CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Her stomach twisted and turned in sudden sharp waves that, thankfully, remained dormant during the ride from the airport to her condo. Cassandra paid the cab driver and lugged her suitcase out of the car, balancing her computer bag on top, purse over her shoulder. She’d been about to turn the key in her ignition when it had hit her that in the movies a few too many of those who were knocked off ended up dead in their car. She hadn’t liked her odds.
Nervously, she rolled her bag toward her condo and realized that going inside might not be smart—the second place that people got killed was in their homes. But she didn’t know where else to go that she could be sure Michael could find her. She had no direct number for Caleb. If she called her office, she worried that her father would find out she’d asked for the number.
With her heart fluttering wildly in her chest, she entered the paved walkway with her residence to the left. She drew a breath and unlocked her door, then shuffled her bags inside. Cassandra felt the tingle of awareness spike the mark on her neck a moment too late. Suddenly, strong arms were around her, and she was inside the condo, the door shut behind her.
Michael leaned against the solid surface, pulled her hard against his body, powerful thighs molding hers, branding her. He slid his hands up her back.
“Michael,” she gasped. His hair was pulled back so that she could see the anger etched in his beautiful face all too clearly.
He placed his hand over her backside. “I have a good mind to turn you over my knee and spank that pretty little ass of yours.”
“You wouldn’t dare!”
“Oh I’d dare, and you know it,” he rebutted. “What part of…Adam wants you dead…do you not understand?”
“What part of, Adam has to be stopped before the world is destroyed, do you not understand? I had to get that copy of Brock’s hard drive.”
“And did you?”
“Yes,” she said, chin tilted defiantly. “I did.”
Dark eyes assessed her. That hand on her backside flexed, almost in threat. And damn it, that made her hot when she didn’t want to be. He made her hot. “Did you know, Cassandra,” he replied tightly, “that once a female has had sex with a GTECH there is a psychic residue that can be tracked? Unless that female is lifebonded, or underground, a skilled GTECH Tracker with the right motivation can find you anywhere. Even Germany.”
Shock rolled through her. She had never been safe. Adam’s Trackers could have found her. “You knew I was in Germany?”
“I’ve always known where you were. And I knew you were far enough away to stay out of sight, out of mind—off Adam’s radar. I was furious when your father lured you back to the States, back onto Adam’s radar.”
A knot formed in her throat. “I…you knew I was there, but you never once came to see me.” In that moment, she realized painfully that she’d used her time in Germany as his excuse for not contacting her. He couldn’t find her. He couldn’t come to her. But he’d found her all right.
His hands slid into her hair. “I came to see you,” he said softly. “You just never knew I was there. You were safer that way. I’ve kicked myself a million times for not intervening when you were returning home. I should have made you stay there. But I also knew any contact with me put you at risk—and not just from Adam, Cassandra. I knew if I touched you again, there was no way I would ever let you go.”
She sucked in a breath at that confession. He was touching her now.
His hand slid up her back, molding them closer. “Do you know how damn worried I was about you when you were on that plane?”
“No,” she said, leaning back to search his face. “No, I don’t.” But she wanted to. God, how she wanted to. “I don’t know anything about what you feel, Michael. Because you never tell me.”
“Well, I’m telling you now,” he said hoarsely. “I was going insane, coming out of my own skin. Barely able to stop myself from yanking you out of that airport and back into my arms.” His mouth came down on hers, hot, passionate, and fiery, like a man starving. Cassandra clung to him, hungry for the comfort that his strong arms offered, the scent of him devouring her with…him. Yes. Him. He was what she needed, and she could feel the same hunger in him. He needed her. He’d always needed her. He’d always known where she was, always been near.
But…she tore her mouth from his, still clinging to him, unable to make herself let go. “What happened to not touching me, to being afraid we’ll lifebond without a blood exchange?”
“The knowledge that in one instant you could be taken from me forever.” Emotion cut deep in his tone.
