3013: GENESIS (3013: The Series Book 11) (17 page)

“Failure
is not an option. You know what happens to people that cross Korsek.”

Mya’s
heart began to pound at the sound of the war criminal’s name.

The
man on screen sneered. “I know who Korsek really is. All of the Alliance knows
that it’s just some Tarin bitch pretending to be a man. I’m not afraid of her.”

“You
should be,” the woman warned softly.

“Tell
your boss that she can’t have the drug,” the man said dismissively. “It’s no
longer going to be produced. And I’m not giving the credits back. I earned
them.”

Mya
stared at the screen, horrified by what she’d heard. She started to leave the
office, but froze in place when she saw the flash of light again. In an
instant, she knew why the necklace had looked so familiar. A few years ago, someone
had figured out how to use holo-tech to create a holographic mask. Anyone who
wore one could change their appearance at will. The technology had been banned,
except for toy versions where kids could dress up as demons or other mythical
monsters.

But
this wasn’t a child’s toy.

The
flash of light had been a glitch in the holo-tech, allowing the high-grade security
cameras to show Mya the real face beneath the disguise projected from the
necklace the woman was wearing.

No,
she wasn’t a woman at all.

She
was a Tarin female…and a war criminal.

***

CHAPTER
FIFTEEN

Mya
rushed out of the office, looking around the crowd of people that blocked her
view from seeing the booth where the couple had been sitting. Her heart slammed
against her chest in panic as she saw it was empty. A group of people had
already moved in to claim the space, and she looked around the bar frantically
for some sign of the couple she’d seen on the security screens.

They
were gone.

Maddox
had arrived while she’d been in the office. He smiled at her as she hurried over
to their table, but his expression changed to one of alarm as he stood up and
gripped her arms tight. “What is it,
tava
? What’s wrong?”

“We
have to find them! Oh, god. We have to find her, right now!”

“Find
who?” Daimon asked as he rushed over to them.

“I
saw something on the security feed. It’s bad. Korsek, Quilla Rego. She’s here.
She was sitting in that booth, but now she’s gone.”

Mya
started to pull him toward the office, but he shook his head. “Not here. We can
access the feed from our main security center. Daimon, contact Tavius and tell
him to meet us there.”

Maddox
told her to remain silent as their group left the bar and made their way up to
the security center. Once they were inside the secured room, Maddox barked out,
“Pull up the security feed in Sanctum.”

“Tavius
and Ryland were handling an incident in the sublevel five ballroom, but they
are on their way now,” Daimon told them.

“What
the fuck is going on?” Kahla demanded.

Mya
told them everything she’d heard inside the bar. As she did, she watched the
expressions of everyone in the room change. They weren’t scared. They didn’t
even look worried. Sheer determination and rage burned in their eyes when she
finished her explanation. Her mates and friends were warriors, ready to fight
and kick ass.

She
might be wearing the outfit, but she was nothing like them.

“Alpha
Maddox, I have the security feed for you,” one of the security officers
announced.

Maddox
stalked over to the controls himself and found the footage they were looking
for with Mya’s help. They watched the conversation play out as she had done a few
minutes ago. When it was done, everyone was silent.

Finally,
Reva asked, “Are you sure? She looks nothing like Quilla Rego.”

“I
didn’t see it on this feed, but she’s wearing a holo-mask. I saw the flashes of
light, and when it flickered, I could see her real face. I looked up the
reports on her after Orion D’Sil mentioned her when he was here. I saw her
face. I know it’s her.”

Expression
grim, Maddox nodded. “I believe you,
tava
. Run the facial recognition
program on this image,” he told the security officer. “Do another one for
Quilla Rego’s real face. Find her. I want her found and locked in a cage.”

“Yes,
Alpha Maddox,” another security officer said before he started typing rapidly.

“She
has that holo-mask on,” Pia reminded them. “She could look completely different
now.”

“Fuck,”
Daimon growled. “You’re right. We need to get to Commander Macy and secure
those samples of the Genesis Project drug before she gets to them. That’s why
she’s here, and she won’t leave without them.”

“I
need to contact Ambassador Golaris,” Reva said, mentioning her mother. She
walked away from them as she tapped on her wrist unit.

