Taken by Fire (6 page)

Stryker stared at the closed bathroom door.

He couldn’t believe he’d let himself have a hard-on for her, how easily he’d let his guard down, and he cursed himself for the same instinct he would’ve trusted before Akbar’s death.

Kindness had always been one of Stryker’s best qualities, and Akbar had encouraged him not to lose that, not to get so much of an edge that he lost his instincts about people.

Akbar had been too fucking kind himself—if he hadn’t stepped out in front of Stryker …

Fuck, he couldn’t go there now. There was too damned much to do—for Akbar and for ACRO.

Fire-and-ice woman might as well be the spawn of the devil, because seriously, being Alek’s daughter wasn’t any better.

Dev was going to flip. And, of course, tell Stryker not to kill her. Melanie was more valuable than any of them even knew.

Stryker needed to call Dev with the news ASAP and he also needed the backup from TAG—and Devlin would be the one to call in the cavalry for him. Because come two
P.M.
, fire-bitch
would emerge and Stryker knew he’d have a hard time not killing her.

Of course, he’d like to spend some time in a nice, quiet location scaring the shit out of her with a few earthquakes. Torture had never been his speed, but these months of searching for Phoebe—and for revenge—had left a metallic, bitter taste in his mouth and his normally even personality in shreds.

Yeah, not good. He checked his watch. It would be close to six in the morning back in New York. That wouldn’t matter—Dev could often be found in his office as early as five
A.M
. and, no matter what, would pick up the phone. Which he did now, on the first ring.

“Is she dead?”

“Not exactly.”
Not that I wouldn’t like her to be, despite the fact that I got a raging hard-on from lying on top of her … not that ice-woman’s playing me like a fiddle. Christ
. “I managed to get some intel from her that I thought would make her valuable. If she’s not lying, one of Itor’s bases might be in Australia.”

“She just handed us a huge advantage if that’s true.”

“Which is why I’m skeptical, but it can’t hurt to check into the possibility.” He glanced at the bathroom door. Still closed. “There’s more. I hit pay dirt—fire-and-ice woman is Alek’s daughter.”

He heard a sharp inhale from across the line. It took a hell of a lot to surprise Dev, but it seemed like forever before his boss spoke again. “Don’t kill her.”

“Yeah, I figured you’d say that. We ran into some trouble with a rogue group—I’m going to need TAG’s help getting us to the safe house.”

“Consider it done. What else have you found out?”

“I’m dealing with Melanie here. She’s scared as shit and she doesn’t know much else, or so she claims. We’re heading back to her apartment and then to the safe house. She says Phoebe will emerge soon if we don’t get some Itor special medicine, and I know that bitch will be far less compliant than Melanie.”

“Agreed. TAG will contact you. Call me when you get to the safe house.” Dev’s tones were clipped and left no room for discussion. As if to ensure that, his boss disconnected the line, and Stryker slowly closed his own phone and listened to the running water on the other side of the bathroom door.

Now all he had to do was wait for TAG to take care of the rogues. But if TAG didn’t hurry, Stryker would find himself face-to-face with Phoebe, and he sure as shit didn’t need the suntan.

The bathroom door opened slowly and Mel emerged. It was obvious she’d been crying—no amount of cold water could mask that.

Right now he didn’t want to deal with feeling bad for her. She was enemy personified. “Help is on the way—we’ll get to your place with protection.”

“Good, that’s good.” She wrung her hands together. “I know it kills you, to have to spend time with me.”

“This isn’t personal—this is a job.”

“How can you say it’s not personal—my sister killed your friend.”

“Your sister killed an agent, that’s why I was ordered to find her,” he said through clenched teeth. “This isn’t about personal revenge.”

“Bullshit.”

He didn’t answer, didn’t want to admit to himself that she might be right on the money—that this was way more than a job from ACRO. That he would’ve gone out without Devlin’s approval to hunt down fire-bitch.

