Behind Jake, Hedley chuckled. “I warned you, boss. Nice one, Addison.”
Marley rose to her feet, walked around Jake, and held out her hand to help him up. “Truce?”
He eyed her hand and gloating grin and reached for her fingers. Her palm brushed his, silky smooth and small against his own, and the muscles in her arms flexed. But before she could tug him up, he jerked back, yanking her off her feet. She gasped, fell against him, and quickly tried to push off, but he hooked a leg around hers and rolled her to her back before she could. Then he pinned her arms to the mat on both sides of her face and leaned down toward her.
The sweet scents of feminine sweat, followed by sandalwood, vanilla, and some kind of flower he couldn’t name, assailed his nostrils. She sputtered and shook the wisps of hair out of her eyes as she glared up at him. And this time it was his turn to grin. “Now we can call it a truce.”
“You fight dirty, Ryder.”
“No one in the real world’s going to fight fair. Get used to it.”
The door to the gym burst open.
“Ryder, we’ve got a problem.” Zane Archer’s voice filled the room. “I need you and Marley right now.”
Jake’s smile faded, and he let go of Marley, turning his head to look toward the door. Before he could even open his mouth to answer, her forearm connected with his trachea, then her hand shoved hard against his shoulder, knocking him off her in a split-second move. He landed on his back with a crunch. Marley shook back her hair, pushed to her feet, and muttered, “There’s your truce.”
She stepped off the mat and reached for her sweatshirt, and, still laid out on the ground, Jake pushed up on his hands and watched her, awed and . . . more than a little impressed. A one-sided smile pulled at his lips, and that same tingle that had rushed down his spine earlier came screaming back, only this time it brought a wave of heat straight to his belly.
She zipped her sweatshirt and looked toward Archer. “What’s going on?”
“It’s Olivia,” Archer said, bracing the door open with one arm. “Eve’s with her, and it’s not good. I think we’re going to need a doctor.”
Fuck.
Archer’s words knocked Jake right back to reality. He pushed to his feet, cursing himself for spending time dicking around in here when he should have gone after Miller. Every man in Miller’s line of work had a breaking point, and Jake had noticed Miller was dangerously close to his before he’d left the gym. “If he freakin’ snapped and hurt her—”
Archer looked Jake’s way. “It’s not Miller. It looks like Olivia was injected with something when she was taken. Something bad.”
“I’m fine,” Olivia huffed as her sister pushed her into the same chair Landon had sat in earlier when Marley had pulled that bullet from his shoulder. A perturbed look darkened her face. One Landon knew all too well because she’d unleashed the same look on him only an hour ago. “I don’t know why you’re all freaking out. I have sensitive skin. You know that, Eve.”
“Liv,” Eve said, tugging the soft cotton, long-sleeved T-shirt Olivia had slipped into up past her elbow. “Just humor us, okay?”
Olivia frowned as Eve pulled her arm out and laid it palm up over the armrest so she could look at the black markings all around the inner bend of Olivia’s elbow. “I feel fine. There’s nothing wrong with me.” Her gaze shifted to Landon, standing near the door. “Would you tell her I’m fine?”
Landon’s jaw clenched, but he didn’t answer. He couldn’t. Not yet. Not until he knew more. But inside his stomach churned, and that familiar warning that he hadn’t listened to once since he’d met the woman shrilled like a screaming siren.
Footsteps echoed through the open door, and seconds later a sweaty Marley and a rumpled Ryder stepped into the room, followed by Archer.
“What’s going on?” Marley asked.
Eve glanced her way. “I don’t know. She was injected with something. I can’t tell what’s going on, but the skin is definitely not bruised. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
No, it definitely wasn’t bruised. She was having some kind of reaction. Something that Landon guessed was making the skin necrotic. Which meant whatever shit those douchebags had injected Olivia with was bad. Really bad.
Marley stepped close and pressed her fingers all around the blackened skin. “Does that hurt?”
“No.” Olivia frowned Landon’s way, and he knew she was pissed that he’d dragged her in here and was making a big deal about this, but she didn’t know the kind of people they were dealing with or what they could do. He did. “It doesn’t hurt. I’m fine. Would you all stop freaking out already?”
The phone in Landon’s pocket buzzed, and he pulled it out and glanced down. Relief rippled through him when he recognized the number. He held the phone to his ear and turned for the door. “Dani. That was fast.”
“I have to say this is a surprise.” Danica Crossler’s familiar voice was warm and friendly, as always. “Usually I’m the one contacting you through back channels.”
“I know.” Landon moved out into the hall and leaned against the wall. He swiped a hand over his brow. Dammit, he was sweating. He never got worked up during an op. But this wasn’t an op. This was personal. And if those fuckers had done something to Olivia . . .
“You don’t sound good, Landon. Something’s wrong, isn’t it?”
Danica was only twenty-two years old, but she was one of the most world-weary people he’d ever met. He just didn’t like thinking about the reason for that weariness. Or his role in it all.
“Dani, listen. The Red Brotherhood’s looking for you.”
Silence echoed over the line. Then, “H-how do you know?”
