"Braden died hard," Trap said. "They made certain he lived awhile before they gave him death."
"Whitney likes to make statements," Wyatt said. "He probably sent videos to his other little helpers to warn them what happens when someone messes with him."
"What's the note say?" Trap asked.
Wyatt handed it to him and looked at the others. "He says I owe him."
Ezekiel shook his head. "You don't owe that bastard anything."
Wyatt smiled at him and picked up Pepper's file, flipping it open. Yeah. He'd been right about her parents. They were famous in the field of studying snakes. Both had been killed in India, a break-in at their home. The newspaper articles were included in the file. Missing was their two-year-old daughter.
He closed his eyes. Whitney. He'd taken her. Killed her parents and taken her from a home filled with love straight into a nightmare. Wyatt flipped through his daughters' files. Pepper was definitely their mother, according to the file, and he was their father. They all had been split from the same egg. Whitney had wanted three of them exactly alike.
Pepper's parents had been highly intelligent, and Whitney had chosen her as the girls' mother and Wyatt as the father, hoping for superior intelligence. He had achieved that goal. He wasn't happy with the fact that Pepper demonstrated repeatedly that she didn't follow orders as well as he would have liked. She clashed with Braden and repeatedly refused assignments given to her. He'd ordered Braden to put her in charge of the three girls with the idea they could use the babies to keep her in line.
Whitney's notes were thorough. Everything. Including her training to be a sexual predator, taking her victims down with ease. Wyatt's stomach turned when he read what they'd done to train her. A girl not yet out of her teens with no protection from the men who refused to think of her as human - only as a weapon.
He found himself angry, and then it dissolved and he felt like putting his head down and crying. Around him, his men began the work of going through the laboratory, checking every floor and room for soldiers, but the place was deserted.
He sat and read Pepper's file, his heart aching for her. It disgusted him that Whitney felt no compunction about "sacrificing" her parents for the greater good. They had made the mistake of documenting their daughter's encounter with a cobra and how she seemed to have some kind of natural immunity. That had drawn Whitney's attention immediately. When he'd discovered Pepper's intelligence and her psychic abilities, there was no question in his mind the parents had to go so he could acquire her.
Wyatt pressed his fingers to his eyes. Whitney had coldly killed her parents and taken her, and then began his psychic enhancements of her. Pepper's mother had been a uniquely beautiful woman, and he was certain Pepper would be even more so. From the beginning he had the idea of using her as an assassin.
He turned over the typewritten note Trap had handed to him when the team went to take the bodies down to the crematorium. Whitney had left the keys and the handprints of the men who could open the elevators for his team. He'd thought of everything. Wyatt smoothed the note out and reread it.
Wyatt, you owe me for this. You have the woman and your daughters, although you don't get to keep them. You and Trap come up with the formula I need for our soldiers. Braden couldn't get the job done. He was so blinded by his need of Pepper he couldn't see straight. The fool lost sight of what we were trying to do. Stop our soldiers from being killed. Give them every advantage. This is a small thing I'm asking in return. I know the two of you will figure it out. When you do, contact me at this address.
There was an email address for him to send Whitney the information.
I get what I want and you get what you want. The girls I'll need back, but at least you will have spent time with them while you're working this out. You can keep the woman. She's useless to me. Pepper was never going to do what we asked her to do. I'll cut my losses and leave her alive, leave her to you.
Wyatt stared down at the note, anger roiling in his gut all over again.
"Wyatt." Trap closed his hand around Wyatt's shoulder. "He's not going to take your girls from you. None of us will let that happen." He looked around the laboratory. "He left behind good equipment. I'll make inquiries and see if we can pick this place up ourselves. We'll make a fortress around you. Stockpile weapons. He's not going to take those children."
Wyatt looked up from the letter, and he tapped Pepper's file. "I don' want anyone else readin' this, Trap. You have to because we need to know everything he's done in order to try to find a way to reverse it, or at least find something to minimize it."
