’d killed her. It haunted him every day.
None of the facts added up, yet he could not quite convince himself of the fiction either. Where the hell did that leave him?
Scared shitless that he might be turning into a vampire. The doc was trying to rule that out right now.
Vials of blood had been drawn. He had pissed in three different cups. At the doctor’s insistence, he’d had every inch of his body x-rayed, as well as a full-body MRI. Not a part of him inside or out hadn’t been pricked, prodded, tested, or palpated.
But he didn’t need the test results to know he was healthy. He didn’t need test results to tell him he was getting stronger by the hour. Or that he felt his ice-cold control slipping. Or—God help him—that he wanted Selena alive. That he wanted to see her again. Feel her. Smell her.
He swiped his hand across his face and cursed. Selena was dead. He’d imagined her, that’s all. Why he
would have imagined her while he lay dying, he didn’t want to think about.
But he had no choice but to think about the changes he’d undergone. His money, and his hopes, was on some superhuman serum the Russians had concocted. He’d just been a handy guinea pig.
Well, fuck you very much, it worked. Every part of him including his damn libido was heightened. He was walking around with a hard-on a sixteen-year-old would envy. And damn if every time he thought of Selena, it didn’t get more of a rise out of him.
The door opened, and his team, followed by a stoic Godfather, walked in and settled around the table. Nikko sat up. “It appears, Cruz, we have a problem,” Godfather softly said as he brought up the storyboard. “You weren’t hallucinating, and thankfully you’ve gotten much better at killing in the last few years. Because your first attempt sucked.”
Immediately, the image of Selena Guerrero popped up all around them. She looked just as she had all those years ago. A little older but, if possible, more beautiful.
Soft wolf whistles filled the quiet.
“Holy Hell, Cruz,” Stone said, “she’s a knockout.”
Nikko’s stomach dropped to the floor. Emotions he’d long ago buried surfaced. Good ones, bad ones. Vicious, murderous ones.
“Selena Guerrero is alive and well,” Godfather said. “And—” He tapped the touch screen. The zoomed-in satellite image of the motorcyclist trailing the convoy popped up. He tapped the screen again, and Nikko watched in amazement as the pixels resolved into a face.
Those eyes—God help him.
Godfather superimposed the motorcyclist’s eyes over a current image of Selena. Stunned, Nikko could not deny the obvious. She was alive! He hadn’t imagined seeing her. His longing rose up to meet his hatred. He sat forward as emotions he had forced from his heart reared up in a wild, dizzying crescendo. It couldn’t be true!
Another picture popped up. This one of her strolling on the beach in a hot-pink bikini the size of a postage stamp with some linebacker-size goon walking beside her. Speechless, Nikko stared at her image. Long, silky black hair he could still feel beneath his fingertips waved in a breeze. Expressive black eyes with just a hint of a feline slant looked straight at him. His gaze dropped to her full, pouty lips.
