CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Still rattled from her confrontation with Michael, Cassandra followed the hostess to the table of eight women rescued from Zodius who’d come together in an informal gathering. Already nervous about her father’s role in creating the GTECHs, she felt an added rush of self-consciousness over her poorly fitted clothing as she brought the group into focus. Each one of them was spectacularly attractive in her own way. Apparently, Adam’s fixation on a perfect race included breeding with certain types of females.
A cute brunette with a bob popped to her feet and greeted Cassandra. “Hi,” she said, extending her hand. “I’m Emma. I’m so glad you joined us.”
Cassandra slid her palm against the other woman’s and blinked in surprise. “You’re Emma?” Cassandra exclaimed. Somehow she’d pictured Emma as middle-aged and frumpy, not petite and adorable. “Thank you so much for the care package.”
“I’m so glad to help.” Emma motioned for her to sit at the head of the table beside her. Cassandra quickly settled into her seat only to find herself the recipient of wide-eyed inspections that bordered on gaping.
“Hello,” Cassandra said, feeling dry-mouthed to say the least. She was the only professional in the group. “I’m Cassandra Powell.” The last name came out like lead, and her hands flattened on the brightly colored tablecloth. Powell. Her father. The man who’d created the monsters that had tortured them.
“Your eyes.” The comment came from the gorgeous blonde at the end of the table. “Emma said you’re staying with Michael. Are you his Lifebond?”
“Intended Lifebond,” Cassandra said, because it sounded better than unclaimed. “We haven’t completed the blood bond.” And might not ever complete it—a thought that jabbed her right in the heart.
“Wow,” the woman said and sat back in her chair as if dumbfounded. “That must be…terrifying.” Agreeable murmurs followed.
Cassandra shook her head. “What?” she asked. “Why would that be terrifying?”
“He was Adam’s second in command,” said one woman.
“They called him ‘the Punisher,’” said another.
“Even the other Zodius soldiers feared Michael.”
Similar murmurs followed from around the table, and Cassandra absorbed them all with shock. He’d been “The Dark One” and now “The Punisher.” What it must be like to be whispered about and feared. Protectiveness rose inside her for Michael. This was the man she loved—a man she knew had put innocent lives above his own, time and time again.
“Did he hurt any of you?” she demanded, not believing for one moment that he had.
A pause ensued. “No,” came agreement around the table.
“Did he save you from Adam?” Cassandra demanded.
“Yes,” they all said.
Cassandra scanned their faces, challenging them as she did. “He saved you from that hell, and yet you act as if he is the enemy?”
The blonde at the end of the table spoke again, introducing herself as Jessica, and then made her case. “You have to understand,” she argued. “Michael was an extension of Adam. We were not to talk to him or look at him without fear of reprisal.”
Another added, “He scared the hell out of us. We went through hell at Zodius.”
Another added, “If someone crossed Adam, they were either thrown to the wolves—”
“Or given to Michael for torture,” Jessica finished.
Cassandra gulped. Okay, that did sound rather ominous. She shoved her hair out of her face, her hand shaking a bit, but her belief in Michael did not falter. Nevertheless, she was thankful that when the waitress approached, Emma waved her away. Cassandra wanted to hear more.
She was a general’s daughter; she understood the rules of war, and she’d never kidded herself about Michael—he was a soldier, and that wasn’t always a pleasant job. That’s where she came in, helping the soldiers cope with what they had to do—and why they were men of honor, despite the nastiness of their duty.
“But he never hurt any of you?” she asked.
Silence and a skittering of eye contact followed, and a murmur of “no’s” followed. “Just the other soldiers,” Jessica said.
“But we were sure he would,” one girl assured her. “He scared the other soldiers, so we knew it would be horrible to anger him.”
Relief washed over Cassandra in a short laugh, a release of tension, not humor. “Of course he punished Zodius soldiers. He probably wanted to kill them.” She leaned back in her chair. “Michael is, and always has been, a Renegade. Those soldiers were not only your enemies, but his. Ladies, this is war. If anyone doubts that, think again.” Pride welled in her. “The information that Michael discovered inside Zodius Nation was invaluable to our efforts to protect humanity, and his presence there allowed him to rescue you all.” It had been hard to endure his departure, but his actions had probably kept the Renegades in this war—perhaps kept humanity fighting for survival as well.
