Lawe's Justice (6 page)

Yet his conscience refused to allow him to do otherwise.

He re-dressed his victim before picking him up and carrying him to the couch where he laid him against the cushions as though the man were napping rather than entering hell. Then he cleaned the floor of the urine and excrement, disposed of the rags he used and carefully returned the room to its pristine condition.

Connelly’s wife was considered a kind, compassionate woman. The week Gideon had spent watching the family and learning their habits, he’d found reason to believe it.

The two young men who were his sons were considered friendly and generous young men who laughed and enjoyed life with an apparent sense of humor and a love for people.

Even for Breeds.

They didn’t deserve to find their father laid out naked and so obviously tortured. It would be a sight they would never forget. One Gideon would have regretted leaving for them.

Though where he’d found the ability to care, he wasn’t quite certain.

Scott Connelly hadn’t given a damn about anyone or anything in those labs, except the girl whose big, dark eyes watched the world with somber resignation. Gideon had shown the scientists he’d found over the past months the same lack of mercy they had shown him. But as he’d watched Connelly’s family over the past week, he’d found himself feeling sorry for the wife and the sons who lived beneath the tyranny of the bastard who was rarely home and who cared little for their feelings.

They would be at peace now.

If only he could find a moment of that peace as well.

Stepping from the living room he shut off the lights, then slipped through the house as silently as he had entered it. Leaving through the back door, he left the security system disabled and didn’t bother worrying about any fingerprints that could have been left.

He had none.

Those had been burned and peeled off long ago, leaving only calloused, roughened flesh in their place.

Moving through the shadows of the backyard, he made his way to the small park several blocks from the house and then to where he had parked the black pickup he’d stolen the week before.

Tossing the bag of cash and other items onto the passenger’s seat, he started the vehicle and pulled from the darkened slot he’d parked in.

He would use his own fake ID and buy a vehicle when morning came and ditch the stolen truck. It would make the trip ahead safer.

If he drove day and night, he would reach his destination quickly.

Window Rock, Arizona, the home of Terran Martinez and his family.

Gideon had heard of Morningstar Martinez and knew well the story of the Coyote Breed who had mated that lab’s favored Breeder. The information found during their vivisections had been used in Brandenmore Research for the serum created there.

And apparently her girlhood home was also now the home of the girl that, for a while, he’d only known as subject number 4. The girl who would now pay the price for the last two years of agonizing experiments Gideon had suffered.

Once he found her, she too would find herself inflicted with the same pain, the same torment and the same overriding agony Gideon suffered because of her.

Her time was coming.

But first, first, there was one small problem he needed to deal with. The four-man, one-woman mercenary team searching for the girl as well.

He could kill them. Or, he could find a way to make contact with the commander, the only member of the team he trusted, and use her to ensure he got close enough to take possession once the girl was found.

There was no doubt his prey would never trust him. He remembered in his pain, in his fury, the threats he had made as she watched him with those dark, tortured eyes.

“I’ll find you.” The growl that left his throat was animalistic and enraged as her blood flowed into him, burning him, awakening the animal genetics his loss of blood had silenced. “You will both pay. I’ll ensure it.”

“You’ll have to find us first, Gideon.” Judd’s voice had spoken softly from a point behind his head. A point Gideon couldn’t see, because he couldn’t turn his head. He couldn’t strike out. He could only speak.

“I’ll find you both,” he had sworn to her as she sobbed.

“And I’ll make certain you don’t,” Judd had promised. “We’ll hide you before we leave, make certain you’re safe. But you won’t know where we are. And you’ll never have a chance to harm either of us.”

He would find them both. And he would keep the promise he made. They would both pay.

•CHAPTER 3•

There were few things Diane Broen hated worse than she hated late night landings and forcing her tired body to yet another hotel room.

One of these days, she promised herself as she entered the lobby of the exclusive, expensive hotel Jonas Wyatt sent them to, she was going to have her own bed, her own apartment, and her own clothes to fill it.

Rather than whatever she had in her suitcase, whether it was dirty or not.

“Boss, don’t forget about that meeting we have with the accountant while we’re in town,” Thor, the big deep-voiced blond Swede reminded her as they stepped into the lobby of the D.C. hotel and headed for the elevators.

“Do we have an appointment?” she asked, all but dragging her bags behind her as she fought to stay on her feet long enough to get to her room.

Three months. She and the four men who had once fought with her uncle and now followed her command, had been on the trail of one of the most elusive damned targets she’d ever been sent after.

They had gone after terrorists, extracted kidnap victims, provided security for heads of state, kings and even a few shady characters, but never in the history of her time with her uncle’s men had they failed to complete a job. Until now.

It was as though she had disappeared off the face of the earth and the message she had received the night before returning to D.C. hadn’t settled her mind.

An anonymous message left in her hotel room and a warning that there was a spy too close to her. A spy who didn’t care to kill. And with that message was a reference to a possible location that she still couldn’t believe.

Hell, she didn’t need this.

