Edwards stood there. Annoyance sprinted across his features before a smug look took control.
“Mr. Carrera. A personal visit wasn’t necessary. It would have been sufficient for you to answer all the calls you’ve been ignoring.”
“And here I thought that you would be happy to hear that I’ve brought you something. Or should I say someone?”
Interest flared in Edwards’s features and he took that first expected step over the threshold and looked behind Mick.
“You have her here?” he asked.
Mick chuckled and shook his head, chastising the other man. “You paid me to find her, didn’t you?”
Edwards squinted, peering at him intently and then craning his neck toward the driveway and woods. He took another step forward, as if to improve his line of sight, which was exactly what Mick wanted.
“Don’t see anything? Look behind you, Dr. Edwards.”
The other man half-turned and looked straight back toward his doorway. Straight at Caterina, but he apparently didn’t see her.
Tracking Edwards’s gaze, he knew why. The black of Cat’s clothing and hair appeared to be nothing more than shadows. Her eyes were closed, giving away nothing of her presence thanks to the redbrick color of her skin. But then she opened her eyes—those amazing sapphire blue eyes—and they were like a beacon in the night.
Edwards gasped and that stunned second was all it took.
Mick grabbed Edwards from behind, encircling his neck with one arm while jabbing his gun into the scientist’s ribs.
“We need to talk,” Mick said.
CHAPTER 27
Mick forced Edwards forward across the threshold and into the house. Caterina followed, closing and locking the door behind them.
He marched the doctor through the house until they reached the kitchen. Tossing Edwards into a chair, Mick ripped some cable ties from his pocket and bound the scientist to the arms and legs of the chair, not that Edwards had put up much of a fight.
Maybe because his stunned gaze had been focused on Caterina the whole time.
As Mick finished securing him, he turned to find Caterina losing the brick camo and going back to her normal skin color.
“Long time no see, Dr. Edwards,” she said, the tones of her voice controlled although her body was taut with anger.
“You’ve got some nerve bringing her here,” Edwards said, glaring at Mick as he stood beside him. “She’s dangerous. She killed Wells.”
Mick tsked and shook his head. “There are lots of reasons why I think Caterina didn’t do the skewering. Let’s start with reason number one—Gates Genengineering.”
Edwards paled. “How do you know about—”
“I hacked your servers,” he said.
“You found the Gates documents?” Edwards sputtered.
Mick nodded and walked around the edge of the chair to crouch right before the doctor, not wanting to miss a second of his response.
“What happened? Did Wells find out about the experiments you did on Caterina and the others?”
Confusion clouded the other man’s eyes as he shot a look back at Caterina before returning his gaze to him. “What are you talking about?”
“This is what you did to me,” Caterina said and approached. To leave no doubt about what she was referring to, she laid her hand on the maple surface of the table. Her anger made the transformation quick as her hand almost disappeared onto the surface of the table.
“I didn’t know that’s what Wells did. I just knew something wasn’t right,” Edwards replied, his eyes wide with fear.
“Wells was trying to help me when you had him killed,” she nearly screamed and advanced on him.
Mick jumped in her way, and as had happened before, her extra strength surprised and nearly toppled him. “Calm down, Cat.”
“See how violent she is,” Edwards asserted, and the chair bucked as he tried to escape his restraints to get away from Caterina.
Caterina did as Mick requested, backing away and tucking her arms tight to her sides to assert control. “I’m sorry. It won’t happen again.”
Mick stood before Edwards once more, arms across his chest. His stance loose, but ready for action. “If I thought Caterina would do it, I’d gladly let her at you. Someone has to pay for what’s been done to her.”
“I told you. I had nothing to do with that,” Edwards hissed, the skin taut across the almost ferretlike lines of his ascetic face.
“Nothing to do with it, but you found out about it, didn’t you?”
Hot color erupted on Edwards’s cheeks. “Wells came to me right after I told him about the merger.”
“He wanted to tell Gates about the experiments,” Mick prompted.
Reluctantly, Edwards admitted it, which was not what Mick had been expecting. “He wanted to come clean, but that would have jeopardized everything.”
“So you killed him,” Caterina said and came to stand beside Mick, the intensity of her fury apparent but under control.
“As far as I know, you’re responsible for Wells’s death,” he said, jerking his head in Caterina’s direction.
“You know this based on what? Video feed? Eyewitness testimony?” Mick asked.
Edwards shrugged. “I can’t say.”
Caterina leaned down until she was almost face to face with Edwards. “You mean you can, but you won’t.”
As she rose upright and stood beside him again, Mick laid a calming hand on her shoulder as he looked straight at Edwards and said, “Call off Mad Dog.”
Edwards raked his gaze over him intently before saying, “Who is Mad Dog?”
“Matthew Donnelly. Mad Dog. Soldier of fortune. Psycho security expert. Call him off,” Mick repeated.
Edwards shrugged and shook his head. “I don’t know any Mad Dog.”
He was either a damned fine actor or he was telling the truth, but just in case… Mick pulled out an old photo of him with Mad Dog and shoved it in Edwards’s face.
“You’ve never seen this man before?”