“I
met with Commander Macy earlier today,” Maddox announced. “I’ll go get him and
bring him in.”

“I’ll
go with you,” Mikal offered. “He might be easier to convince if you have
another elite officer with you.”

Maddox
knew he was right. “Fine. I want a security team in place to take this bitch
into custody when we find her. And someone figure out how the fuck she got onto
New Vega and cleared through security.”

“I
can help with that,” Kahla offered as she sat down at one of the computer
stations.

People
scrambled around the room doing what Maddox had asked. One of the security
officers let out a shout. “I’ve identified the male she was with, Alpha Maddox.”

“Bring
his image up on screen.”

When
the officer did, the image and credentials of Officer Ken Howards popped up on
one of the large screens. “Bastard,” Maddox snarled. “I want him found.”

Before
he could leave, Mya gripped his arm. “Please be careful.”

“I
will,” he vowed. “I have too much to live for now that we’ve found you.”

“Take
some more men with you,” she whispered. “Please. I don’t mean to insult you,
but she might have brought people with her. If you run into them while you’re
getting the commander, there could be trouble.”

“You’re
right. I’ll take a team with us. We’ll go prepared.”

He
kissed her hard before heading over to the section of the room where they kept
weapons and other equipment. Maddox and Mikal both started to gear up along
with three other security officers. Usually, the security team members carried
stunners that would knock someone out, but Maddox and the others were also strapping
blasters to their thighs and inserting more knives into their waistbands.

“What’s
this?” Mikal asked as he was given a thin, transparent black helmet along with
lightweight body armor.

“There’s
a comm system in the face shields, and the armor will deflect a blaster or a
stunner,” Maddox explained as he strapped his own armor on. “We don’t know if
Quilla came with a group, and the regulars on New Vega know to get out of the
way when the security team comes through.”

Pia
helped Mikal put his armor on as they spoke quietly to one another. Across the
room, Mya joined her mates as Daimon put a comm link in his ear. “We’ll have
you on the security feed, but I want direct comms with you in case we find
anything,” he told Maddox. “This will be easier than using wrist units.”

“Good
thinking. Give everyone a comm link,” Maddox ordered as he took one from the
box and put it in Mya’s ear himself. “This way you can hear that I’m okay.”

 “Thank
you.” Her voice wavered even though Mya tried not to show how worried she was. Lifting
onto her toes, she kissed him, pouring all the love she felt for him into it.

Maddox
wrapped his arm around her waist, holding her to him as he took the kiss
deeper. He wanted to sink in, to stroke his tongue against hers, but he cut the
kiss off before he did that. He had a job to do now, and he couldn’t let
himself be distracted. Breaking the kiss, he took a physical and mental step
back.

“You
did good,
tava
. Without you, we would never have known about this
threat.”

“We
have to find her.”

“We
will.”

It
was a promise he gave her.

A
vow that he would find the war criminal and make her pay for ever stepping foot
on New Vega. He turned to his brother, his gaze meeting Daimon’s in mutual
understanding. “Keep me updated.”

“Anything
we know, you’ll know.”

Maddox
put on the black face shield, giving the audio command to activate it. With the
shield on, he would be able to access audio and visual feeds, and stay
connected to Mya and his brothers through the communication system. He stalked
from the room with Mikal and the three security officers, not looking back.

Daimon
would keep Mya safe, and Tavius would be with them soon. He didn’t have to
worry about them…but he did.

Rage
burned through him. How the fuck did that sick, sadistic evil female get on New
Vega without anyone knowing? They scanned IDs upon arrival. That meant she
would have had to have altered her fingerprints and retinal markers before she
arrived.

He
didn’t care what Quilla’s reasons were for coming here, but she’d put his
family in jeopardy, and he would pay her back for that in blood. 

“Alpha?”

Maddox
turned to look at the head of security. The face shield covered his entire face
so his vision wasn’t obstructed, but it left a slightly darkened tint to the
world that Maddox didn’t care for. “What is it, Amir?”

“Do
you want this criminal taken alive?”

He
thought about it for two seconds before snarling, “No.”