Silence wrapped around the table, confusion clearly touching many of the women’s faces, reluctance to accept Michael in others. Her father deserved condemnation for his actions, but Michael received it instead. Good Lord, she thought, this was so unfair to him. How could she expect Michael to see himself as anything but a monster—one he felt he had to protect her from—when the rest of the world saw him that way?
“He saved your lives, ladies,” Cassandra said, trying to keep in mind how new these women were to Sunrise City, how new to the idea that Michael wasn’t Zodius. She was still getting her mind around that idea, and she was in love with the man. “Surely that counts for something.”
“It’s hard to discount what it was like there,” Jessica said. “And it’s hard not to associate him with that place.”
Emma delicately cleared her throat and set her napkin on the table. “I was never afraid of Michael.” An awkward discomfort fluttered through the group. Several women cut their gazes away from Cassandra.
A sick feeling ripped through Cassandra. Her hands balled on the table. Her breath lodged in her throat, hanging on Emma’s words as she continued. “Every soldier close to Adam used us like sex slaves,” she said. “We were expected to please them any way they saw fit. Then we had to submit to one medical test after another. Afterwards, we did it again with one soldier after another. Michael came to me. Only to me. How he managed that, I don’t know, but then, as we said, Michael was feared. He did what he wanted, when he wanted to do it.”
Cassandra almost threw up. Her head spun and her throat heaved. In the two years they’d been apart, she’d tried not to think about him with other women. Now, she was sitting next to her. No wonder Michael was withdrawn before the lunch. No wonder he’d said good-bye outside the restaurant.
Emma placed her hand over Cassandra’s, and Cassandra barely kept herself from shoving it away. “But he never once touched me,” Emma said. “He made me lie and say he did.”
The entire table gasped. Cassandra let out a breath, her shoulders slumping forward, fist to her chest. For a moment, she’d been unable to breathe. She reached up and wiped at one damp eye. “Please say that one more time.”
“He didn’t touch me or anyone else.” Emma looked around the table. “Did he ever touch any of you?” Everyone quickly chimed in with their promises that he had not.
Emma smiled. “He said if I told anyone the truth, it would put them in danger. He didn’t want anyone acting suspicious when we plotted the escape. He said everyone had to hate him. Adam expected it.” She glanced at her friends. “So I lied to all of you, and I’m sorry, ladies. I was protecting you.” She shifted her attention back to Cassandra. “That’s why I wasn’t afraid of him.”
“Thank you, Emma,” Cassandra said softly, the seeds of a friendship blossoming in their shared look. Emma had given her a gift. Michael had stayed true to her in the worst of circumstances. Cassandra rested her elbows on the table, chin on her hand. “Tell me what it was like. What you went through.”
To her surprise, the stories flowed one after another, and Cassandra could feel their need to talk, to heal. For two hours, Cassandra listened to the horrors these women had been through, starting with how they were lured into being captured.
“Where are the other women?” Cassandra asked. “Why didn’t they join us?”
“A lot of them are struggling with being forced into hiding,” they said. “Many are afraid for their families, but torn about bringing them here and forcing them to give up their lives.”
Cassandra understood. She’d gone to Germany, hiding, feeling like her life had been taken from her. “They need to fight back,” she said. “We need to fight back.”
“How?” came murmurs from around the table.
“By doing everything in our power to stop the abductions,” she said. “The Renegades are busy trying to shut Adam down completely, but in the meantime, the abductions continue. Why don’t we play a role in stopping them? We all have skills. We can put them to use. I know trends, chart and graphs, and behavioral analysis.”
“I was with the FBI,” one woman said.
Several of the others chimed in with skills they possessed, and Cassandra felt excitement building within her. “We are fifty strong,” she said. “We can make a difference. We’ll track the trend of how and when the abductions are taking place. We’ll talk to Caleb about setting up a team to respond to threats we identify. Find out what ability we have to educate the public and law enforcement without exposing an alien threat and causing more panic. Even if we can’t stop the abductions, we can slow them down.”