“Look, I get it,” she said. “I’m either feared or hated—usually both—for who my father and sister are.” She shrugged but her eyes were red-rimmed.

And no, he couldn’t begin to imagine the childhood—hell, the lifetime—of pain she’d endured. Still, the nagging thought that Mel could’ve been complicit in what happened to Akbar …

She was staring, but not at his face. No, her gaze had dropped
to his now clenched fists, which shook, as if he was trying his best not to reach out and punch someone.

She looked as though she was waiting to be hit and that alone was enough to make him open his hands. He didn’t hit women. He fought operatives, and Melanie did not fit that profile.

When she finally let her eyes meet his, she looked weary—and resigned. “If it makes you feel any better, I’m already punished. Every single day of my life.”

“It doesn’t.”

She nodded and then suddenly she tensed, her face pale. “No, not now—it’s too soon,” she rasped, more to herself than to him.

“What’s wrong?”

“Phoebe’s stirring—we’ll have to go now.”

He hadn’t gotten the call from TAG that things were in place, and leaving now to get the Itor meds would be too risky. So the only thing to do was take advantage of this new development. “Good. Bring her on, Mel.”

“Trust me, you don’t want this.”

“Don’t you dare tell me what I want—what I want is for that bitch to die.” Dev might want this woman back at ACRO, but if Phoebe came out now, Stryker could have some fun with her and
maybe
bring her back alive.

But the way he felt at the moment, with the anger bubbling to the surface, he didn’t think the alive thing was an option at all. “Come on out, Phoebe.” Melanie backed up, managed to get a few steps out of his reach before he was on her, slamming her against the wall. “Phoebe, you little bitch—I know you can hear me. Come on out and we’ll have some fun. Correction—I’ll have some fun ripping your fucking throat out.”

An image of Akbar flashed in his mind—he heard Akbar’s screams from that final day ringing in his ears as he cupped Melanie’s throat in his hand and squeezed. “Bring the bitch out. Because I can kill you both right now, but it won’t be nearly as satisfying.”

With that, the floor beneath them shook—and slammed him out of his tirade. He realized that he desperately needed to get himself back in control and wondered if it was too late this time.

But the earthquake his anger had created was only one of his problems. The other was the rock-hard erection and the feeling of uncontrollable arousal that passed over him and made everything hazy.

His hand had slipped from Melanie’s throat to her breast and she drew in a sharp gasp as through her shirt he worked a nipple between his thumb and forefinger.

The fury and the arousal would combine to create a hell of a show, both outside and here … against the wall … on the table … on the floor …

Whether or not he’d allow himself to go there was suddenly, sickeningly, out of his control as the haze enveloped him in its grasp.

H
and still on the phone, Devlin O’Malley almost called Gabriel or Marlena. Normally, either one of them could bring him instant comfort with their mere presence.

This morning, nothing would help the feeling of impending doom spreading through his body.

Fire-and-ice woman is Alek’s daughter
.

The words echoed in his head, a terrible cacophony, until his eyes watered and he was sure he’d throw up. Unable to sit still, he paced the office floor until he could control his breathing.

Stryker was still angry—wanted nothing more than to kill the woman he now held hostage. He’d delivered the news of who she was to Dev carefully, but his operative had no idea of the impact of the information.

Stryker would have no way of knowing that Melanie/Phoebe was also Dev’s sister, likely half sister.

He had a sibling. One who had murdered one of his agents. She’d probably murdered more—ACRO had an entire file of
operatives who had been either killed at the hands of an unknown assailant or gone MIA and were presumed dead.

He sat down heavily in his chair and stared out the window into the gray dawn.

Very few things threw him these days. The death of Oz, his former lover, best friend, and ACRO agent, had done so, but with Gabriel’s help, he’d slowly come out of mourning. And he’d spent the last year meticulously planning Itor’s demise and falling in love all over again.

