Wicked Attraction (The Protector) Read online

  Something was very wrong.

  When Nina put her hands around the mug, the liquid inside sloshed over the rim. Her hands were trembling? She focused to still the shaking, but it didn’t work. A low noise filled her ears, and it took a few seconds to realize it was the rushing beat of her heart, but too slow. Not right.

  “Drink more coffee,” Patrice said.

  Nina didn’t want anything else to drink, but a compulsion she couldn’t explain lifted the mug to her lips. She gulped the rest of the coffee, not caring that it scalded her tongue and the back of her throat. It flooded her guts, her stomach feeling full and distended and slightly sick.

  The mug hit the table hard enough to crack it, her fingers still hooked into the handle. She hadn’t set it down. Her hand had dropped, weak, unable to keep the mug aloft. Nina stared at it, knowing there had to be something she was meant to do. Oh, let go. Uncurl her fingers. Look at her sister, whose face had twisted into an expression of grief.

  “They’re listening to everything, and watching,” Patrice said. “I’m sorry, Nina. I really am. But they have my youngest, and they said I’d never see him again unless I helped.”

  “What . . . did you do?” Nina’s tongue had gone thick and unwieldy, hard to speak around.

  The man who appeared in the doorway behind Patrice wore all white. Nina understood at once that the glow surrounding him was only in her head. Her system was working frantically to counteract whatever it was Patrice had put in the coffee.

  “It’s not drugs,” said the man. “We aren’t sure, to be honest, if your enhancements will be able to detect and remove this tech as easily as it can handle a chemical intrusion. This will be interesting, waiting to see what happens. It shouldn’t kill you, at least not right away.”

  Patrice put her face in her hands, shoulders hitching with sobs that ground out of her in strangled moans. Nina tried to reach for her, meaning to offer comfort or at least help her sister to know she didn’t blame her. Not if the threat to her child was true. How could her sister have done anything else? Nina’s hand fell to the table, inches short of their goal. Too heavy to lift.

  “What,” she managed to say.

  The man in white had moved closer, though still out of range should Nina find the strength and coordination to lunge for him. She didn’t. She couldn’t.

  “Some new nanotech. Designed to be ingested for quick access to the subject. It burrows through the gastric lining, which also strips the nano of the protective coating and leaves it free to enter your bloodstream. From there, it goes to the brain. Faster than we even anticipated. Nice.”

  Nina spat on the floor; a metallic taste had embittered her tongue, and she didn’t give a good onedamn about being polite at this point. “What’s it supposed to do?”

  “Make you malleable.”

  “Good luck with that.” Patrice sniffed harsh laughter and cringed away from the threatening fist the man in white shook at her. “I’m sorry! I got her here, didn’t I? I got the coffee into her. Let me go now, give me back my son.”

  The man in white jerked Patrice to her feet by the back of her shirt. The fabric ripped in a long, wet purr, and she stumbled backward so the chair knocked over. Nina was on her feet in seconds, going after him. Her feet threatened to tangle, but she managed to get them beneath her. She swiped at him, barely missing. The next time, she got closer.

  “Stop.” He held up a hand. “Back up.”

  Nina halted, not paralyzed. Not quite. She pushed toward him despite every single impulse inside her warning her to stay still. Only when an agonizing sting ripped through her head, particularly in the back of her neck and the base of her skull, did she stagger back and clap her hands over the pain.

  “I’m going to let your sister go, and she is indeed going to have her child back. Along with a hefty chunk of money in her credit account, enough to keep her solvent for a good number of years, should she not spend it recklessly.” The man in white shoved Patrice toward the kitchen doorway, where she paused, looking over her shoulder. “Go. Get out of here. We have what we want from you.”

  “Nina, I’m sorry!”

  “Go, Patrice.” Nina meant to scream, but her words slipped out in a hoarse whisper through gritted teeth.

  The man in white studied her, then raised a fingertip to his ear to connect with an unseen comm. “Come get her, please, before we discover this tech is in fact able to be counteracted by her enhancements.”

  “Why are you doing this?” Nina didn’t bother trying to get at him. The intrusion of the new tech in her head still itched and burned. It was no longer a blistering pain, but her body felt sluggish and unresponsive.

  The man in white looked shocked. “You have something we need, and you’re the only one we can get it from.”

  “What could I possibly have that you need?” Truly surprised, she took another step back she hadn’t been ordered to take, both hands up to show him she wasn’t making any attempts at going for him, just in case whoever was heading for her was armed and ready to cause permanent damage.

  “Donahue’s tech, of course.”

  Nina’s head tilted. Confused, she said, “The enhancement tech? I’m far from the only one you could get it from. Hell, I guarantee you there . . . there are . . .”

  It was becoming hard to talk again as the room spun and the floor became slick beneath her feet, threatening to send her onto her hands and knees. She spat more bitterness. Her throat rasped.

  “Others,” she said finally. “Who would sell you whatever you wanted, just to be done with it all. You could rip it right out of their heads.”

  “Not the enhancement tech. The upgrades.”

  “I don’t have them. Nobody has them.” She’d have laughed if the simmering pain in her head would let her.

  The man in white curled his lip. “He never even told you. Did he? Of course he didn’t. It was always a secret, especially to you.”

  Her heart froze. “Ewan and I don’t have . . . any more . . .”

  Secrets, she thought. He promised. No more secrets.

  “Donahue claimed he never actually produced the upgraded tech, but he lied. He did produce prototypes, ones that worked, if crudely. The plans and specs for that tech were implanted in you, to keep it protected from any attempts at destroying it forever. After all, you’re the perfect safe.”

  Nina reeled, horrified. “No.”

  “Oh, yes,” the man in white said as he wavered and shimmered, blurring in front of her. To someone she couldn’t see, he said, “Take her now. She’s passing out.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  The money transferred within seconds of Ewan authorizing it. Jordie’s viddy kept playing with the kid ranting on and on about things, but the moment the transfer was approved, the screen went blank.

  The comm pinged with an incoming call.

  “Hey, Mr. Donahue,” Jordie said with a grin, acting for all the world as though nothing was wrong. “Thanks for the credits.”

  “Jordie, I’m so disappointed in you,” Ewan said in as calm a voice as he could manage. “What are you thinking? Blackmail? What’s going on? This can’t just be about me not approving your work proposal.”

  Jordie’s expression turned serious. “It is, though.”

  “Why?” Frustrated, Ewan tapped the screen off to the side, trying to send a message to his security team so they could track Jordie’s location.

  “Because you’re the only one with the pieces I need, Mr. Donahue. See, it’s like this.” Jordie shifted around in his seat. He wore the same clothes from the viddy message, and the background looked the same. Either he hadn’t changed his clothes in a while, entirely possible if he was on the candy, or he’d made the viddy today. “I have this amazing plan, a truly terrific idea, really great. It’s going to be huge. Just huge. Make me a lot of money, you a lot of money, it will make the investors a lot of money—”

  “Investors?” Ewan sent the message, but so far, the team wasn’t responding.