Ideas began flowing as the women clearly shared Cassandra’s determination. They were going to fight.
Cassandra had found a purpose, and it felt right. She was not only accepting her circumstances here, she was embracing them. And if Michael couldn’t, or wouldn’t, do the same, she’d fight him too.
“I got nothing,” Sterling said, leaning away from his laptop and folding his arms in front of his chest. It was late, near ten, and they’d been pounding through data for hours.
“Sonofabitch,” Caleb muttered a few feet away, his attention on the satellite surveillance monitors that covered one end of the rectangular-shaped room. “The show is on, boys,” he said, turning to face them. “Those Green Hornets are moving. You were right, Michael. Your mother told Powell we knew about the bullets.”
There it was. Michael’s confirmation that his mother was indeed communicating with Powell beyond a simple purchasing order. Not that he’d had any doubt. One more stab in the gut to complete a perfectly screwed up night.
Sterling rolled his chair to the mainframe, punching the keyboard several times to alert their field team into action, before he swiveled around to face Caleb and Michael with a confirmation nod. “Interception is under way. Now, let’s hope none of those Green mojos end up in our men’s bellies. Powell will be anticipating action.”
Sterling’s laptop started to beep, and he rolled back to the table, eyed the alarm notice, and glanced up at Michael. “Cassandra is getting a call from West.”
Caleb stepped to the table and rested his hands on the back of an empty chair as Sterling hit his volume button. The sound of ringing filled the room, a moment before Cassandra’s voice purred sweetly over her voice mail, the soft feminine sound humming through Michael’s body and drawing his balls tight. That easily, she reached inside him and set him on fire.
You’ve reached the voice mail of Cassandra Powell. Please leave a message, and I will call you back as soon as possible.
West’s message followed. “Cassandra, this is Brock. I’ve talked things over with your father, and he’s willing to bring you into the loop on Red Dart. I know you are still out with that migraine today, but he told me about dinner tomorrow night. I’ll be joining you, but there are some things I want to discuss in advance. Call me.” The line went dead, and Sterling punched the sound button to off.
Michael ground his teeth so hard, the muscle in his jaw popped. West was on his list of people to be dealt with, once and for all, right along with Powell.
Caleb’s lips compressed into a hard line, and Damion said what they were all thinking. “Is it me?” he asked. “Or is the timing on that call mighty suspect. The bullets move. West calls Cassandra.”
Sterling chimed in his agreement. “I’d like to think it’s the real deal, and Cassandra is about to be enlightened, but we know he’s working both sides—Powell and Zodius. This could be a trap. A way to lure her out and kill her.”
“Brock West needs to be taken out,” Michael said. “He’s a liability. And it’s long past time we accept that we need to lock Powell up. We can keep saying we’ll find Red Dart, and that we need him to do that. But what else is he brewing that we don’t know about? We left him alone for two years, and Red Dart emerged. We cannot make that mistake again. We need to cut our losses.”
Damion shifted in his chair. “We cannot act rashly—”
“While you’re sucking your thumb, considering options,” Michael interrupted, “Powell could make a mistake that allows Adam, not us, to get his hands on Red Dart. He’s scrambling now. Moving bullets. Trying to get his daughter back. Now is the time to move in. We’ll find some evidence. We’ll find Red Dart. And even if we don’t, we’ll have rid ourselves of the hazard Powell represents.”
He turned to Caleb, and Damion had the good sense to shut up. “I know you worry that we’ll create enemies in our government if we take out Powell. But he’s creating their fear of us. They think all GTECHs are the same. Walking on eggshells isn’t going to make that go away. We take him, and no one knows we have him. We’ll hit Powell’s house, my mother’s place, and Taylor, all in one night. We leave with everything we can, including Powell. Throw him in a cell here at Sunrise City. Tell him he better help us shut down Red Dart before Adam gets his hands on it and comes after us all.”
Sterling’s computer buzzed again. He surveyed the message. “Green Hornets are headed to Sunrise City. There was no resistance and no reported injuries.”
“Those bullets have leveled the battlefield,” Michael said. “Let’s get rid of one of the enemies. Let’s take out Powell.”
Caleb’s brow furrowed, and then he nodded sharply. “Tomorrow night.”