CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
A loud pounding sound permeated the haze of Cassandra’s sleep, followed by the jabbing pain in her stomach. Oh God. She blinked awake and quickly squeezed her eyes shut against the agonizing glare of light. Not even natural light. More pounding. She held her head and forced herself to a sitting position, holding the sheet over her naked body.
Michael sat on the edge of the bed, fully dressed in the black fatigues she was coming to know as standard Renegade attire. “You might want to put this on,” he said, offering her an oversized blue robe. “Sterling is here to help you scramble that call to your father.”
“A robe, courtesy of Emma?” she asked, accepting it. “Because I know you prefer au naturel.” She attempted a smile, but her eyes pinched, and it turned into a grimace. “And I like au naturel.”
“Emma is responsible for the robe,” he agreed, planting a solid kiss on her lips, warm and sensual. A little sound of pleasure rumbled from her throat of its own accord as he added, “And yes, I do prefer au naturel…with you.” His mood shifted, darkened. Angst etched the hard lines of his face. “Your eyes are still black.”
Her hand curled on his chest. “And I’m sick again, but every second I’m awake it eases up a little.” She hoped. Another knock on the door burst through her brain. Okay, maybe she wasn’t better. “Please make him stop that incessant knocking.” It was killing her head.
She shoved her arms into the robe, and his gaze swept her bare chest, but he didn’t touch her. He wanted to, though—it was in the raw sexuality that settled deep in his eyes. Suddenly, he pulled her close again, his lips slanting over hers in a deep, passionate kiss that left her breathless and panting as he pushed to his feet and sauntered toward the door. There was a message in that kiss she frantically tried to decipher, but there wasn’t time. He was already at the door, already opening it. Cassandra tied the robe at her waist and scooted to the edge of the bed.
In an instant the room was abuzz with activity as Sterling and Kelly overtook the small space. Michael and Caleb stepped into the hallway, and Cassandra couldn’t help but wonder what they were discussing.
“I have coffee,” Kelly said, floating through the room in a blossom of jasmine-scented perfume, black pants peeking from beneath her lab coat. “And clothes that probably aren’t going to fit well, but they’re better than nothing.” She held up a small bag with handles. “Emma sent a care package of various toiletries.”
“I really need to meet this Emma,” Cassandra said. “She sounds like everyone’s mother.”
“Where’s my coffee?” Sterling asked, stomping to a halt behind Kelly, looking as good as new in his military garb, a computer case over his shoulder. He gave her a salute. “Thanks for hanging out, bedside, last night.”
“I’d say, anytime,” Cassandra replied, “but let’s not make a habit of hospital visits.”
“And no, to the coffee for you, Sterling,” Kelly replied, dropping the bag on the floor and then sitting next to Cassandra. Offering her the paper cup of coffee, Kelly cast Sterling a stern look. “You’re barely off the IV.”
“GTECH, sweetheart.” He set the case down on the coffee table and sat down. “I’ve been off that IV for hours already.”
“That’s Doc to you, not sweetheart.” She cut her attention back to Cassandra, holding up a finger. “One hour off the IV. He thinks he’s Superman. At least Damion is taking it easy this morning. He’s still resting.”
Michael and Caleb returned to the room, the testosterone level in the small space skyrocketing off the charts. They stopped at the edge of the living room, standing side-by-side. Tall, dominant men. Leaders.
“He’s your Superman,” Sterling said, inclining his chin at Caleb, and then he lowered his voice as he glanced at Michael. “And the Dark One, Batman.”
Cassandra laughed, feeling a little better thankfully, though she discreetly put the coffee cup on the nightstand by the bed. Coffee and her stomach, not so good. Sterling’s observations, terrific. “I can so see that,” she said, her attention snagging Michael’s, a silent message in her eyes that the comparison, silly as it might be, seemed so true—he was Batman. He was the one you went to when no one else wanted to get their hands dirty.
Caleb broke through their line of sight, claiming the recliner next to the couch. “That makes Sterling, Robin, the Boy Wonder.” His mood was light, but a vibe of tension crackled around him. Around Michael, too, Cassandra realized.
Kelly produced two syringes. “The first is to calm the side effects,” she said softly. “And I want to take more blood.” She tilted Cassandra’s chin and inspected her. “Now, while your eyes are black. The sooner, the better. Then I’ll need to take samples every couple of hours.”
Sterling punched a few keys on his computer. “Boy Wonder needs a few minutes to get set up, so feel free to poke and prod Cassandra. I’m happy that the doctor’s attention is diverted elsewhere.”
Cassandra glanced at the clock. It was eight. “As long as I call him in the next hour,” she said. “I’d really like to get dressed, if that’s okay?”