“Never,” Edwards immediately asserted.
Mick actually believed him, but he also suspected the good doctor might have an idea as to who had called in Mad Dog. “Who do you know who might have hired him?”
“Don’t know.” Clearly lying this time, Mick thought.
“Mad Dog’s name was on your security department logs,” he said and crouched down once more until he was eye to eye with Edwards. He wanted his message to be clear.
“You’ve got until noon tomorrow to check the logs and call me with the name of the person Mad Dog visited.”
A shrewd look crept onto Edwards’s features. “What if I don’t?”
Mick smiled and glanced at Caterina before he rose and joined ranks with her. She slipped her hand into his as he said, “I can show you a world of hurt you can’t even begin to imagine. Physical and financial hurt. Understood?”
Edwards’s gaze narrowed at their show of unity and then he nodded.
“Understood, Mr. Carrera.”
Despite the other man’s words, Mick didn’t trust him. There was too much at stake financially for Edwards. If he had hired Mad Dog, Mick suspected the scientist would not call the mercenary off so quickly.
But Mick hoped the warning would spur Edwards into action that would help him confirm the doctor’s involvement in what had happened to Wells. He would be tracking Edwards’s every move so he could better understand the kind of battle he faced to safeguard Caterina’s life.
The ride back to Mick’s home in Bradley Beach was quiet.
Mick was lost in his thoughts, probably considering what they had learned from Edwards.
Edwards, Caterina thought with disgust, had been so smug and too calm. Clearly unremorseful of all the pain, suffering, and death that had come about because of the contract with Gates Genengineering, which Mick had told her about before their arrival at Edwards’s home.
One hundred million dollars for the loss of how many lives? Caterina w
ondered as another shiver racked across her body.
At the movement, Mick quickly looked in her direction before returning his attention to the road. “Are you okay?”
The low-level heat she had been tolerating all day had been steadily growing until her head had begun to pound. Now the chills had started.
“I’m hot,” she admitted and tucked her arms tight around herself to contain the involuntary spasms of her body.
Mick’s hands tightened and relaxed on the steering wheel. “It’s about ten more minutes to the house. Can you hold on that long?”
Caterina’s head hurt so much that even the off–on of the passing streetlights was creating agony in her skull. Only ten minutes, she told herself.
“Only ten,” he repeated and she realized she had vocalized her last thoughts.
Another rough shudder slashed through her body, but she lied past her chattering teeth and said, “I can do it.”
She repeated those words silently to herself, trying to ignore the pain and the nearly uncontrollable tremors of her body.
Mick increased his speed, mindful of Caterina’s deteriorating condition, but drove within reasonable limits so as to avoid being pulled over. Finally he parked the Jeep in the garage and turned in the seat. “Cat, we’re home.”
She nodded, or at least he thought she did. She was shaking so violently that it made it impossible to know whether or not the motion had been in response to his question.
Mick sprang into action, exiting the Jeep and swinging around to her door. Opening it and reaching in to carry her from the car and into the kitchen where Liliana was making herself a cup of tea. At her questioning glance, he said, “Cat’s burning up again. I’m taking her to the pool.”
After closing the door to the garage and disarming the alarm before it could trip, Liliana followed Mick to the edge of the pool where she hovered nearby anxiously. He toed off his boots, ripped his cell phone from his belt, slipped his gun holster from the small of his back, and removed his ankle holster.
“Get some towels,” he instructed and walked with Caterina in his arms to the stairs at the far end of the pool. He carefully moved down the steps, the chill of the water seeping through his jeans as he descended into the pool.
Caterina was mumbling incoherently, something over and over again, when he finally entered the water with her. An immense tremor racked her body at the contact with the cold water and her eyes flew open, bright orbs of blue made brighter by the reflection from the moonlit pool water. She grabbed hold of Mick’s shoulders and buried her face against his chest.
He tucked her close, laying his face next to hers. He could feel the heat burning up her body.
“How is she?” Liliana called out as she tossed some towels by the lip of the pool and crouched down to get a better look at them.
“It’ll take a little time to cool her down. I’m worried that the fever returned without another injection of the inhibitor drug.”
As Mick examined Liliana’s face, her similar concern was plainly evident.
“I’ll go get her room ready.” She rushed off, leaving him alone with Caterina.
Mick bent his knees, dipping down so that they were covered in the cool water up to their necks.
Caterina’s face bore a ruddy blush from the fever, but as he cradled her, the heat from her body slowly receded, as did the rosy flush. He brought his lips to her forehead, pleased that her body temperature was substantially lower.
“How are you feeling?” he murmured.
“Better,” she replied.
“Let’s get you dry and back to bed to rest. You probably overdid it tonight by coming with me.” Or at least, he hoped that was the reason for the return of the fever and not something else going on in her body.
At her nod, he carried her out of the water to the pool deck, released her legs so she could stand on her own. She was wobbly, so he kept one arm around her. Together they bent and retrieved the towels, drying off their hair and faces. He wrapped a towel around her body to collect some of the water dripping off her clothes. Scooped up his cell phone and weapons, and then picked her back up and took her upstairs to the guest room.
