Omega Force 01- Storm Force (5 page)

Had it been Kell in her position, he’d be pissing the fire and brimstone of the righteous and talking to everyone who’d listen. He’d be having fucking press conferences out the wazoo and booking time on talk shows.

He stared at her closed office door with a frown. Mori wasn’t acting like a terrorist, but she
was
acting like a woman with a secret.

Mori paced her office, looking out her window at the traffic maneuvering up and down Montrose Boulevard. She knew what she needed to do, but she hadn’t been able to work up the courage.

Her mother’s words had kept her awake and prowling around her apartment all night. Celia Chastaine had always been a hard and spiteful woman; Mori knew that better than anyone, except maybe her dad. Celia knew how to phrase the offhand comment to skewer the deepest or how to settle negativity over another’s happiness like a thick blanket of soot.

So Mori’s first instinct, after she’d calmed down, was to dismiss her mother’s insinuations about the bombing as so much more Celia Chastaine drama.

And yet, deep down, it stank of horrifying possibility. Look at what the bombing had accomplished. Even if Carl Felderman’s death hadn’t left the governor’s chair vacant and the halls of power in Austin mired in chaos, any talk of industrial expansion had halted. It might take years to get back to the conference table, if the new biochemical corridor wasn’t a dead deal altogether.

If bombing the Zemurray Building could put a stopper on expansion into wildlife areas
and
bring his promised bride to heel, would a few hundred human lives be a worthwhile trade-off for a man like Michael Benedict?

Surely not. Michael was arrogant and stubborn, but she’d never thought of him as deliberately cruel. Yet Mori couldn’t shake the idea, which meant she had to talk to him, God help her. And the sooner the better, especially since the birthday deadline had passed. She was getting distracted and careless, not even noticing the scratches on her shoulders when she slid into the tank top this morning. It was the first thing Jack Kelly had seen.

Kell — who had also consumed more than his share of her thoughts during her long, restless night. After her mother’s accusation that she’d gotten involved with someone, Mori had indulged in a few daydreams about what it might be like if Kell were more than a volunteer. What if she were the simple woman he thought, meeting him in a casual work environment? What if, after discovering this electric chemistry between them, they could act on if they wanted? Go on a date? What if she could really get to know him and see if their obvious attraction to each other went anywhere?

What if she could be normal, in other words.

Mori stared at the phone on her desk and took a deep breath. She pulled her keys from her bag and unlocked the bottom desk drawer, frowning at a few scratches around the keyhole. Most of the hanging files contained confidential information on fundraising prospects she’d been working on to support the Co-Op. But the file in front was personal. If someone were trying to break into the drawer, it was probably her nosy assistant. Taylor did not need to see the contents of that file.

She flipped through it, stopping at the most damning thing — the agreement signed between her parents and Michael Benedict, dated twenty-five years earlier. They’d promised her as his mate, in exchange for a sizable cash “advance.” Also in the file: her passport, only used a couple of times in college. She kept it close at hand in case she decided to make a run for it. And, finally, a small case containing a few photos and a business card — the thing she was looking for. Michael’s business card. She had his home number in her cell phone contact list, but not his office number.

Mori started to return the folder to the drawer, but thought better of it. What if the authorities got a warrant to search the Co-Op offices? There was nothing here to tie her to the bombing, of course, but she shouldn’t have that marriage agreement where anyone could find it and make her explain it. Having Taylor find it would be equally disastrous. He’d probably send it to
The Houston Chronicle
and urge them to write an exposé.

Not that she was being paranoid or anything.

When she was fifteen, she’d found the contract in her dad’s study by mistake. Once she’d seen what it was and had a good cry over what it meant, she’d slipped it out of the house and made a copy before returning the original. She should have burned the damned thing instead of copying it, but she’d been too convinced her grandfather, if no one else, wouldn’t let it happen.

Then he’d died, and Mori kept her copy of the contract as a reminder of how hard she’d have to fight to hang on to her independence.

She slipped the folder into her bag and relocked the drawer. That contract didn’t need to be in her house, either. If she got Michael officially dragged into this investigation, an ugly scenario would grow even worse. Not that the horse’s ass didn’t deserve it.

She shouldn’t think of him as a horse’s ass. It was an insult to the horse.