Trap carefully rolled his hand over Pepper's file. "He's had years to work on her, developing that biochemical, and we most likely aren't going to be able to remove it from her system. You know that."
Wyatt nodded. "We may be able to counteract it, find a way to give her some relief. I thought maybe pregnancy. He must have considered that possibility. He wouldn't use her for missions if she was pregnant and he'd want more children from her."
"Maybe. That could happen. It's easy enough to test that theory. Still, Wyatt, her life isn't going to be easy and neither will yours if you keep her."
"I'm way past that, Trap, and you know it. I wake up in the mornin' feelin' alive. I do everythin' I can just to make her laugh. Her smile lights up the room - and my life. She's worth burnin' in hell if that's what I have to do every now and again."
"Then work the hell on that nasty temper of yours and your jealousy. She can't help what she is. They did that crap to her. You need to learn control. Control is the key to everything."
Wyatt found himself smiling. "Yes, Zen master. Your student hears and obeys."
Trap gathered up the files and smacked Wyatt over the head. "Let's get the hell out of here."
Chapter 21
Pepper held herself very still, looking down at Wyatt's sleeping face. He was beautiful. So beautiful. Everything about him. The home he'd made for their daughters. His grandmother. His sexy body and cocky grin. The rough way he dragged her to him, the tenderness in his eyes after sex, or when her mouth was on him. She loved that look, the way he watched her as she pleasured him. She loved the way he wanted to see her face when he gave her multiple orgasms and the way he wanted her to say his name. She just plain loved him.
The terrible weight that had been stomping on her chest ever since she'd killed the soldier using what she was, what they'd created in her, threatened to crush her. She had known the moment she'd first laid eyes on Wyatt, out there, in the swamp, when she should have been running for her life away from the compound with Ginger - when she should have been taking care of Ginger. She'd turned back and watched him casually beat the crap out of the guard. He'd looked beautiful then too, an avenging angel.
He'd walked into his grandmother's parlor, knowing she wasn't alone. He didn't care. He wasn't afraid, and he refused to back down. Pepper had known then. She'd known he was someone special. Someone who deserved far better than she could ever be.
She'd tried to be that woman for him, but as far back as she could remember, she'd been groomed for one thing - to tempt men. To lure them. It was in the way she walked. In the turn of her head. The sound of her voice. She couldn't stop those years of practice. She'd been taught to use sex as a weapon. She hadn't known sex could be something special or beautiful between a man and woman. Wyatt had taught her that.
Braden - or Whitney - had forced her body into a terrible, clawing, endless cycle of pure need. Her body turned on her. She worked hard to shield the others, but sometimes she just couldn't do it. Sometimes the clawing need and the burn between her legs was pure hell. Nothing helped but Wyatt. Only Wyatt.
She hated that he was affected by the vicious, unending cycle. It would never get better. He thought he could handle it, but when the months and the years went by, when he was angry with his friends and with hers, when jealousy got the best of him, he would feel different. He deserved better.
She knew the difference now. She kne
w women weren't trained from their teenage years to be sexual weapons. She remembered the men they'd brought in to instruct her. Her face burned. She'd hated it and then had begun to accept it as normal. It wasn't normal, and she would never be.
And then they had added the venom so she could lure her victim and then dispose of him. He would die, just as the soldier had died, looking at her as if she was the most beautiful, perfect woman in the world.
A sob tore up her chest and lodged in her throat. She hadn't told Wyatt what she'd done. She couldn't tell him. She'd forced that soldier into a state of need, of addiction and made him think he loved her above all else. She didn't want Wyatt to know the worst of her. She couldn't bear it if he knew the worst of her. She couldn't bear it if he looked at her with disgust - which eventually would happen. She couldn't bear it if he walked out on her. All he saw that night was her saving them from certain death. He hadn't cared how. But he didn't see the soldier's face like she did.
She'd never known happiness. She didn't even know such a thing existed. Or families. But she could give those things to her daughters by leaving. They would never have to be ashamed of their mother and her highly sexual nature. They would never have to learn to kill with an intimate bite that was meant for love, not death.