This was what she’d wanted to hear from him, was it not? So why was there an empty gnawing feeling inside her? Confused, so confused. Her hands went to his chest, self-preservation kicking in. “No.” Then stronger. “No.” She shook her head. “One minute you push me away. The next, you pull me close. I can’t do this. I can’t.”
“Cassandra,” he breathed heavily. “I want you. I want you so damn much. But there are things about me you don’t know.” She was ready to reject those words, to shove away from him until he added softly, “Things…I don’t want you to know.”
Tenderness rushed over her, and Cassandra pressed a palm to his cheek. It was an honest, raw answer. The most honest he’d ever been with her. “I do. Tell me. Please. Just say whatever it is and be done with it. Then the worry is over.”
Abruptly, he set her away from him. “This isn’t the time for this conversation. Adam’s men will come for you. We have to leave.”
They stood there, staring at each other. His face a stony, unemotional mask, yet hurt and loneliness spilled from him, seeping into Cassandra’s pores. She felt herself become that hurt, that loneliness—his hurt and loneliness.
It made her angry. It made her want to shout at him to stop being a fool. It made her want to run to him. It made her want to run away. Nothing had changed from moments before, when she’d tried to push him away. He was still incapable of letting her inside himself. He would hurt her.
This was over. They were over. And she might have said just that—wanted to, needed to—but a sudden rush of nausea seemed to merge with her emotions, and her knees wobbled.
Instantly, Michael was there, his arm wrapping around her waist. “Cassandra.” He picked her up and carried her to her oversized blue couch and laid her down. On one knee beside her, he studied her with those probing, black eyes. “The lifebond illness.”
She nodded, the implications clear. She was having the lifebond illness. “I’ve been sick. Yes. All day. But before you start freaking out, it’s not the violent, bedridden illness of lifebonding. And we still haven’t done a blood exchange. So please. Let’s skip the part where you do the brooding Michael thing you do, and tell me how dangerous you are for me. We both know we have no business lifebonding after everything that’s happened between us. Let’s leave it at that.”
Michael’s expression shifted. He looked shaken. “Cassandra—”
She shook her head. He pulled her close, pressed his forehead to hers. “I never meant to hurt you, Cassandra.”
Her fingers curled on his jaw, her chest heavy, eyes tingling though she refused to cry. “I know,” she said. Just as she knew he wouldn’t mean to hurt her again if she let him. She wouldn’t. Nor would she run. Not from Michael. And not from Adam. She’d spent far too much time watching rather than participating, making a difference. She’d accepted Michael’s emotional distance. She was done accepting. It was long past time for her to stand and fight.
She leaned back and ran her fingers over his lips. She loved his lips. Loved kissing him. So she did. She pressed her lips to his and then leaned back, pulling the flash drive from her bra. He arched a brow, and she smiled. “I wasn’t about to let it off my person. Care to do the honors while I pack?”
He took the flash drive from her. “Backpack or small duffel. We’ll be traveling by motorcycle through Sunrise Canyon.”
Fifteen minutes later, with a small backpack filled, Cassandra had changed to jeans and tennis shoes. She returned to the living room and found Michael sitting on her couch, laptop open. “Any luck?”
“Encrypted,” he said with frustration, shutting the lid to the computer. “I just talked to Sterling. We’ll meet him on the way out of town and give him the flash drive. He’ll have it decoded by the time we get to Sunrise City.”
A moment of trepidation fluttered through Cassandra at the lack of control that gave her. She knew Adam was after Red Dart; she also knew the Renegades were against her father. But they wouldn’t be once she proved he was not against them. That hard drive might be the answer to doing that.
Cassandra nodded her approval. The sooner it was decoded, the sooner they could all work together.
Michael exited Cassandra’s condo, pulled the door shut, and locked it. He took her hand in his, a silent promise everything was going to be okay. Her hand was tiny, soft. He wanted to hold it forever, and for a moment he couldn’t remember why that wasn’t possible. The instant they cleared the building, the stifling early evening heat wrapped around them, the smell of rain touching the air. A distant rumble of thunder promised the trip through the canyon would be a wet one. Reaching out to the wind for any warnings, Michael listened for the whispers only he could understand, and then ordered it to seek out trouble.
