Last Strike (9 page)

She’d never belong to another man, never belong solely to herself, ever again. Not after this experience. His name was her prayer as his body shook with a climax.

N
oah woke
to the soft sound of a ringing phone and the softer voice of Daria answering. He listened to her end of the conversation, heard her breath catch as the news excited her.

“The proving ground was helpful?” he asked when she ended the call and rolled back to stare at the ceiling.

“Definitely,” she replied, curling onto her side and smiling at him. Her small hand looked out of place on his scarred chest. “The first of Amelia’s articles will go live today.”

“UI will go on the offensive.”

“Yes, but this first article alone should put a halt to operations and prevent an evacuation of the program hub in Boston.”

He should feel happier that they were one step closer to putting this behind them. “Where do you want me to take you? We have to get you out of here.”

“To the lab.”

He flinched. “No.”

She propped up on her elbow, tucking strands of golden hair behind her ear. “Relax. It will draw Messenger to
us
again. John has a plan to deal with him while I work up a serum to counter your tracker. Once that’s fried, we can escape.”

“We?” It was such a foreign concept.

“Amelia says they can get us both out. Together.”

He resisted her affectionate enthusiasm. “I’m a risk to you, Daria. To you and the plan.” ‘Together’ couldn’t mean what he wanted her to mean, not so soon. Maybe when they were safe, he could get a few more days or weeks with her. “You should go alone.”

“Not after... last night,” she said. Visibly, she braced herself to argue. “Whether or not we fry the tracker, you’re the only man I trust with... with my life.”

This had to be a residual side-effect of the sex last night. If playing along with her claim was the only way to get her out safely, he’d do it. Until he had to walk away to be sure she stayed safe. “All right.” He caught the way she studied him for any hint of deception. “The lab first. You get one chance at the tracker, then we’re out.”

“Together.”

He nodded, unwilling to lie to her face when she was naked and warm, her skin pink from the scruff on his jaw, and her tantalizing lips within easy reach. He kissed her, discussing options and contingencies between alluring touches and intimacies. If this was his last chance to feel what decent men felt, he’d make it count.

T
wo hours
later on the drive to the lab, he hesitated. Him, the man who never shirked a fight or a kill, turned away from the parking garage to circle the block. If he only had a few minutes left with her, he should tell her the truth.

The words wouldn’t come. He made three quick turns, putting them back on course. It seemed he didn’t have the courage for three equally quick words.

She reached over, her fine-boned hand soft as a feather on his hard thigh. “We’ll go in, get what you need, and get out.”

Once more they were walking into a trap, together. Being fully aware, didn’t change the dangerous facts. “I need you,” he said, his voice jerking a little on the admission.

“I need you too,” she said, giving his thigh a squeeze. “I refuse to let the UI program keep abusing the best man I’ve ever known.”

He shook his head at her choice of words. So many men, even within UI, were better than him. So many men had taken the high road and died rather than submit and obey.

If they didn’t take care of this now, he’d forever be more threat than asset to her. If they failed here, if her theory didn’t hold, if Ben’s mysterious errand didn’t pay off, he’d never be free of Messenger.

His stomach heaved and he swallowed the surge of bile rising into his throat. Each of those ifs turned to needles biting his skin, sinking deep into his veins to eradicate the last of his free will. One more injection and she was sure he’d be free. He smothered his persistent doubt by focusing on her belief and her trust.

No one intercepted them in the garage, though he was sure they were monitoring the cameras. Alarms didn’t scream when the access card slid through the reader. No guard waited behind the tall desk in the center of the lobby. Even the computers were down. The facility had been closed. Would she have the materials to create her serum, or had Messenger anticipated their move and ordered it all destroyed?

His mind drummed up a bleak vision of an empty lab, her supplies long gone and their fragile hope along with them.

“If -” he began.

She silenced him with a touch, taking his big hand between both of hers and kissing his battered knuckles. “We’ll find a way,” she promised, her deep brown gaze shining as she peered at him from under her lashes. “Today, hopefully, tomorrow if necessary. This isn’t the only lab in the world, Noah. I won’t stop until you’re free.”