Mori looked at the number on the business card, picked up the handset, and began working the keypad. Before the call had a chance to go through, she slammed the phone back onto its charger.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
The police were probably monitoring every call out of this office — and her cell phone, too. God, being paranoid was exhausting.

No point in asking to borrow Kell’s phone. She didn’t want him anywhere near this nightmare. He could never be on Michael Benedict’s radar.

She’d have to see Michael in person and make sure she wasn’t followed by the cops. Or a mechanical eagle.

Kell was shooting homicidal looks at the computer when she opened her office door, and when he glanced up at her with those amazing eyes, she almost tripped. Those things should be illegal.

“I’ve gotta go out for a while. You and Tay hold down the fort.” She looked down the hallway. Speaking of her second-in-command, he’d been uncharacteristically quiet this morning. “He is here, isn’t he?”

A voice wafted down the hall. “I’m here. Just busy doing damage control.”

Mori’s eyes rolled before she could stop them, earning a grin from Kell. “You have my cell number if anything comes up?”

“Sure, Tay gave me both of your numbers yesterday. You need some company? I’m almost through with these.”

Oh no. Taking a guy with her to see Michael? Not happening.

“Thanks, but I need to tend to some personal business. I’ll be back in later.”

Kell looked like he had more to say, and as much as Mori would rather stay and talk to him, she needed to get this over with. Plus, the more time she was around Jack Kelly, the more she liked him. Which worsened the fact that nothing could ever happen between them, even a real friendship.

The hour’s drive to Galveston should have relaxed her, but instead, it gave her sixty uninterrupted minutes of second-guessing. By the time she pulled into the lot of Tex-La Shipping’s Galveston offices, her heartbeat was doing Olympic sprints. Maybe she’d luck out and Michael wouldn’t be there.

The office building was, from the front, generic and designed to look vaguely like the Alamo. The company’s main headquarters in New Orleans held all the fancy meeting rooms and high-rise views of the river port where most of their business originated. But Michael usually spent August in Galveston, where the sea breezes were cooler than the sweltering sauna of New Orleans, and Mori knew from previous visits that the back side of the three-story adobe building was mostly glass overlooking the water.

When she stepped off the elevator on the third floor where the executive offices were housed, she wasn’t surprised to see the man himself leaning over the receptionist’s desk, looking relaxed and jovial. He wore a tailored black suit and a patterned tie, and looked exactly like what he was: a filthy-rich businessman at the top of his game.

At least until he turned and saw Mori. Then he looked like a rich, triumphant businessman who’d just scored a record-breaking deal. Mori clenched her fists at her sides. She’d like to slap the lips off his face, just on principle.

“Emory.” He smiled and raked an arrogant, possessive gaze across her, from her ponytail, down the length of her black tank top and shorts, and back up again. “We really must do something about your wardrobe.”

He turned to the secretary, who’d been studying Mori with naked curiosity. “Bring us some drinks, Tina, and see that we’re not disturbed, please.”

Not waiting for her, assuming Mori would trot behind him like an obedient puppy, Michael sauntered down the hall to his corner office overlooking the Gulf. She waited a few seconds before following, and squinted as she entered his office. Bright sunlight glinted off the waves below with such fierceness that Mori wished she hadn’t left her sunglasses in the car.

At least if she felt the need to drown herself, she wouldn’t have far to go. Or felt the desire to drown him, which was more likely.

“I thought I’d be seeing you yesterday.” Michael moved past the desk and sat in one of the armchairs clustered around a low coffee table on the far end of the rectangular office.

Mori took the seat opposite him and waited while Tina came in with a tray containing an assortment of sodas, bottled water, whiskey, and iced tea. Michael Benedict was a sweet-tea man during business hours, and Mori hated that she knew such things about him.

She didn’t remember a time when Michael hadn’t been involved in her life. At every Chastaine family gathering, he’d be hanging around the fringes, always lurking, always a huge presence — literally.

He was the only man who’d ever made Mori feel petite. At six-six, or maybe more, he was broad shouldered and solidly built. All muscle, too. Mori was twenty-five years his junior, but Michael didn’t look fifty. What was it the pop magazines were always saying? Fifty was the new thirty?

Of course, lack of stress would do wonders for one’s longevity, and Michael had always gotten his way. Until now.