Glancing at Cassandra, he inclined his head toward the side of the building, to a row of parking meters that faced another building and more meters. “I’m over here,” he said, leading her toward the less-than-discreet spot he’d parked the Ford F-150 he was driving, scanning the perimeter with feigned nonchalance and noting four vacant cars across the street. A fifth car sat two empty spaces in front of the truck.
He opened the passenger’s door of the truck, and he settled his hand on her tiny waist, helping Cassandra climb into the cabin. “I can’t believe you traded in Carrie for a pickup truck.”
“Carrie is waiting at home for her next ride,” he said as she settled into the seat, and then softened his voice as he added, “or ours,” remembering all too clearly a night they’d made love in that car. That had been a feat, considering it was small, and he was big, but a pleasurable feat. From the pink flush on Cassandra’s pale cheeks, he knew she remembered that night as well. “She’s missed you.”
Her lips parted, full, tempting, and the only thing stopping him from kissing her was the need to get her to safety. “Then why isn’t she here?”
“We’re headed toward some hard desert terrain. Carrie doesn’t like hard desert terrain. I can’t exactly wind-walk amongst the general population, so believe me I’d take her speed and agility any day over Frank here.” He patted the truck’s dash.
She snorted, delicately. Cute. Damn, he loved everything about this woman.
“Frank?” she laughed and shook her head. “You and your nicknames.”
Good. Laughter. Keep her mind off danger. “I’ve been eyeing a white vintage Mustang. I need another Carrie.”
He started to shut the door, contemplating the many ways to change her mind, when the wind whispered a warning. His gaze snapped upward and did a quick scan.
“What is it? What’s wrong?” Cassandra’s hand touched his chest, warm, insistent.
“Someone is watching us.” He reached across her and popped the glove box open, displaying a Browning 9 mm pistol. “Lock the doors and lie on the floorboard.”
Cassandra grabbed his arm. “Let’s just leave,” she said. “Drive away. I don’t want you to get hurt again.”
His gut clenched with her concern. No one but Cassandra had ever worried about him. He grabbed her. Kissed her fast and hard. “I’ll be fine,” he said and shut the door on her before she could stop him, already following the wind’s direction.
Abruptly, he turned to the blue Toyota 4Runner across and to the right. Someone was hiding behind that vehicle. He wind-walked behind it and found the crouching male behind the front bumper.
Michael grabbed the man by the neck and found his ineffective attempts at escape confirmation that he was human. The buzz-cut and stoic demeanor spelled out military despite his street clothing. If he worked for Adam and was here to kill Cassandra, he was dead. If he was here to spy for Powell, well…he was dead. Allowing Powell to know Cassandra was with him wasn’t an option. That would shut her out of her father’s trust and destroy her chances of getting to Red Dart. Probably the Renegades’ chances too, as Powell would increase his security measures.
But before he killed the man, he needed to know for certain if Powell was suspicious of his own daughter.
Michael jacked the guy against the wall, holding all two-hundred-plus pounds of him dangling above the pavement. “What the flip is your problem!” the man demanded, indignant, unruffled when he should have been.
Michael dug his fingers into the man’s flesh, giving him an idea of the amount of pain he could inflict. “Who are you working for, soldier, and why are you here?”
“Let me go,” the man grunted. “I’m not working for anyone!”
“Right. You just like crawling around behind cars.”
“I was checking my tires!”
“Don’t fuck with me,” Michael growled. “Who the hell are you working for?”
“You’re flipping insane, man. I have no idea what you are talking about.”
Michael ground his teeth, spoke tightly. “Did whoever sent you tell you who I am?” he asked, well aware of his reputation. “Did they tell you how capable I am of killing you without blinking an eye?”
“I told you, man,” the soldier said, “I was checking my tires.”
The wind gusted with warning, and Michael yanked the man to the ground and behind a car, bullets splattering all around them. But not soon enough. The man went limp, a bullet between his eyes.