Things had been good. The best they had been for him since taking over ACRO after the deaths of his parents ten years earlier. He’d spent those years besting Itor Corp more often than not, as well as helping the U.S. government nail terrorists who threatened the country. Although the government officially denied ACRO’s existence, something Dev insisted on, they would pass on information to ACRO when they suspected that a member of the military or another organization had special or rare powers. It was a win-win all around, and Dev’s time at ACRO’s wheel had gone well.

Until two years earlier, when Itor’s leader, Alek Kharkov, had used his genetic link to Dev in a way that had left ACRO vulnerable and had nearly broken Dev completely. Learning that Dev’s greatest enemy was a biological part of himself was the only thing that had put him back together. That, and the need to avenge not only the psychic violation that had taken place but the danger Dev had inadvertently put his own agents in.

He turned back to his desk now and, in a habitual move leftover from years of blindness, ran his fingers over the mission report Ryan Malmstrom had dropped off the night before. Ryan, who had been one of the very agents Dev had put at risk. The man had been deep undercover in Itor at the time, having infiltrated the organization after months of careful planning. Ryan’s cover had been blown, and he’d been tortured, his mind scrubbed, and it had been only by the grace of God that the agent had been returned to ACRO last year.

Ryan had forgiven him, but Devlin couldn’t forgive himself. He’d promised his operative that he would take Itor to the ground or die trying.

This year, things had begun to fall into place. Thanks to Ryan’s infiltration, they’d gotten some important inside information that included a possible highly dangerous weapon.

And now … now they had Alek’s daughter.

Alek had killed Dev’s birth mother—Dev had learned that only a few years earlier. His parents had never let on that he wasn’t their biological son, that they’d rescued him from Itor’s evil leader when he was a mere newborn.

Dev wondered if Melanie/Phoebe’s mother had suffered the same fate.

He could trust Stryker not to kill her, no matter the man’s personal grudge. He needed to spend the day planning how best to use the information Stryker had given him about Australia, as well as figuring out how his half sister could aid with the takedown of Itor.

Devlin had no qualms about murdering his biological father. He just had to decide if his sister would be part of the collateral damage.

Beneath Melanie’s feet, the floor vibrated, reminding her of the first time they’d met, when whatever power he possessed had ripped apart the jungle earth. She stiffened, her body rigid, her mind spinning. This man clearly hated her. Yet he wanted her. And she … Lord help her, she wasn’t sure what she wanted. Her body was definitely reacting to his touch, and she was pretty sure her initial suspicion was correct, that it had been conditioned to like danger and roughness.

She was actually
turned on
.

God, what had Phoebe done with this body they shared?

She swallowed, her throat catching on a moan when Stryker’s thumb smoothed over the sensitive underside of her breast. “Look,” she rasped, “do you want to kill me, or fuck me?”

“Both. Neither. I don’t know.” His voice was impatient, guttural. “Where’s Phoebe?”

“The earthquake … it scared her. She retreated.”

Stryker bared his teeth and leaned in, even as his hand slipped beneath her shirt. “Get her.”

“I can’t. She’s too deep. Why do you want her anyway? Why did you change your mind? First you want the drug to keep her suppressed and now you want her out. Which is it, because I’m about to get whiplash.”

A muscle in his jaw twitched as he ground his teeth. Finally, he cursed and stepped back. “Forget it.”

“No.” It was a stupid move, but she inched closer to him. “You said this isn’t personal, but that’s bullshit. You want to kill her, you want to take revenge, but you need to keep me alive to use against Itor. That’s it, isn’t it?”

“You don’t know anything.”

She snorted. “I know the idea of ending me makes you hard. Is that how you do all your killing? Maybe strangle your victims while you’re screwing them?”

His entire body jerked, the stark horror in his eyes actually making her take a step back. “
What?
I’ve never … Jesus!” He shoved both hands through his hair and kept them there for a second, as though he was trying to hold his head on. “Okay, yeah, the fantasies I have of putting Phoebe in the ground are pretty damned exciting, but not sexually.”