“Now, Emory, my pet, I assume you’re here to work out the financial and practical details of our little arrangement. I assure you, as I’ve told your folks all along, I’m a generous man, and none of you will ever have to do without. Your daddy doesn’t have the intestinal fortitude to thrive in the cutthroat world of finance. He’s much more suited to life on the Quad-D, and after we’re married, he can retire. Your parents will live very comfortably.”

Mori could feel her blood pressure rising, creating a tightness in her chest. The thump of her pulse pounded in her ears. He really thought she’d crawl to him and give in, just like that?

Her fingertips dug into the arms of the distressed-leather chair. “The only arrangements we’re making today go like this: you assure me no other people are going to be hurt, in exchange for which I don’t turn you in for the bomb-setting bastard you are.”

OK, probably not the wisest choice of words. A brief, thunderous flash of rage crossed Michael’s face. His tanned complexion took on a reddish hue all the way to his well-groomed coif of dark hair, which was just beginning to silver at the temples. Then the moment passed, and his face settled back into a neutral expression. His brown eyes held both fire and ice, though. He was pissed. Well, good, so was she.

Mori started as an oversized gray-and-black cat jumped on the coffee table between them and settled on its haunches, staring at her with golden eyes ringed in black. The cat’s back was to Michael, its tail twitching in nervous sweeps.

Funny-looking animal, although Mori wasn’t fond of cats and had never been around many. This one had a small head, and its ears were likewise small and rounded. A spark of recognition jolted through her. This was no domesticated house cat.

“A jaguarundi?” She couldn’t take her eyes off the animal, which stared back at her with a hostile show of teeth. “Why would you take one out of its habitat and bring it here?”

The small member of the puma family had been crowded out of its Texas habitat and was believed to be extinct here, but could still be found in Mexico and South America. Plus, these were aggressive, solitary animals unsuited for captivity. That Michael would bring one here as a pet was incomprehensible.

“Very good. Yes, he’s a jaguarundi, but Travis here
is
in his native habitat, actually.” Michael sipped his tea, an almost delicate gesture for such a large man. “I keep several on retainer.”

“On retain—” Mori looked back at the cat, which she swore was laughing at her now. A freaking jaguarundi-shifter. They had to be rare, so why they’d let themselves be answerable to one of her kind was hard to grasp.

Except, they all shared an endgame, didn’t they? Survival.

She’d be damned if she’d talk private business in front of one. “If you want to talk to me, you’ll ask your pet”—she jerked her head toward the feline, who’d begun to lick his left front paw with nonchalant arrogance but stopped to hiss—”to take his personal grooming elsewhere.”

Michael’s smile spread slowly and sent chills skittering down Mori’s backbone. “As you wish. Travis, take your brother and drive up to Houston. I’d like a complete report on this handsome new volunteer our Mori seems to be on such friendly terms with. So friendly he even picked her up at FBI headquarters yesterday. Name’s Jack Kelly, I believe.

“Find out who he is, and who his friends are. Find out where he lives.”

Mori had always known Michael Benedict was a bully. An arrogant jackass who always got his way in the school yard of life, whatever means necessary. But until now, she’d never thought him evil and she’d been wrong. Evil was tanned and wealthy and privileged and thought the world revolved around his wants and needs.

They sat silently, staring at each other, while the shifter went into Michael’s private bathroom off his office and changed. In human form, Travis the jaguarundi was a small-boned, slim-hipped man with caramel-colored hair and a nervous habit of tugging on his earlobe. He tugged as he exited the bathroom, tugged when he nodded at Michael, and tugged as he closed the door behind him to go on his nefarious assignment.
Kell. God, Michael already knew about him.

As soon as the door clicked shut, Mori rounded on Michael, standing so she could tower over him, at least as long as he remained seated. “You do
not
go after my coworkers. They have no part in this.” Those cats could tear Kell apart, and he’d never see it coming. If they went after him at work, they’d hurt Taylor as well, or even one of the college kids if they happened to drop in at the wrong time.

Michael steepled his fingers — big hands, powerful hands — in front of his face in an infuriatingly calm gesture. “Your mother called me last night after you left the ranch. Did you know that? Said you were fucking some guy and that’s what had you digging your heels in. I figure it’s the one who picked you up yesterday.”

He’d been having her followed. How had she not considered that? She’d been stupid and naive, that’s how.