Liliana waited there with yet more towels. On the nightstand by the bed she had set up a small bowl and washcloths. The bowl was filled with water and ice in the event the fever returned.
Mick walked to the edge of the bed and let Caterina slip to her feet again.
“I’ll help you get out of those wet things,” his sister said. He took that as a cue to leave and also as an opportunity to change into something dry himself.
In his room, he ripped off the sodden clothes, tossing them into the bathtub. Briskly rubbing a towel across himself to counteract the cold pool water, he dried off and eased into a T-shirt and sweats. Brushing his hair back with his fingers, he returned to the room where Liliana had managed to get Caterina out of her clothes and into bed.
Liliana was drawing another sample of blood, and when he walked in she explained, “I want to make sure there’s nothing new causing this fever.”
After the vacutainer was filled with phosphorescent green blood, Liliana efficiently removed the needle from Caterina’s arm and bandaged it. As she finished, Caterina reached out and grasped her hand.
“Thank you, Lil,” she said. Liliana returned the gesture, taking Caterina’s hand in a reassuring clasp.
“It’ll be okay, Cat. I promise,” his sister said.
Mick wished he could make the same pledge, but said nothing as Liliana walked toward him, the glowing blood sample in her hand. “I’m due back at the hospital in a couple of hours. I’m going to try and grab a nap before then.”
“I’m sorry I’ve made it so hard for you,” he said, but his sister surprised him by smiling.
“Not hard at all. You’ve given me a place to stay and a reason to believe in myself again. It gave me the strength to do the right thing.”
“Harrison?” he questioned and she confirmed it with a slight dip of her head.
“Harrison and Caterina. I know you’ll find the strength to do the right thing as well.” She rose up on tiptoe and brushed a sisterly kiss on his cheek before leaving the room.
The right thing, Mick thought, closed the door and approached the bed where Caterina rested, her gaze locked on him as he neared.
Her skin had lost the flush of fever and returned to its creamy hue. Thick curly locks of her nearly black hair, heavy with moisture, rested against the side of her face.
She turned the deep blue of her gaze up to meet his. “No matter what happens at the end, you’ve done the right thing by me.”
At the end, he thought, unsure of anything other than the fact that this would all not end well for someone. Whether it was Edwards or Mad Dog or Caterina or even himself, someone would likely pay a high price at the conclusion of this assignment.
Mick sat on the edge of the recliner and cradled her cheek. Her skin bore a slight chill from the water and was smooth beneath the pad of his finger. So smooth and womanly.
Caterina covered his much larger hand with hers. His palm was rough. Clearly the hand of a man who worked hard with his hands. A strong hand, she thought as she moved her hand past his wrist and to his forearm. The hair on his arm soft beneath her palm. His body muscled and lean until she reached the edge of the waterproof bandage on his forearm covering the wound he had received battling for her. Another scar to add to those on his body.
It had to be the fever that was making her remember just how that body had felt against hers when he had held her in the pool. How he had kissed her and she him, rousing passion that might be better left unexplored only…
“Would you hold me?” She needed the human contact. Needed the affirmation that she was still a woman. A desirable woman, unless she was misreading the signals he was giving off.
“If holding is all you want, I may not be your man,” Mick replied and dipped his thumb down to trace the edges of her lips.
“I want mor
e. I want to feel alive again,” Caterina said.
She was using him, but it wouldn’t be the first time or the last that a woman had done so, Mick thought. Considering he found her damned attractive, weird genes and all, why not give in to the temptation and get it out of his system.
“Move over,” he said.
Caterina shifted to the center of the bed and he joined her there, lying on his side and facing her. Their bodies were only inches apart.
“Touch me,” she said and pulled away the sheet, exposing the fullness of her breasts with their soft tips.
He ran the pads of his fingers across the tip of one breast. Cupped the weight of it in his hand and rubbed his thumb across the tip until her nipples beaded into stiff nubs. He needed to taste, he thought, and bent his head, licked the one tip while continuing to caress the other nipple with his hand.
She arched her back to give him easier access and cradled the back of his head. Moaned as he teethed the peak of one breast. He soothed that gentle nip with another lick and suckled at her breast while shifting one hand downward, across the flat expanse of her midsection. Past the delicate indent of her navel until his fingers gently brushed between her legs.
She moved closer and threw her thigh up over his, inviting him to her most private core.
Tardily he accepted that invitation, skimming his fingers across her center until the sensitive nub swelled and his fingers dipped lower.
Caterina gasped as he explored her dampness, gripping his shoulders as he eased in first one finger and then another, stretching her in preparation for his possession.
“Mick,” she keened, shifting her hips against his hand. Holding his head to her, but wanting to feel the warmth of his body beside her.
He slipped slightly away and she reached for the hem of his shirt. Pulled it over his head while he skimmed the sweatpants down his body, revealing the nakedness beneath the fleece.
She laid her hands on his shoulders once more and took a moment to enjoy all of him that was visible. The articulated and defined muscles of his body. The scars and bruises that spoke of a man familiar with danger and accustomed to violence.
Sins of the Flesh Page 17