Walking away from her today, tomorrow, or the day after would be the hardest task of his life. Harder than saving her a few days ago. Harder than letting her body take his rough, desperate passion last night.

“They’re close.” Again, he chose the obvious rather than the necessary words lurching around behind his glum heart.

“We’ll survive anything they throw at us. Together.”

She sounded so damn sure, he almost believed her. What he knew, beyond any experimental mind control, was that
she
would survive. He would see to that.

One hand still wrapped around one of his, she swiped the access card through the electronic lock protecting her lab. The door slid back and they peered inside.

“It’s all here,” she said, her relief obvious as they crossed the threshold. “This won’t take long.”

A figure materialized out of the shadows at the far end of Daria’s lab. “Take your time,” Noah replied. He’d hoped for another shot at Messenger’s new cleaner. Smiling, he stepped up as the feral lust for combat surged through his veins.

Sound crystallized into individual notes around him. Daria’s shoes squeaking on the linoleum with her hurried steps, air roaring through the ventilation ducts. His heartbeat thudding in his ears, the crackle of his opponent’s knuckles curling into fists.

“Surrender.”

Noah shook his head. “You first.” He knew they were being watched. Messenger surely had a team ready to close in if Noah gained the advantage. Standard protocol. They’d discussed it, yet living it, the dreadful consequences piled up far worse than they’d been in theory. He would die here for the sole purpose of Daria’s survival.

It had been a good life.

He took it in, absorbing the detail of each separate second. His opponent advanced and Noah rushed to meet him. He dodged the blow aimed at his nose, bypassed the hook that followed and plowed an elbow into his opponent’s ribs.

Noah smiled as bone crunched. The lack of deadly weapons meant the replacement had been told to toy with him. No problem. He was more than ready for the rematch and anything that followed.

He exchanged body blows with Messenger’s new assassin as they slammed through lab equipment and fragile, abandoned experiments. Two bulls raging through a china shop. Only one of them would walk out when the trap sprung.

He knew, for Daria’s sake, it had to be him.

Hand to hand combat was no easy task against the replacement fighting with fresh, new enhancements. Noah rose to the challenge, thinking two strikes ahead, waiting for the right openings to land stunner punches and debilitating hits.

“Almost ready,” Daria cried out from the other end of the lab.

He didn’t care about salvaging his freedom. Every minute they lingered here, Messenger’s net cinched a little tighter. He could feel it. Luring Messenger here had backfired. Noah altered his role in the plan, fighting only to give Daria an opening to escape. John assured them Ben was standing by in some soft shadow and Amelia, with John’s help, would create a new life for her.

As he hooked his hands over his replacement’s head and brought that head to his rising knee, he grinned at the odd sense of victory.

His short time with Daria had turned four faceless code names into real people. People he valued. People who might be friends under different circumstances. She’d be so happy if he could tell her. It was a damned-near human accomplishment for him. As was the hope that followed the new awareness.

He wanted to escape with her. He wanted to live.
With her
.

“Stand down!”

Noah dropped to his knees, the habit to obey Messenger’s commands too deeply ingrained to ignore. Ashamed, he tried to stand and couldn’t. A UI strike team flooded the lab, weapons drawn, red laser sights leveled on him.

Daria shouted, twisting against the hold of two merciless men in standard UI strike gear. Noah surged to his feet, the need to protect her stronger than the willingness to obey his old master. He checked his move the instant a gun pressed into her side. A sharp report echoed through the lab and he swore, expecting her to crumple. She didn’t. The startling flash of pain in his thigh told him the gunshot he’d heard had been aimed at him. Sheer relief put a smile on his face.

“Stand down!”

He hit his knees again, awkwardly adopting a penitent pose with head bowed, gaze lowered. Blood soaked into his pants, the dark red stain spreading, molding the wet fabric to his leg. His mind drifted. The wound was irrelevant. He didn’t even see the result, he saw Daria’s hand on that very spot. This morning. Last night.

Those hours had been the best of his life.

Messenger shouted at him, at others. He ruled the room, barking orders and making declarations as if he were a god. As if...