“We have some things to discuss, anyway,” Caleb said. “Do what you ladies need to do.”
“Why don’t we go in the bathroom and give them some guy time,” Kelly suggested.
Cassandra hugged the robe around herself. “Yes, let’s.” Michael’s eyes touched Cassandra’s, dark with concern; remotely, she was aware of Caleb watching them.
“Any results on her blood work?” Michael asked Kelly.
Cassandra took advantage of the shift in attention to inspect Caleb, finding his expression indecipherable, his elbows settled on his knees.
“I’m not prepared to make any conclusions at this point,” Kelly replied and then cast him a “dare you to challenge me” look. She grabbed the bag she’d brought with her and motioned Cassandra to the bathroom.
Cassandra could barely contain her chuckle as she sat down on the toilet cover. “You sure shut him down.”
Kelly shut the door and set the bag down, her hands going to her hips. “I’ve learned to hold my own. They were a demanding bunch as soldiers. And now as GTECHs—they’re like soldiers on rocket fuel, ten times more intense.”
“Do you know anything yet, Kelly?” she prodded, steeling herself for the answer.
“You’re ovulating. You’re low on vitamin C,” she said, tapping a syringe. “Which is why I’m giving you a supplement along with the nausea medicine.” She glanced at Cassandra’s arm. “Roll your sleeve up.”
Peeling her sleeve up, Cassandra asked, “What does that mean?”
“Nothing yet,” she said, leaning over her and injecting the vitamin C. She set the injection aside and reached for the syringe. “None of the more advanced testing is ready. And I need to compare today’s samples to last night’s.” Minutes later, she finished up. “I’ll leave you to get dressed.” She sighed. “Now, to talk Michael into giving me more blood. Then maybe I can convince him he’s not a monster about to turn you into one.”
Somehow, Cassandra doubted that a blood test would convince Michael he wasn’t a monster. She wasn’t sure anything would.
Michael stared at the tube that hung from the needle in his arm, holding his breath as he had the night before, waiting for the liquid to appear. Letting out a silent “thank you” when it appeared red—not green, not blue, not anything but normal-looking red. Because it really wasn’t normal, not even by GTECH standards. Kelly already knew that, too; he’d seen it in her face when she’d sat down next to him.
With Caleb and Sterling sitting a few feet away in low conversation, Michael lowered his voice to a murmur. “What did you tell Cassandra?”
Kelly’s lashes lifted, her green eyes alight with a knowing look that confirmed she’d already seen something in his testing that he wasn’t going to like. “Nothing yet,” she replied, a clear warning in her voice. “Come see me when you get done here to talk about your test results.”
Michael’s gut clenched in a tight ball of dread. His blood work showing abnormality wasn’t unexpected, by him or probably anyone else. He’d known it was selfish to touch Cassandra last night, to touch her period without the outcome of that blood work, without knowing what he might be doing to her—but still he’d touched her, still he’d buried himself deep inside her and enjoyed every last second of her.
Kelly pushed to her feet. “See you gentlemen later.” She glanced at Michael. “See you soon.” She didn’t wait for his reply and hurried to the door in a wisp of white cotton before disappearing outside.
Sterling fixed Michael in a gaping stare.
“What?” Michael demanded gruffly, leaning one elbow on his knee, not in the mood for any crap from Sterling. That Caleb and Sterling had been channeling an edgy vibe from the moment they’d shown up didn’t help.
“You gave blood,” Sterling said, an astute gleam in his eyes.
“Really not in the mood to discuss my medical history with you, Sterling,” Michael ground out. He cut a look between the two of them. “What’s going on?”
Caleb and Sterling exchanged a meaningful look of their own, tension crackling in the air. With a go-ahead nod from Caleb, Sterling responded, “I checked out both hard drives, Brock West’s and your mother’s. Not a single reference to Red Dart. And I can’t get into Taylor’s servers without you getting me into the facility.”
“We might as well take a full team in and be ready to sweep the place then,” he said. “The sooner the better.”
“Tonight,” Caleb said.
“Today,” Michael said. “Broad daylight before my mother has time to remove any evidence.”
“I’m not sure that’s a risk worth taking,” Caleb said.
“And why is that?”
The two of them eyed each other again, and Michael grumbled irritably. “Cut the dramatic pauses. What the hell is up?”
Sterling replied, “West manipulated and rerouted outgoing weapons shipments from the base to include Green Hornets, and those shipments never made it to their destination. I see no evidence that your mother sold them to Adam. Your mother may well be innocent.”
“Which means any probe of Taylor Industries should include discretion,” Caleb inserted.
