The Geek Job (8 page)

She whirled back around screaming,

―Duck.‖ But her sweet geek regarded her with incomprehension, so she did the only thing possible. She dashed toward him, and when the Fae assassin stepped from behind the column in the lobby, she dove in front of Anthony whose eyes widened even as he still didn‘t recognize the danger.

The missile hit her in upper chest, splitting open her flesh with barely a sound, but the arcing blood made up for it. The fiery touch of the projectile immediately sent her into convulsions.
Damned Fae and their poisons.
She hit the floor hard, not that she noticed having already blacked out.

* * * *

Anthony stared in horror at Lexie‘s convulsing body, and his stomach roiled at the messy hole in her chest. Blood oozed from her wound, spreading in a deadly stain that spurred him into action. He dropped to his knees feeling helpless without his lab and equipment. He pressed his hands to her chest attempting to stop the gush. Around him he could hear shouting and the sound of return fire as his bodyguards, who‘d waited by the front doors, finally sprang into action.
Too late.

―Hold on, Lexie. I‘ll get you some help.

Why the hell did you do that?‖ he cried. Anthony wasn‘t so oblivious that he‘d failed to recognize she‘d saved his life, taking a hit meant for him. He just didn‘t understand why, especially when she had no problem walking away from him in the first place.

If you didn’t care, why throw yourself in front of
me? Why?
Tears blurred his vision as the hot liquid continued to seep sluggishly from her chest, staining his hands and cuffs.

Meaty hands grabbed his upper arms and lifted him. Anthony tore his eyes from Lexie to stare in incomprehension at the gorillas on either side of him, guards he recognized from the compound housing his research facility.

―What are you doing?‖ he yelled as they toted him out the hotel doors as if he weighed nothing.

―Bosses orders. We need to get you to safety,‖ one replied his cold eyes darting from side to side looking for signs of more danger.

―But we need to help her.‖ Anthony tried to twist in their grasp, but they didn‘t relent and rushed him outside to toss him into a waiting limo. Anthony scrabbled to get out, but they slammed the door shut and the car took off with a lurch.

Anthony lost his temper, a rarity. ―Stop this car right now. We‘ve got to help her.‖

The dark gaze of his guard settled on him.

―She‘s beyond our help.‖

A cold dread settled on him. ―No. You can‘t mean— No, she‘s not dead.‖

But the grunt from his guard with the flat,

―Sorry,‖ hit him with the weight of a freight train.

Anthony sank in on himself, horrified he‘d caused Lexie‘s death. Appalled that even though she didn‘t think enough of him to want to pursue a relationship, she‘d obviously cared enough to risk and lose her life for him.

I am so unworthy.
That thought followed him on the car ride to the airport and during the flight on his employer‘s private jet back home. It dogged his footsteps as he dragged his ass up the stairs leading into the compound facility where the top floor served as a penthouse suite for him. It rang over and over in his mind as he ignored the flashing red button on his answering machine and didn‘t bother checking his email.

He stood with his shoulders slumped in the middle of his living room, lost and in pain. He raised his hands to rub them against his burning eyes, his tears having dried up hours ago. The rusty color staining his hands and cuffs made him gag as he finally noticed it. He stumbled into his bathroom and retched into his toilet. Once he‘d emptied his stomach, his body heaved with harsh sobs.
Oh, Lexie.

He showered, the dried blood caking his skin, running down the drain along with his tears.

His bloody clothes he left on the floor, unable to deal with their disposal with his grief so raw. He tried to box away his emotions for a woman he‘d known only two days. He attempted to not replay over and over her last heroic act. He wished he could forget, but Lexie had touched him in her brief stint in his life.
How can I forget the first woman
who showed me what love was?

He buried himself in his pillows, trying to erase the mental image of her death, but sleep refused to give him escape. He tossed and turned, his nightmares rehashing over and over those final moments. He couldn‘t help blaming himself and not just for the assassination attempt on him, which he didn‘t understand. He hated the fact he‘d not told her how he felt, that he loved her.

He lamented, even more, the fact that despite all his knowledge and brain power, all of it meant nothing when the need for action arrived.