Fuck! More bullets. Cassandra. Michael left the man behind, ordering the wind to surround his truck, create a windshield, a buffer that he was capable of holding no more than sixty seconds.
He wind-walked to the driver’s side of the vehicle and held his position, listened for a message in the wind. The shooters were dead. That was the extent of what he understood. Often he didn’t understand at all, but that was improving.
Michael popped the door handle and climbed into the truck, quickly turning on the engine. “Stay down until I tell you otherwise.”
“I thought they wanted to make it look like an accident?” she asked from the floorboard. “Shooting at me in the middle of a public place is not an accident.”
“Did any gunfire hit the truck?” he asked, keeping his eyes on the road as he scanned for attackers.
“I don’t think so,” she said, and then with more certainty. “No. Now that you mention it, I don’t think any bullets hit the truck at all.”
“You can get off the floor now, sweetheart, but stay low in your seat,” he said. “I think the shooters were after me, not you. That means this was your father.”
She eased into the seat, lying with her head on the door below the window, feet on the seat. “Please tell me, no,” she said. “If he knows I’m with you, Michael, that hard drive will be it for me. I won’t get anything else out of him.”
Michael wasn’t sure what more she could do anyway with Adam trying to kill her, but he didn’t say that. “It’s doubtful your father is going to find out I was with you,” he said, which was good, if not for the very real threat of a Zodius attack. “Someone killed the shooters.”
“I don’t understand,” she said. “Was it Zodius?”
He nodded. “It had to be.”
“Why would they keep either of us alive? And why aren’t they attacking now?”
Michael’s jaw set, and he reached for his phone to call Caleb. They were going to need backup to make it to Sunrise City. “Adam doesn’t want me dead, or we wouldn’t be driving away. He wants me alive. So he can torture me. And for whatever reason, the Zodius didn’t feel they were ready to stand against me back there.”
But they’d be back, sooner than later, and Michael had to be sure Cassandra was out of the line of fire when it happened.
Perched on a rooftop across from Cassandra’s condo, Brock’s attempt to kill Michael had failed. He’d killed a soldier, which had left him no choice but to kill the other three. If he couldn’t kill Michael before he left with Cassandra, no one could live to tell Powell she was with him.
His one last shot at Michael had been a prime one. Michael had opened the truck door, preparing to get in. Brock had prepared to take the shot, when suddenly his weapon had been yanked from his hands.
Brock had whirled around to face his attacker—Lucian. “What the fuck?”
“You will not kill Michael,” Lucian said. “Adam wants him alive. You saved him from his attackers, yet you try to shoot him yourself.”
“I didn’t want anyone else getting the credit,” he lied, and quickly drew the attention elsewhere. “I thought we wanted him dead. If you’re trying to capture Michael, you’re failing, just as you did at killing Cassandra Powell.”
Lucian glared. “Michael and Cassandra are about to take a nice long drive on a deserted section of Highway 95. They won’t last the night.” He raised Brock’s weapon and pointed it between his eyes. “And you won’t last the week if you don’t get me Red Dart.” He disappeared into the wind, taking the weapon with him.
Brock punched at the air and took off running. He had to get to the base. He needed to convince Powell to inject him now because if Lucian had his way, Cassandra wouldn’t be returning home. Powell had charged him with her protection, but she’d be dead by morning.
Brock climbed into his truck and slammed the door just about the time his cell rang. He eyed the screen. Powell. His gut clenched. He was sitting in front of Cassandra’s apartment—four of Powell’s men were dead, and his daughter had just left with Michael. That kind of timing screamed of a fly stuck in shit.
He answered. “Yes sir, General.”
“Under the Speedway Bridge at I-15 at 2300,” he said. “You’ll be transported to our facility from there.” The line went dead.
Brock sat there in stunned disbelief. A meeting under a bridge in the middle of the night. This damn sure wasn’t standard protocol, but then neither was anything to do with Red Dart. Powell was secretive about his lab.
Brock didn’t consider himself a wuss, but he was shaking clear through to his bones. He was excited. He was scared. He was aroused just thinking of the power that would soon flow through his veins. This could be the day his life changed forever.