“Because they nabbed me and a friend while we were in Barcelona. And they clearly wanted one thing—information on your whereabouts.”
More silence.
Landon knew Dani was already thinking ten steps ahead. He’d taught her well, but the girl was smarter than shit and had learned quickly the importance of taking care of herself.
“Someone must have seen us together,” she finally said. “What did you tell them?”
“Nothing. At first I thought they were just after your father’s research, but now I’m pretty sure they already have it.”
“Why on earth would you say that?” Surprise echoed in Dani’s voice, telling Landon exactly what he’d wanted to hear. She hadn’t leaked her father’s science. The girl wasn’t in hiding just because she was afraid for her life, but because she was afraid for the whole world if her father’s deadly biotoxin was discovered.
“They injected something in my friend’s arm. The skin around her injection site is turning black. I’ve seen some nasty shit in my life, but I’ve never seen a drug on the planet do that.”
“Her who?”
He tensed. “Olivia. Her name’s Olivia.”
Silence echoed over the line, and Landon knew Dani’s brain was spinning, but he wasn’t sure in which direction. He thought of Dani as the younger sister he’d never had, and he’d pretty much bent over backward out of guilt to get her to safety and set up with a new life. But he knew she thought differently of him. And that was just one of the many reasons he kept his distance.
“Black?” she finally asked.
The wariness in her voice sent a shot of dread straight through Landon’s stomach. Against the phone, his palm grew sweaty. “It’s too late, isn’t it? They already have your father’s biotoxin.”
“I don’t know for sure, but it sounds like it. You’ll need to watch her arm. The necrosis is going to form a radial pattern outward from the injection site. It’s a very unique pattern. That’s how you know Cerberus is reacting.”
“What the hell is Cerberus?”
Dani was silent for a moment, then said, “Landon, my father wasn’t working on a biotoxin. I didn’t give you all the details because I
figured the less you knew, the safer you’d be. Ironic, right? Me protecting you?” A wistful note filled her voice. “My father was bioengineering amino acids.”
Landon knew shit about biological science. Or what the hell that had to do with Olivia. “In English, please. You’re already talking over my head and you know it.”
“Sorry. Amino acids are found in all human tissue. There are over five hundred different types, and they’re typically known as the building blocks for proteins. They also aid in cellular function for all processes in the body. By tweaking different chains of amino acids, my father discovered—mostly by accident—that he could create a radioactive amino acid, which could then be tagged. This was a research-altering moment because, in theory, a tagged amino acid can be tracked outside the body.”
“How?”
“Through RFID—the radio frequency identification system. It reads tags via GPS and satellites. My father figured this out, but the trick was getting that tagged amino acid in the human body. Thus came his experimentation. He tried and failed several times, but finally discovered that he could hide the new bioengineered amino acid in a cluster of amino acids, which he called Cerberus, that could then be injected in the human body so none would be rejected. He was in the act of refining that process when he died.”
When Landon showed up to kill him. Dani never outright called it what it was—an assassination—but they both knew that’s what he’d gone there to do.
“You’re telling me that by tweaking science, a person in a lab in, say, California can track someone clear across the globe, simply by tracing this genetically enhanced amino acid?”
“Technically, yes. Which is why the US government didn’t want Cerberus to fall into the wrong hands.”
No fucking way. Landon’s brain went into turbo spin. This was like . . . Mission Impossible shit. Not real life.
“Why not use a microchip? They already have GPS tracking chips small enough to be injected into the human body.”
“Because chips can be found and removed. Infect the entire human body at the cellular level, and it’s undetectable unless you know specifically what you’re looking for.”
Damn. That made a lot of sense in a sick sort of way.
“Imagine the implications,” Dani said. “Say you want to assassinate the president of the United States. You can’t get close to him, right? No one knows his schedule or where he’s going to be unless it’s an advertised event, and those are always secured to the rafters. Heck, half the time you don’t know which plane or helicopter he’s on because the Secret Service sends out several to fool the masses. But with this, all it takes is one checkup, one nurse, one compromised doctor to inject Cerberus into the president’s body, and suddenly he can be tracked anytime, anywhere, and that tracking instrument won’t be detected and can’t be removed. From there you simply need one carefully calculated missile strike on his caravan or helicopter or Air Force One, and he’s gone. The same for any world leader, any person who speaks out against the government, any person who’s deemed inferior. Technically, it would work on any race, any gender. Entire armies, if injected, could be tracked. You could see mass injections at birth. Lifelong tracking data. We’re talking about a global change to how the world is run, and the people who have the power to change it are the ones who control this science.”
A chill spread down Landon’s spine. This was biowarfare on a completely different level from anything he’d even considered. And if the Red Brotherhood really was pushing the new world order, they could change the entire human landscape of the planet.
“Unfortunately, the technology wasn’t refined,” she went on. “My father experimented with Cerberus in animals but was never able to track pinpoint locations, only generalized areas. It was his life’s work, something I vehemently disagreed with. But he deemed it important research for the future. At some point, the Red Brotherhood found out what he was doing, and they were ready to pay to keep his research going, until, of course, you came along. You succeeded in stopping him, but if what you’re saying is true and your friend was injected, then it means somehow Cerberus got out. Someone leaked it. Someone who wasn’t me or you.”