Helpless as a newborn, useless as a tit on a bull, he‘d stood and watched as the woman he‘d come to love saved his life, and as if that weren‘t emasculating enough, all his medical knowledge couldn‘t stop her from dying. He also cursed the guards who‘d dragged him away, the ones who‘d used their strength to force him from her side.

If only I were stronger or had that commanding
presence like Mr. Thibodeaux, then maybe I could have
saved her. Or at least, not let her die alone on the floor.

In the morning, things still appeared bleak. He wanted to do something, anything to remember the most amazing woman ever, but it appalled him to realize that he not only didn‘t have a picture, but he‘d never even gotten her last name.

No wonder she thought it was just a fling. I never
made much of an effort to get to know her.
And now he had nothing. With that depressing thought, he dragged himself into the bathroom and noticed his bloody clothes lying on the floor. A light bulb went off. Blood meant DNA.

Anthony scooped up the stained clothing.

He skipped his morning ablutions and breakfast and took the elevator down to his lab.

He flicked on the fluorescent lights and didn‘t pause to admire the vast space filled with state of the art equipment, all ridiculously expensive but needed for his DNA research. And now even more useful to get a DNA imprint, the only thing left of Lexie.

He separated flakes of her blood onto slides and deposited more into test tubes with various solutions. He ran her essence through a barrage of tests on autopilot.
Don’t worry, Lexie. I’l
find some way to keep part of you alive.

Lexie groaned as she woke. Her head pounded like she‘d downed several bottles of tequila, something she‘d sworn never to do after her last hangover when she woke up next to a buck toothed shifter. Along with the pulsing ache in her brain, her limbs felt weighted down.
What
the hell did I do?

Memory flooded back to her and she gasped.
Anthony!
Her eyes shot open to discover she lay in her own bed back in her house. And fuck did her chest hurt.

She lifted the covers and noted a bandage covering the area where the Fae bastard shot her.

She peeled the tape and looked under. The skin appeared pink and tender, the violence of the wound taking longer to heal due to the use of poison. What a fucking pain, but still better than the alternative. Anthony and his frail human constitution would have never stood a chance.

Speaking of whom, had he made it back to his lab safely? She‘d never find out lying in bed.

She winced as she sat up, wondering how she‘d made it from the hotel back home. A knock preceded a head peeking around the door.

With a sigh, Lexie leaned back onto her pillows as her mother approached with a tray of food. ―Hi, Mom.‖ Just her ill luck, her mother had come to tend her.

―About time you woke, Lexington. You had me a tad worried there.‖ Her soft spoken mother arranged the tray on her lap and then perched herself on the edge of the bed.

―I‘m fine, or I will be. Damned Fae,‖

Lexie grumbled as she grabbed the piece of toast slathered in jam. ―How long was I out?‖

―Three days.‖

Lexie winced.

―I really wish you‘d find a different line of work,‖ her mother broached.

Lexie rolled her eyes.
Here we go.
―Mom, not this again. I‘ll have you know this last job netted me fifteen thousand in two days. Know of any other jobs that pay that well?‖

Her mother‘s lips tightened into a flat line. ―If you had a mate, then money wouldn‘t be an issue.‖

―Yes, well, I tried that and it hasn‘t worked out so well, has it?‖ One, she had issues kowtowing, and two, she had yet to meet a wolf she couldn‘t take down. If she was going to tie herself down for the rest of her life, then she‘d prefer someone who could actually handle her.

Although, I didn’t mind handling Anthony.

She snapped out of her sudden daydream of her geeky scientist and realized her mother still spoke. ―The only reason it doesn‘t work is because you refuse to act as a woman.‖

―Mom,‖ Lexie growled in warning.

―Fine. But who‘s going to come and care for you when I‘m not here anymore?‖

Lexie didn‘t have an answer to that, so she kept quiet as her mother bustled around her room tidying up. She ate all the food and drank all the juice knowing anything less would have her mother haranguing her again.
What is it about my
mother that makes her able to boss me around, no problem,
but act like a submissive bitch around dad?
To give her dad credit, though, he did treat her mother like gold. What a shame more wolves weren‘t like him, or as big and tough. Even though he‘d disowned her, Lexie still respected him, most of the time.