Noah raised his head. Something cracked inside him, through him. Messenger was a man. Never a god, not even a ruler of a minor kingdom. Just a man on a big power trip, with superior forces at his disposal. A man who would cower and bleed as soon as Noah attacked.

It wouldn’t be over until he put Messenger down. He realized it with a brutal clarity. Traps and plans aside, it was the only possible outcome.

His eyes met Daria’s. Taking out Messenger could be his last, best gift for her, his attempt at redemption for all the lives he’d ended along his ugly career. A small restitution for the horrendous trouble he caused John, Amelia, and countless others when he’d blindly followed Messenger’s commands.

Daria and her new allies would get the word out about UI’s horrific experiments. They would take the right steps to see that Messenger’s deadly mission ultimately failed. If he could overcome this catastrophic setback of Messenger’s trap springing first. Ben and John might hate him, but they wouldn’t leave Daria in the lurch.

He felt a flash of regret for following through with her insistence that they attempt to save him. They’d been so close to her clean getaway.

Together,
she’d said.

She mouthed the same word now. He couldn’t respond, too many eyes were watching him for the first twitch of aggressive behavior.

He held her gaze and his focus narrowed, dialed in until his world was as it should be: Daria at the center of it all. He was hers. Every last, faded remnant of his humanity was hers. The heart that had been ripped away, the honor he’d once been so fucking proud of, the soul he’d kept hidden even from God.

All of his ugly past, and the brevity of his future glowed back at him from her gorgeous, warm brown eyes. They could take him, dice him up as they saw fit, and it would be worth it knowing she lived. If she lived, his heart and soul would live on too.

“Let her go.” The demand carried across the room in his rusty voice, effectively breaking all training and tradition as he spoke first. Maybe the shock of it would give him an opening.

No such luck. The cold nose of a gun barrel bumped into the back of his head. Any sudden moves would end with his face splattered across the polished floor.

Messenger turned, pinning him with a withering scowl. “You’ve forgotten your place.”

No
. He’d finally found his place. With her. “Let her go,” he repeated. “I won’t give you another chance to cooperate.”

Messenger’s eyebrows arched in surprise, his face going white as he reared back. He spun around to face Daria. “What the hell did you do to him?” He took a menacing step in her direction. “He was perfect!”

Noah knew they couldn’t possibly release her, even if they killed him. He was counting on the knowledge and resulting fury to carry him through this last task. She was a threat to UI, more so now that she’d turned their most loyal subject into her champion.

Her champion. The image warmed him, the words rippled under his skin, simmering over a low flame. He didn’t deserve her, didn’t deserve an ounce of happiness after the destruction he’d reveled in these past years. But she did. She deserved freedom and sunshine and the chance to breathe without fear that any given breath would be her last.

The low flame inside him leaped up, sending the simmer to a boil from one heart beat to the next. It floored him that he could feel his heart at all when it rested content and sheltered in her small, soft hands.

Her precious face filled his vision, empowered him as nothing else could. He breathed deep, embraced his enhancement and went to work. He took out the man behind him with a strike to the balls, stealing that gun and killing the men flanking Daria.

Messenger’s new pet dropped, dead at his master’s feet, before his finger could squeeze off the first round from the gun aimed at Noah’s head. He moved with inhuman speed, leveling the remainders of the team with barely a glance as he advanced on Messenger.

“Stand down!” His voice cracked and the command didn’t carry as much authority this time.

It didn’t matter. He was free. “No.” He raised the gun, pressing the hot barrel to Messenger’s forehead. “How many more?”

“Listen to me, Last Strike.” Messenger’s eyes darted to Daria. “She’s the enemy. She can topple the program.”

“I sure as hell hope you’re right. How many more?” He wanted to know how much ammo to carry out of this lab to ensure Daria’s safety.

“Kill her. Kill her now or we die too,” Messenger insisted.

“Everyone dies eventually.” For the first time since UI had stolen him, Noah planned to live. He decided the odds didn’t matter anymore. He wouldn’t let anything stop him. “Today’s your day.”