Wyatt clenched his teeth and then carefully brought the bottle to his mouth. He needed action. Something. He almost wished a fight would break out as they habitually did in the bar. When he was younger, he often came there to drink, fight and find a woman, just like most of the other men in the swamp and bayou did. Now he came to drink and fight. He had a woman waiting for him at home.

“I had one living relative, my mother’s sister. She was fifteen years younger than Mom, barely twenty-three, and single, but she came and got me and I lived with her. We changed our names, moved and thought we were going to be all right. At twelve I founded my first company after selling two of my patents. We lived good for a while.”

For the first time something moved in his cold, piercing eyes. Trap raked his hand through his blond hair, hair that definitely identified him as an outsider there in Cajun country. Had he not been with Wyatt, he would have been the first target chosen for anyone looking for a fight. The fight wouldn’t have ended well. Trap wasn’t a man who enjoyed a good friendly brawl. You didn’t put your hands on him. You didn’t threaten him. Even there in the Huracan Club with his team around him, he kept to himself. Wyatt could see the name Johansson suited Trap far better than Dawkins. Trap definitely had some Swede in him, with his build and blond hair.

Wyatt didn’t want to hear what happened to Trap’s aunt, but he had to know. There were too many flames burning icy hot behind the blue glacier of Trap’s eyes.

“For a while?” he prompted.

“Yeah. For a while. I made a lot of money, even through my early teenage years. Went to school, could have taught most of the professors. Did a lot of research in pharmaceuticals, and we both know you can make a fortune there. I just kept making money.” He made small circles on the table with the edge of the beer bottle. His gaze once again held Wyatt’s. “You know that money didn’t mean a fucking thing to me, Wyatt. Not one damned thing. I can’t help the way my mind works. The money made it easy to get the lab I wanted and the equipment, but that was all. I live simply. I don’t use it.”

Wyatt frowned at him. “Trap, I’ve known you for years. We went to school together. We were both younger than everyone else and yeah, smarter, so we naturally gravitated toward each another. We went into business together. You don’ have to convince me you aren’ into money.”

“She was kidnapped. They took her right out of the house when I was working in the laboratory. She would always come and get me for dinner. I could skip other meals, but not dinner. She didn’t come. When I went into the house, the place was a wreck. She fought them, and I hadn’t heard a fucking thing.”

Wyatt listened to Trap’s voice, but he couldn’t hear any expression at all. Just the soft monotone Trap often used.

“I paid the ransom, of course. Millions, enough to set them up for life in another country where they could change identities and live life large. I paid it immediately. They returned her body to me on my front porch. She was dead. They’d used her.” Trap’s blue eyes went so cold the temperature in the room actually dropped. “Hard. They made certain there was plenty of evidence so I would see that. They hurt her in every way possible before they killed her. They left me a note. Quoted an eye for an eye. They made it very plain that any woman I was with would suffer the same fate.”

Trap took another long swig of beer. “I knew it was my uncles. I pointed the cops at them. I hired detectives. They disappeared. Their tracks were so well-covered that I knew they had changed identities. Even bribing the best in the business, I didn’t find out who they’d become. All that money I’d made wasn’t worth shit, Wyatt. It didn’t buy her back for me, and it didn’t find her killers.”

Wyatt sank back in the chair and regarded his friend. He understood Trap’s antisocial behavior much better. He had buried himself in work, cut himself off from everyone, making certain he had few ties. He hadn’t blindly followed Wyatt into the GhostWalker unit, he wanted the skills. He hadn’t given up on finding the men who murdered his aunt. He would never give up. He didn’t tie himself to a woman or let himself feel affection for one. He used his work to keep him apart, to keep his mind occupied so there would be no chance that he would ever put another woman in jeopardy.

“Trap,” he cautioned softly.

“She isn’t a problem,” Trap said just as softly. “Cayenne. She isn’t a problem. Fucking Whitney paired us together. I don’t ever think about a woman, not even after I’ve fucked her. Not ever. I go to my lab, and I work until there isn’t a trace of her left. This woman I let out of a cage, not knowing if she’s going to try to kill me. I just see her a couple of times and I can’t get her out of my head. I can’t, Wyatt. She’s no problem to solve. He fucking paired us together.”

Both men fell silent. Dr. Peter Whitney had been the brains behind the GhostWalker program. He’d sold his experimental ideas to the military. They’d tested psychic ability. Those accepted into the program had to test off the charts for various abilities as well as have the personality and physical abilities to withstand Special Forces training. Once accepted into the program, they were enhanced and then trained in every type of combat situation conceivable.

There were four teams, and each had been enhanced not only psychically – as they’d agreed to be – but physically as well – which they hadn’t agreed to be. The first team had many problems and a couple of their men had died – succumbing to brain bleeds. Whitney got better after that, improving with each new team, but it became obvious he had used animal DNA to make his superior soldiers.

It came to light that long before he had worked on adult men he had first begun his experiments on female children he had taken from orphanages from around the world – disposable children. He believed they could be sacrificed for the greater good. If his experiments worked on them, only then did he try to duplicate them in the soldiers.

He kept the women prisoners in various facilities scattered around the United States as well as in some foreign countries. He went underground once his experiments had come under scrutiny, but he had friends in high places. They not only shielded him, but believed in what he was doing, so they aided him.

One of his experiments was to pair a male soldier with one of his female experiments, using pheromones to entice them to each other. No one knew how he did it, nor was there a way to undo what he’d done, so when the male soldier came across the female, and she him, they were so attracted, it was impossible for one to walk away from the other. What Whitney hadn’t counted on was the emotional attachment the pair formed. Or the camaraderie of all GhostWalkers.