―I don‘t suppose you know if my target made it back safely?‖ Lexie tossed that out nonchalantly, but her mother whirled with wide eyes.

―Since when do you care about your targets after a job is done? If you ask me, that little human didn‘t deserve what you did for him.

Unless…‖ Her mother‘s mouth open and shock spread across her face. ―Don‘t tell me you care for that-that—‖

―His name is Anthony, Mom. And no I don‘t care for him, I was just curious if he made it back. No biggie.‖ Lexie lied with a straight face, but her mother‘s lack of information made her heart flutter. She needed to find out if he was okay, but first she‘d have to get rid of her mother before she had an apoplectic fit. ―Mom, just forget I said anything. You know what I could really use is some ice cream. You know the cookie dough kind like you used to get me when I was little.‖

Lexie truthfully hadn‘t eaten the stuff in about fifteen years, but her request worked like a charm.

―You must have run out because I didn‘t see any in your freezer. Why don‘t you just lie here, and I‘ll run down to the store and get some.‖

―Thanks, Mom.‖ Lexie snuggled down in her blankets and closed her eyes, pretending to go back to sleep. She kept one ear cocked and tracking the movement of her mother as she gathered her purse and keys then went out the front door. Only when she heard the sound of her car driving away did Lexie dive out of her bed and go looking for her phone. With her mother the neat freak around, it took her a few minutes to find it stuffed in a drawer along with her gun.

Lexie grabbed both and returned to her room. She slid the revolver under her pillow and then scrolled through her phone book until she found the number she wanted.

She dialed and stared at the ceiling as she waited for an answer.

―Ah, so the she-wolf survives,‖ Frederick Thibodeaux‘s smooth voice would have been sexy if he weren‘t so freaking dead.

―I‘m not easy to kill. So listen, I don‘t recall anything after that Fae bastard shot me.

What happened?‖ In other words—had Anthony made it back safe and did he miss her?

―My incompetent guards let that Fae bastard slip through their fingers. They didn‘t live to regret it. Lucky for us, after you used your body as a shield, no further attempts were made on my scientist, and he‘s now back to work under my watchful eye.‖

―Oh. That‘s good.‖ Relief infused her at the knowledge Anthony was safe. Now if only it would take care of her longing to see him again.

―Not really. You made quite the impression on Anthony. Since he thinks you died—‖

―What!‖ Lexie yelled. ―What do you mean he thinks I died?‖

―What else would he think when he saw a hole blown in your chest? A human would have succumbed in minutes.‖ Frederick replied matter-of-factly.

―You have a point,‖ she grudgingly conceded. ―And it‘s not like we‘ll see each other again.‖

―Don‘t be so sure. My enemies have grown bolder, and with my daytime guards executed for dereliction of duty, I find myself somewhat shorthanded.‖

Lexie wanted to scream,
I’ll be there in half
an hour,
but sanity prevailed. Much as she wanted to see him again—and her wolf paced in her mind eagerly at the thought—it was a bad idea on several levels. First, even if he got over the fact that she survived a deadly wound, he‘d end up discovering their weekend tryst was nothing but a sham. Lexie wasn‘t sure she could handle his anger and condemnation. Although, on the other hand, perhaps it would help her to stop thinking of him. But then again, what if he forgave her and wanted to resume, did she have the will power to say no and even worse, how would she ever keep her wolf leashed? Even now, just knowing he missed her made her beast push at her control.

What if she slipped and accidentally hurt him?

―Sorry, but I‘m kind of busy.‖ She blurted the words out quickly before she changed her mind.

―A shame. You would have been well compensated.‖

Lexie closed her eyes and gritted her teeth. ―Well, thanks for the offer. Let me know if I can be of service again in the future.‖ She hung up her phone and flopped back on her bed.

Anthony’s okay. The geek job is over and I’m
home. Time to forget him and his sexy blue eyes and get on
with my life.

Thankfully her mother arrived with a huge container of ice cream to help with the healing process.

* * * *

One week later…

Frederick Thibodeaux watched with irritation as his once brilliant scientist sat with slumped shoulders in his lab, staring off into space, something he‘d done in equal measures with moping since he‘d returned from the conference. Had the self-pity resulted in work getting done, Frederick wouldn‘t have cared.