Someone who could be with the DIA. Landon swiped a hand over the back of his neck, the muscles bunched and tight. They were the only other ones who knew what the fuck her father had been up to. Hell, they’d sent him to take the man out. “You have an antidote, right?”
Dani sighed. “I have my father’s research, but that’s not the same thing.”
“But an antidote can be created,” he prodded.
“Technically,” she said. “Any kind of antidote would require another genetically engineered amino acid, which could then be injected into the infected body in such large amounts it would dilute the radioactive element.”
“So it can be done.”
“Theoretically, but I’ve never tried it. And there could be side effects.”
Screw the side effects. “What would you need?”
She blew out a long breath, and he pictured her sitting in her lab, swiping the loose bangs out of her face. “A blood sample from the infected individual, I guess. That would be a starting point.”
“Done.”
“Done?”
“I’ll be there in”—he glanced at his watch, calculating flight hours and time zone changes—“roughly fifteen hours.”
“You’re coming here?” Surprise lifted her voice.
“You’re the only chance she’s got, Dani. You’re the only one who knows how to fix this.”
“Landon, I don’t have a clue if it will actually work. I’m not my father. I can only go off the research he left me.”
No, she wasn’t her father—she was smarter than her father. She’d graduated college at the age of fifteen, gotten her PhD by the time she was twenty. And she was compassionate, a trait her father had clearly lacked. Even after her life had been turned upside down by what he and her father had done, she’d devoted her life and her scientific research to discovering new ways to help those in need, including the sick and poor on the small island where she’d been hiding the last few years.
“I need you to try,” he said. “If I can get you a blood sample, I need you to try to work your magic.”
Dani was quiet for a moment. “When was she injected?”
“Two, maybe three days ago.”
“And where is she?”
“Italy.”
After several seconds of silence, she said, “If the Red Brotherhood injected her with Cerberus, then it isn’t stable. That’s the part my father was trying to perfect. The radioactive piece will start to break down. If she’s not showing symptoms yet, she will soon.”
His gaze strayed to the open door. Inside he could see Marley taking a blood sample from Olivia’s arm and could hear Olivia still insisting she was fine.
“What kind of symptoms?”
“They’ll be minor at first. Fatigue, yellowing of the skin, weakness, abdominal pain, difficulty concentrating, edema. We’re talking about a cellular breakdown. It’ll start slowly but will quickly spread to her organs. From there . . . systematic organ failure and, eventually, death.”
No . . . Olivia looked perfectly healthy. She was frowning up at her sister and insisting everyone was making a fuss for nothing. This couldn’t be possible.
Pain spiraled through Landon’s gut, and the air clogged in his throat. He’d done this to her. Being with him had put a ticking time bomb on her life. “H-how long?”
“Two weeks tops, from the time she was injected.”
Two weeks . . .
His knees buckled, but he braced a hand against the wall to keep from going down.
“You’ll need to bring her to me,” Danica said. “You won’t have time to get me a blood sample, wait for me to process it, and fly it back to her. I don’t know how long it’s going to t
ake me. It could be a few hours. It could take days.”
He blinked several times, realizing his eyes were damp. “Okay.” Leaning his shoulder against the wall to hold himself up, he swiped a hand across both eyes. “Okay, I’m bringing her to you tonight.”
“There’s something else, Landon.”
There was more? God Almighty. How much more could there possibly be?
“If the Red Brotherhood injected her,” Dani said, as if she’d heard his unspoken question, “then I guarantee they’re already tracking her. If you bring her to me, you’ll bring them as well.”
“Oh . . . fuck.” The last few days spiraled through Landon’s mind, and links suddenly clicked into place in his brain. “That’s how they knew where to find us in Tortoli. That’s why they let us go.”
“They let you go?”
“Yeah.” Son of a bitch. He knew they’d escaped from that compound way too easily, but he’d been so intent on getting Olivia away from those psychos, he hadn’t thought about the why. “They injected her so I’d have to find you. They’ve been herding me toward you. They knew I’d go to you for help.”
“They’re not stupid.”
No, they weren’t. And the fuckers hadn’t just put him between a rock and a hard place, but between two cement walls. Having to choose who to save: the girl he owed for ruining her life, or the one who’d stolen his heart.
“They won’t be able to pinpoint her exact location,” Dani said. “That will give us a little time. In the meantime, I’ll start on a serum, which I’ll have to tweak once I have her blood sample. Don’t worry. We can make this work.”
Landon wasn’t so sure. His entire life was a series of fuckups, starting with his father and ending with Olivia.
Please don’t let anything end for Olivia.
He swallowed hard again, and then a thought hit. “How long will the amino acid sequence remain traceable in human blood?”
“In a vial?”
“Or a pint. Yeah.”
She blew out a breath. “I don’t know. Two days. Three max. The greater the sample, the longer it should remain active.”