She couldn't breathe. No air found its way into her lungs no matter how hard she tried to drag it in. She truly was afraid she might vomit, her stomach roiling and churning, knots so hard she wasn't certain she could ever get them loose again. Her chest was the worst. A horrible, heavy weight pressing and pressing until she was certain her heart would implode from the sheer pressure.
She had to get out of there. Now. That minute. She couldn't stay another second or she would break down completely and lose her nerve. He didn't deserve that either. She turned away from the bed and lifted the small bag she'd packed. She'd kept it under the bed in preparation for him falling asleep. She hadn't taken much. She didn't need much.
She had nowhere to go. No skills. No paperwork. She was nothing. She wouldn't allow Wyatt Fontenot to tie himself to nothing - to trouble that would eventually get him or someone else killed. She loved him too much for that. She loved her daughters and Nonny too much for that.
A hand slapped hard around her wrist, tightening like a vise, yanking her back to the edge of the bed. "Just where the fuck do you think you're goin'?"
She closed her eyes at the pure rage in his voice. She did that to him a lot. There was no way to explain this to him, no way that wouldn't put him in a position of having to try to talk her out of it.
She refused to turn around and look into his eyes. She couldn't. "Let go, Wyatt. I don't want to have to fight you, but I will. Just let go."
"Fight me?" A hint of amusement slid through the rage. "You think you're capable of winnin' a physical fight with me, babe?"
He yanked her hard, and she sprawled across the bed. Sprawled on top of him. Her gaze jumped to his face, to the eyes she knew better than to look into. There was no amusement there whatsoever. He was furious.
"Wyatt, I'm leaving. I can't do this. There's nothing more to say." She fought to keep her voice low. Controlled. Firm.
She still couldn't breathe, her lungs burning for air. Her chest felt like it might explode. Fear skittered down her spine and the terrible knots in her belly rose to her chest to add to the weight threatening to crush her.
"You're not leavin' me, Pepper."
She actually saw the glitter of the cat as the dominant male rose in him. The need to meet every challenge. She wasn't trying to challenge him, she was trying to save him. She couldn't stand this. Couldn't do this. She was such a coward to try to run in the middle of the night from him, but she knew this would happen. Knew he would fight her, and she couldn't bear that either.
It hurt. It hurt to breathe, to think. She tried getting her wrist back, dropping the bag and using her other hand to try to pry his fingers loose.
"Wyatt, stop it. Let go of me."
"No."
Just like that. No. That was Wyatt.
"Mon Dieu, Wyatt, just let go. I have to leave. We both know it. Stop acting like you don't. It just makes it worse." It burst out of her. Unexpected. Frightening in that she couldn't contain it.
He went still. His eyes changed. His entire demeanor. The anger slipped, but his grip on her wrist didn't. "You're stayin' right here, Pepper, and we're goin' to figure out just what's wrong and fix it."
Something inside her, the terrible, frightening, explosive knot in her chest expanded and contracted, radiating such pain she thought her heart might have actually burst. There was no containment. No way to stop the volcano from erupting. She felt it rising like a tide, a mad insanity she couldn't escape.
"Wyatt. Mon Dieu!" She scraped one hand through her hair. "How can you not see I have to do this for you. To protect you. You won't protect yourself. What's wrong with you that you don't see someone has to protect both you and the girls from me? From what I am? You're such a good man. Clean and decent. You have a family who loves you. You came from that, Wyatt. I don't even have a last name. I can't unmake what I am. No matter what I do, I'll always be this."
She swept her hand down her body, tears spilling, lungs burning, throat raw. "What I do is so vile, so disgusting, entrapping men with sex and then killing them. Watching them adore me as the life goes out of them. I won't have that for you. Or the girls. I have to leave. I have to."
She couldn't stand it one more second; she began to fight, swinging at him, trying to break his unbreakable grip. He rolled fast, forcing her onto her back, and he was over her in an instant, his thigh coming down over the top of hers, pinning her while his hands caught both her wrists, stretching her arms above her head and pinning them to the mattress. She thrashed, trying to dislodge him, desperation setting in.