“The
Alliance and the Tarins are going to want her alive for questioning,” Mikal
said. “As Korsek, she developed a network that is far reaching. We could learn
a lot from the information she has.”

“I
don’t give a fuck what they want. She came here, she deals with our justice. When
we find her, we take her down. I don’t care if she’s breathing or not.”

“That’s
what I wanted to hear,” Amir growled back.

“I
was just checking,” Mikal said. “Consider it playing devil’s advocate. But
believe me, I really want to kill this bitch, too.”

“Get
in line,” Maddox told him. “Commander Macy is in a room on the fourth level,
central location. We’ll take the VIP elevators up to the fourth, then head down
the hallways of that floor. Macy seemed like a reasonable male. He can come
with us, or give us the bio-container.”

“He
was ordered not to let it out of his sight,” Mikal said. “He won’t let us take
it.”

Maddox
didn’t bother telling the human male that the other elite wouldn’t be given a
choice. They stepped into the elevator, and he gave the order for it to take
them to the fourth floor. Once they were inside, he activated the comm link. “Have
you found anything?”

“
No,
”
Daimon answered. “
We’re still scanning, but so far, there is no sign of
Quilla. Wait! Hold on…Kahla might have something.
”

Kahla
clicked on through the link. “
I was going back over the feed from the
docking bays from earlier today. She was there…in Docking Bay Four. She was
with six men, all of them dressed in elite uniforms.
”

“Fuck,”
Mikal hissed. “How the fuck did they get those?”

“
I
don’t know, but someone is going to pay for this,
” Pia said.

“Send
a team down to the docking bay,” Maddox ordered. “I want that shuttle locked
down. They don’t leave New Vega.”

“
We’re
on it,
” Daimon growled over the link.

Maddox
and his team went silent as the elevator stopped on the fourth floor. They
stepped out when the doors opened, and the other males followed Maddox as he
led them to the suite the commander was staying in.

“Mikal?
How did she know?”

Maddox
hadn’t been as friendly as his two brothers had been with the two males that
guarded his
tava,
but he liked them and was beginning to trust them.
They’d known her a lot longer than the Adaro brothers had, and there was much
they could learn from the human males when it came to Mya.

“Mya
doesn’t give herself enough credit. Some elites get extra abilities after we’re
given enhancements, but she’s never counted herself as one of them. Hers might
not be powerful enough to classify, but she does have them. It comes from
having an intuitive father and an empathic mother, both with strong abilities.”

“So,
she gets feelings sometimes?”

“Yep,
and when she gets one, we’ve learned to listen.”

Tavius
connected through the link a few seconds later. “
We’re at the security
center.
”

“Good.
We’re entering the commander’s room now.”

Maddox
knocked on the door, and when he didn’t get a response, he pressed the call
button on the security panel next to the door.

“Fuck
this,” he muttered, then he bypassed the lock with a voice command and opened
the door. A few seconds later, he let out a vicious curse.

Amir
rushed past him, guarding Maddox even though there was no need. The metallic scent
of blood filled the air, but they didn’t need to smell it to know something bad
had happened in the suite.

Commander
Macy’s body lay on the floor next to the traitorous Officer Howards. It was as
Maddox had feared. The officer had led Quilla straight to the commander. There
was a blade sticking out of the officer’s chest, but the commander had a thin
line of blood circling his neck.

“Fuck…”
Mikal breathed.

Maddox
slammed his fist into the wall, putting a big dent into it. His mate, his
brothers, their world…all of them were at risk now. “That bloody psychotic bitch
has the Genesis drug!”

“What
is this drug that has made her risk all this to get it?” Amir asked.

“We
don’t really know, but it sounded bad,” Mikal said. “Really bad.”

“Commander
Macy is dead,” Maddox said over the comm link. “We’re in his suite right now.
He was garroted and Officer Howard has been stabbed. The case containing the
Genesis Project samples isn’t here. Someone contact that damn doctor on Avox
and find out what the fuck this drug is.”

“
On
it.
” A few seconds later, Daimon contacted them back. “
I’m taking
Ryland, Pia, Reva and a security team down to the docking bay. If she tries to
leave, we’ll get her.
”