Michael sat there a minute before a bark of bitter laughter escaped his lips. “Holy shit.” He scrubbed his clean-shaven jaw and let out a rough, second cackle of laughter. “This is what you two are walking on eggshells over? You think I’m going to have some emotional seizure over my mother, and you think I need my hand held? My mother is not innocent. If she’s not helping Adam, she’s helping Powell.” His attention slid to Caleb. “I told you that last night.”
“Maybe you were mistaken about last night,” Caleb offered.
“Powell was there,” Michael insisted.
“There’s nothing wrong with selling weapons to the U.S. government for national security,” Caleb reminded him. “We have no proof she believes she is doing anything but that.”
Always one to offer the benefit of the doubt—that was Caleb. “Stop trying to save me,” Michael said. “I don’t need saving. She is what she is, and I know better than anyone what that is. And if you want proof, I’ll give it to you. We have a stock of Green Hornets now. Leave Powell’s supply where it is, and hook a satellite to the location. I guarantee you, now that my mother knows I know about them, they’ll be moved because she’s doing more than selling to Powell. She’s in bed with him in every possible way.”
The bathroom door swung open, and Cassandra appeared in the crest of fluorescent light, her skin pale against the black T-shirt she wore with loose-fitted, black jeans. Her face was scrubbed clean of makeup, her eyes still black and shining like opals. Possessiveness rushed through him, arousing him with an unexpected jolt of pure, white-hot lust. He’d sworn to himself that he wouldn’t touch her today, that he would wait for results on the blood test. How did you not do something as essential as breathing? Because that was what touching Cassandra was to him. How had he survived the years without her?
“I heard you talking through the door,” she announced, before hesitating and then casting Michael a tormented look, the rest of the room fading as she spoke to him and him alone. “If my father has involved your mother in this, he’s manipulating her.” She crossed her arms in front of her chest. “He knows everything about every soldier he involved in Project Zodius. He certainly knows everything about you. Your family owns a weapons manufacturing company that supplies the government. Of course, he knew that when he recruited you. And he knew who your mother was then, and certainly now. There is no coincidence here. I have no doubt that being with your mother is icing on the cake—a message. You were in his world, with his daughter, holding a blade at his throat. Now, he’s holding a proverbial blade at your throat. He has your world in his hands. He has control, not you.” She drew a shuddered breath and let it out. “I’m done convincing myself he’s not the man who would do such a thing. I’ve tried to justify all of his actions, and I won’t do it anymore. And I’m sorry for what he is doing to you and your mother.”
Michael’s heart froze for a moment before skipping into an angry charge. Damn Powell for what he’d put his daughter through. What he’d put all of them through. “Do not apologize for either your father or my mother,” he ordered Cassandra. And it was an order. A fierce, guttural command. He would not let her do this to herself. And he would not let his mother ride under the radar. “We need to operate on the assumption that there is no manipulation of my mother. She knows what she is involved with.”
“You can’t know that, Michael,” Cassandra insisted, closing the distance between them. “Why is the fact that your mother is selling Green Hornets to the government any different than selling them any other weapon?”
His mother knew what she was doing and why—he’d bet his life on it. “She knows,” he said, steel lining the words. “Someone was with her last night. A man.”
Understanding shuddered across her delicate features. “You think it was my father,” she said. It wasn’t a question, but he still offered a nod of confirmation. Her lips parted in a pause, before she whispered, “And you think they’re…intimate?”
“Yes,” he revealed grimly, shadows of the past rippling through his tone, despite his effort to contain them. “It was your father.”
“Do you have any idea where your father’s PMI lab is, Cassandra?” Caleb asked.
Her lips thinned, her arms crossed in front of her in what appeared to be a mixture of both disgust and a bit of withdrawal. “No,” she said. “He kept that from me ‘for my own protection.’ His famous excuse.”
Caleb cursed and ran a hand over his neck. “We need that location. We’re chasing our tails here. He knows we’re onto him.”
“I’ll find the lab,” Cassandra offered. “I’ll get into his hard drive and dig around his personal space, his office, and his house.”
“No,” Michael said, his tone implacable. “Even if I’d let you attempt such a thing, which I won’t, it’s too dangerous.”
She stiffened at that, throwing a fiery glare in his direction, as Michael added, “He has cameras everywhere, Cassandra. He’ll know what you did.”
“And he knows I am nosey,” she said. “If I get busted, I’ll suck up and make up a lie. I can get by him. If anyone can get by my father’s systems, it’s me. And it’s not like you have a long list of options here.”
“We’ll start with my mother’s place,” Michael insisted. “Search it fully. Look for proof that Taylor is involved. Or even a PMI location.”