“I’ll get an appointment, boss,” Thor promised. “But you have to keep it.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” she said with a sigh as she punched the elevator button and watched the lit numbers descend as the elevator moved from the upper floors back to the lobby.

She was taking that warning to heart, as much as she hated to. There was too much at stake, and she wasn’t risking her men without more information.

She leaned against the wall and stared back at the four men.

The Swede, Thor, was their moneyman. He kept them solvent and well supplied. He paid the bills and managed to keep their paychecks from bouncing. Next to him was Aaron, their logistics expert, emergency medical needs, and travel agent. Brick was their communications expert and supply tech while Malcolm took care of weapons and, before they’d joined the Bureau of Breed Affairs, he’d scheduled their missions.

They’d lost two of their men after joining the Bureau though. The two Breeds that had fought with them since the team had rescued them from a small lab several years before. They’d moved on to security in Sanctuary, the feline base in Virginia.

Now Diane and her remaining team were expert consultants to the Bureau, a glorified title for gophers she liked to think, but it kept her close to her sister, Rachel, and Rachel’s daughter, Amber.

It kept her close enough that she could ensure she was never again unable to help her sister and niece when they needed her.

The elevator pinged its arrival.

“Hey, boss, want me to haul your gear?” Thor’s voice was softer as she opened her eyes and stared back at him.

She was tired, and evidently she looked tired too.

She was aware of the other three men watching her curiously.

“I have my gear, Thor.” She straightened as the doors slid open and a couple left the elevator. Their expressions were wary as their gazes moved over the less than reputable-looking group.

Diane snickered up at Thor as she stepped into the elevator and caught his disgruntled look. Readjusting her gear on her shoulders, she almost wished she had taken him up on his offer.

Yeah, she would have loved to have had Thor haul her gear for her. His shoulders were a hell of a lot stouter than hers, and he carried his own gear as though it weighed nothing. But her uncle had warned her that no matter how tired or wounded she was, she had to pull her own weight if she wanted them to respect her. The day she couldn’t haul her own gear, and she wasn’t wounded, was the day her men would start protecting her instead of following her. It would be the day she would lose her command.

She’d fought too many years for their respect to risk that. She wasn’t going to give it up because she’d missed a few nights’ sleep in order to return to the States in time to follow the lead she had been given and to complete her mission.

“Man, I need a cold beer, a warm woman and a soft bed,” Aaron said, sighing as he leaned against the elevator wall, his brown eyes reflecting the same weariness they all felt.

Diane snorted as she leaned against the wall as well and waited for the tenth floor. “Cold beer, warm shower, and that soft bed.” She sighed.

The thought of a warm man slid through her mind and she immediately, forcibly, pushed it back.

“Here we go,” Thor breathed out in relief as the doors slid open. “I’ll let you know about that accountant, boss.”

“I’ll be there,” she promised. “Once Wyatt hears my report we’ll probably be heading out for that vacation we’ve all dreamed of.”

It was the only distraction she had to use to explain her own disappearance once she gave the impression of having given up on this mission.

She wasn’t about to give up.

The girl she was looking for was too important and there were too many forces converging around her for Diane to give up now.

“Night, boss.” Thor headed in the opposite direction to his room.

“Night, boss,” Malcolm echoed as he crossed the hall to his room.

“See ya, boss.” Aaron followed Thor, and headed farther up the hall, his shoulders drooping just a bit.

Aaron got his wish to head home to see his parents. Brick could pick up with the woman he’d been living with for the past few years, while Malcolm had a sister he intended to visit. Thor kept talking about budgets, accountants and balancing the books. She threw a careless wave over her shoulder to her men as she headed down the hall to her room. Reaching the door, she nodded to the Breed Enforcers assigned to guard the floor of the exclusive D.C. hotel reserved for Breed VIP visitors to the city.

Tonight, it was home.

She could feel the grime of the past three days on her body, and the long hours spent in the middle of the desert before that hadn’t helped. And it seemed no matter the direction she went, the information she was searching for was always one step ahead of them. Just as the woman was.

•   •   •

Lawe stepped from the stairwell entrance, preferring it over the elevator to help alleviate some of the tension that tightened his muscles.

As the door closed behind him, the ping of the elevator had him pausing as the doors slid open and Rule stepped into the hall.

Dressed in black, the Lion Breed Enforcer insignia on his right shoulder and his black hair pulled back from his face to reveal the strong features and brilliance of his topaz eyes, he didn’t look like Lawe’s twin. There was a resemblance, though, one strong enough that the genetic line wasn’t in doubt.

He paused as he turned and saw Lawe, a frown marking his brow.

“Jonas didn’t mention you were scheduled to be here.”

Lawe’s lips tightened.

“Do you ever get tired of his machinations?”

Rule snorted. “Don’t we all. If it weren’t for the fact that killing him would only cause more problems, I would kill him myself.”

It was a regular refrain from damned near every Breed that came in contact with the director.

Rule tilted his head then as he stared back at Lawe questioningly. “Why are you here?”