"Wyatt. Please. You aren't thinking this through."
"Stop fighting." His voice went soft. Smoky. Drawling. A sexy Cajun drawl.
She felt the heat of his body and tried to buck him off of her. She was strong, but not in comparison to him. And she would never, ever hurt him. Never use venom to escape. He seemed immune to the biochemical spilling from her body, so she couldn't even use that weapon against him.
"Baby, focus here. Look at me." He waited until her gaze reluctantly met his. "Even if you got loose, which you won't, did you think I wouldn' recognize the signs of my woman sayin' good-bye when we have sex? A man like me knows his woman. I know how you breathe when you come for me, how your eyes change, that dazed, sweet look of confusion and bliss. I gave the boys the heads-up and told them to stop you if you managed to slip away from me."
Wyatt lifted his head, and something in his eyes made her shiver. "That's not goin' to happen. I'm not givin' you up, so lie still and let's talk this out."
She shook her head, the crushing weight in her chest settling over her heart. "You aren't thinking straight, Wyatt. You're a rescuer. You think I need to be rescued. When there's no let up, you'll see I'm right. This won't work. Do you really think I can get pregnant every single time you leave? That's the solution? Years will go by and something terrible will happen because this isn't going to stop."
She was pleading with him. She'd worked up the courage to leave, but she was leaving behind every single thing that was good. Everything that meant anything to her. She knew it was a form of suicide; once she was away from him, from the children and Nonny, she'd be dead inside. But this was Wyatt and her children and she was - unclean.
"First, babe, we're workin' on the problem, and there are birth control pills that simulate pregnancy. If that works, it's an easy solution. If not, we'll come up with an answer. And second, more importantly, you did what you needed to do to save Malichai. To save me. To save Nonny. Braden's soldiers weren't particularly fast, but they didn't have many vulnerable spots on them. They weren't smart, but they kept comin'. You did what you had to do, Pepper."
"You didn't see their faces, Wyatt. You didn't see what I did to them. Just
skin-to-skin contact. Mouth to mouth." She said it deliberately to rile him.
Wyatt didn't even wince when she told him. He didn't even blink, nor did his eyes move from hers. "That was combat, baby. You weren't doin' anythin' wrong. I'm not upset with you. I know that hurt to look at them, it should hurt. When it doesn', that's when we know we're in trouble."
Wyatt watched her face. Her eyes. She was breaking his heart. She thought so little of herself. She didn't see her own courage. She had known when she'd taken that soldier out what it was going to cost her and she'd done it anyway. For him. The girls. Nonny. Malichai. Hell, for the entire team.
"I know what you had to do, babe, but you did it for us. To save us. That's what people who love one another do. They save each other by any means available to them. You weren' goin' to bring that soldier down with a bullet or a knife, not and keep him from sprayin' the operatin' room with bullets. I didn' have an assistant other than Nonny and I was havin' a hell of a time keepin' Malichai alive. Without you, all of us would have been dead."
She shook her head, looking so sad his heart stuttered in his chest. He held her there, the strong column of his thigh pinning her down while he blanketed her body with his own. He was careful not to crush her, but he took no chances. She was well trained and skilled in hand-to-hand combat. She just didn't want to hurt him.
"Talk to me, sugar." He bent his head and pressed a kiss to her throat. "You have to talk this out with me. We have an agreement and I'm holdin' you to it."
She ran her fingers through his hair. Gently. Lovingly. He felt love for her, rising like a tide deep inside of him. She had no clue, and he only had words and his body to show her what she meant to him. He didn't blame her that she didn't trust that he knew for certain what he wanted. She'd had so little time with him.
He brushed his mouth down her throat to her sternum, pressed more kisses there. One hand slid up to her blouse with those little buttons he liked so much. Her hand caught at his as he slid them open.
"Wyatt, think about this. Think with your brain. You're so smart. You know how this is going to end."