“Whatever we do,” Cassandra said, “I need to call my father. It’s getting late. He’ll be suspicious if I’m not at work without a phone call.”
Sterling snatched up the portable phone sitting on the coffee table and passed it to Michael. “What’s the number you’re calling from?”
Cassandra recited her cell phone number. Michael handed her the phone as Sterling keyed the number into his laptop. She drew a heavy breath when the line began to ring, nerves fluttering in her stomach. “I’ve never been so nervous calling my father in my life.”
It was all Michael could do not to touch her, but Kelly’s request that he visit her rang in his mind, and he restrained himself. Any further contact with Cassandra until he knew what the doc had to say was nothing more than selfish. But damn, he felt selfish with Cassandra. “You’ll do fine.”
“Morning, General,” she said into the phone. Everyone knew he hated when she called him General, and thus she teasingly did it often. “Reporting in sick.” She listened a minute. “You know how these headaches linger.” Pause. “Yes. Really. I’m fine. I just need to sleep off the haze so I’m going to turn off my phone. I…” She listened a minute. “Yes, I should be in tomorrow.”
Michael grabbed her hand. No, he mouthed silently.
Defiance flashed in her eyes. “Maybe we could have dinner tomorrow night? I feel like we’re disconnected, Daddy.”
Michael glared at her, and she glared right back, saying a few more words to her father before hanging up. “What the hell was that, Cassandra?”
“Smart,” she proclaimed firmly, her spine stiff, resolve steady. “That was smart. No one is closer to my father than me. He’ll make time for me. That means he won’t be at your mother’s house. That means I will go to his house afterward for coffee. I can get his hard drive, and you can get your mother’s. I can manipulate those shipments of bullets the same way Brock did. I can get you your ammunition. I’m all you have.”
“What about your eyes?”
“If they don’t fade,” she said, “then I’ll use contacts like Sterling does.”
“He’s too astute for that.”
Sharp-witted, she said, “He’ll blame the migraine if they look funny.”
“What about the fact that Adam attacked you while I was with you. He knows you are with me, which means Brock will know.”
“All the more reason to do this sooner rather than later,” she countered.
He forgot Caleb and Sterling were in the room, furious at her actions. “Don’t you think you should have talked to us about this first?”
Disbelief shackled her words. “Us? Who is us? Don’t you mean you? And no, I didn’t consider talking to you. There is no talking to you. You simply blast orders.”
“No, Cassandra,” he said.
“You don’t get to decide for me, Michael.” She cut a look at Caleb. “Does it make sense to use me to help?”
“I am your Lifebond,” Michael stated flatly. He didn’t give a damn what Caleb said. Not about Cassandra.
Her eyes rocketed back to his, Caleb forgotten. “No, you’re not,” she corrected. “And some biological, physical connection does not give you a license to make my decisions.”
Possessiveness ground through his every nerve ending. “The hell it doesn’t.”
Caleb and Sterling stood up, heading for the door, clearly getting the idea they were intruding. Neither Michael nor Cassandra paid them any mind. “You cannot come in and out of my life,” Cassandra ground out, “and then snap your fingers and expect me to obey. You don’t scare me, Michael. You’ve never scared me.”
He grabbed her, spread her out on the bed, and went down on top of her. “You should be scared, Cassandra.”
Her chin lifted, her full lips close, inviting, all but begging him to kiss them. “I’m not,” she declared. “What are you going to do about it?”
What was he going to do about it? Exactly what he’d promised himself he wouldn’t do. He flattened her on the bed and spread her legs. Settled the steely length of his cock against the warm V of her body and kissed her, a long, deep thrust of his tongue, followed by a lavish tasting.
She moaned into his mouth, her arms wrapping around his neck, her body curling into his. One hand traveled possessively over her slender rib cage and roughly caressed the high, full mounds of her breasts. Another soft moan was his reward, and it was a damn delicious one that all but destroyed what little restraint he had left. He tore his mouth away from hers, clinging to a thread of control. “You will not endanger yourself,” he ordered, his eyes boring into hers. “You will not.”
“If I am in your life, I am a part of this war. If I’m not in your life, I am still a part of this war. Nothing you do can change that.”
“Cassandra—”
She pressed her fingers to his lips. “Your bossiness is sexy when you’re inside me,” she warned, her voice laced with a heady mixture of anger and seduction that about had him over the edge. “It’s irritating when you’re not. So either get naked or shut up.”
“I’m not going to shut up,” he said.
“Good,” she whispered. That meant he was going to get naked.
He nipped her lower lip roughly, and she gasped, a sweet little purr following. “But when I am naked and buried inside you, Cassandra,” he said, “the answer is still no.”
A sly smile slid onto her lips. “We’ll see about that.”