“Because Jonas is playing games with us,” Lawe growled. “He knows she’s my mate, Rule.”

Rule nodded sharply. “It would be hard to miss. She carried your scent when I first met her. I wondered if you would tell me when it happened and why you walked away from her.”

The curiosity in his twin’s gaze was impossible to miss. Lawe had been ignoring it for months, and didn’t intend to explain it now either.

“I haven’t mated her.” Lawe’s teeth clenched at the speculation in his brother’s eyes. “Jonas sent you to try to push me to it.”

Rule’s lips thinned. He didn’t like Jonas’s games any more than anyone else, but Lawe could see something more swirling in his brother’s gaze. Something that had him tensing at the possibility that his brother could become a problem where Diane was concerned, just as Jonas was becoming one.

“No mating huh?” Rule asked softly. “Tell me, Lawe, what do you think of Jonas and Ely’s position that if a Breed doesn’t claim his mate, then a genetic relation, or brother, may have that chance?”

Lawe’s nostrils flared with his attempt to hold back the instinctive anger that shot through his system because of the question.

Jonas and the Breed specialist, Dr. Ely Morrey, seemed to be under the impression that if a female wasn’t physically mated, then the first stage of mating heat made her vulnerable to other males.

That first stage, when the minute quantities of the hormone appear on the fine hairs covering a Breed’s body, or when something as simple as a brush of his lips to her flesh could infect her with enough of the hormone to activate her ability to become a mate. That combined with an emotional response, Ely had hypothesized, could allow her to mate another Breed.

Lawe had no idea if it had ever happened in the past, but he’d be damned if he’d allow Rule and Diane to prove it.

“Don’t go there, Rule,” Lawe warned him softly. “I don’t think your horoscope declared today to be a good day to die.”

Rule reached back and rubbed at his neck as he gave a heavy sigh.

“Jonas wants you out of this,” Rule said as he dropped his arm back to his side. “I agree with him. You don’t want her, you don’t want the mating and I understand why. That doesn’t mean she should be left vulnerable to any Breed looking to complete it. A Breed perhaps unable or unwilling to utilize her strengths.”

“Use them you mean?” Lawe questioned with icy disdain. “Don’t sugarcoat it, Rule. We both know Jonas doesn’t want to lose her and her team. He knows I’ll pull her off active duty the second I can.”

Rule shrugged. “She’s a hell of a warrior. You’ll destroy her if you do that, Lawe. On the other hand, I think I could handle it.”

Lawe couldn’t help but laugh, though the sound held little amusement. “Go find your own woman. This one’s off-limits to every other Breed with the mistaken intention to even attempt such a thing.”

“But you’re not claiming her,” Rule pointed out softly. “You know, Lawe, we’re brothers. Identical twins, despite the differences in our looks. I don’t want to love a woman to the point it marks my soul. If you don’t want your mate, give me that chance. I’d take care of her.”

Was he serious?

Lawe stared back at Rule and once again was struck by the strange chill that had entered his brother’s eyes in the past months. There was the chance that his brother was entirely serious.

“Why don’t you just run on home while I consider your request?” Lawe grunted though he felt that dark-animal corner of his being awakening and attempting to overtake his humanity.

Rule’s lips quirked. “While you’re considering it, I’ll just step in here and get things started, why don’t I?” Despite the amusement, there was an edge of warning in Rule’s tone.

The snarl that curled Lawe’s lips and flashed his canines was the first indication that the animal genetics were slipping the leash he kept on them.

Rule didn’t back down. His brow lifted instead as he crossed his arms over his chest and stared at Lawe. “You don’t do that often,” he pointed out coolly. “You’re letting her get to you.”

“No, you and Jonas are getting to me,” Lawe growled. “What the hell makes you think you can force a mating? Even Cabal told us he’d had no attraction for his twin, Tanner’s, mate. What makes you think it would be different for you? Hell, what makes Jonas and Ely believe such a thing could even be considered?”

“Because they were created differently, Lawe. We’re actually twins. Fraternal perhaps, but still the genetics are stronger than Tanner and Cabal’s, and we share a bond they didn’t. It’s worth finding out if those genetics would allow me to claim the woman you don’t want. Besides, it’s information Dr. Morrey may be able to use in the future if my ability to be her mate is possible.”

Lawe almost shook his head, hoping to force a level of belief into his senses. To actually accept that his brother would consider such a thing.

“You would take what’s mine?” Lawe asked, unwilling to admit to the confusion.

“You’re not claiming her, Lawe,” Rule growled. It was a low, rumbling sound that hinted at the same internal anger Lawe was feeling. “You don’t want her. I don’t want a mate that could destroy me. It seems a fair enough exchange to me.”

“You don’t want her either. Not as she deserves. So what the hell makes you think it would be worth the fight I’ll give you? Get the hell out of here, Rule.” There wasn’t a chance he was going to let his brother around his mate. “Get out of here before I do something we’ll both regret.”

His brother started to turn and move up the hall toward Diane’s room. Lawe could see his intent, feel it, and he wasn’t having it.