Michael pulled a slip of paper from the pocket of his suit coat. “Your associate Mr. Stedman was most helpful in sharing information with me, thinking me a reporter.” He looked up at her. “You really should hire more loyal workers. He said the new volunteer’s name is Jack Kelly, just off active duty in Afghanistan. Injured in service to his country. It would be a pity for him to come all the way back to Houston a hero, only to die because of a selfish little girl who refused to do her duty and honor her commitments.”

He tossed the paper on the table, crossed his legs, and leaned back in the chair with a rustle of distressed leather, making her feel stupid and childish standing there with her feet in a rigid stance and her hands tightened into fists. God, Michael was threatening Kell. He’d done nothing but try to help her, to look for something to fill his days with meaning while he recuperated.

He’d been battle tested, but not for this kind of battle. This one, he couldn’t possibly win.

She had to stay calm. “I haven’t been with anyone in a long time, and you know that if your spies are as good as you think. I barely know the guy; he only showed up three days ago and was nice enough to give me a ride home after
you’d
implicated me in that bombing. I didn’t see you rushing to my defense. So leave my coworkers alone.”

She’d find time to chew Taylor Stedman a new one later. In fact, when all this blew over, Taylor would be joining the ranks of the unemployed.

Michael gave an exaggerated sigh. “Really, Emory. You should have learned when you went screwing your way through college in some sort of childish rebellion that I don’t care who you fuck, or how often. It doesn’t change your responsibilities. You’ve reached the age of twenty-five, and now you’re mine until I tire of you. That was the agreement, and I thought my birthday message would make it clear how seriously I take it.”

Mori looked at the muted diagonal pattern etched into the thick carpet. The flowers. The note. Her mother’s words. It all added up, but she needed to hear him say it. “You implicated the Co-Op in the bombings so I’d run to you for help. I understand that. But I have to know. Did you set the bombs? Kill the governor and all those innocent people?”

Michael’s chuckle caused Mori’s heart to thud unevenly. “That was a goddamn stroke of brilliance, if I do say so myself.” He closed his eyes as if reliving a vacation memory, not congratulating his own genius in killing hundreds of people. “It stopped those industrial meetings, maybe for good. Ended the expansion talks that would have wiped out more habitat. It let me put a plan in place to control the politics in Austin. And it got the attention of my spoiled, stubborn wife-to-be. Win-win-win-win.”

Mori sat down hard. “You wanted to get my attention and change politics in Austin, so you killed the governor? Hundreds of people who did nothing wrong? You’re insane.” Not to mention a megalomaniac. If his gene pool held the future of their people, they deserved to die out. Mori would be doing the world a favor by ending the line.

“What makes you think the governor is dead?” Michael walked to his desk and retrieved an appointment book.

Mori frowned at him. Carl Felderman’s body hadn’t been found, but neither had dozens of others. Witnesses had seen him in the stairwell at some point before the building collapsed. One man claimed to have seen him leave in a dark sedan, but after Felderman never surfaced, the guy’s claim had been dismissed as post-bombing hysteria. “What do you mean? If the governor’s not dead, where is he?”

Michael returned to his chair and flipped a couple of pages on his calendar. “Let’s just say he’s been detained while we convince him it’s in his best interests to change his environmental policies. You’ll be seeing him again soon.”

Mori rubbed her temples, which pulsed with the stirrings of a monster headache. She couldn’t even think about what his cryptic comments about the governor might mean, except that she was glad the man was alive. She might not like him personally, but she didn’t want him dead, especially because of her.

“Labor Day’s just over a week away. Did you realize that?” Michael held up his calendar, as if Mori might dispute this earth-shattering revelation.

“Why do I care about Labor Day?” Not only was a tropical storm forming in the central Gulf, but she had a few other problems on her plate — like being suspected of terrorist activities and figuring out a way to avoid becoming a brood mare for Michael Benedict.

He leaned forward, slapped the calendar on the table hard enough to make Tina’s tray rattle, and rose to his full, looming height. “You’re acting like a spoiled brat, so I figure I should speak in a language you’ll understand.”

Mori wanted to stand, to move away from him, but she knew he’d still tower over her. Plus, the look on his face scared her. He’d dropped the benevolent, patronizing jerk persona, and his full power shone through the straight line of his mouth and the ice in his eyes.

But she’d be damned if she showed fear, even though he’d be able to scent it. “And what language might I understand?”

“This. You have forty-eight hours to come to me with an apology and show me the gratitude I deserve for waiting patiently for you until you turned twenty-five instead of taking you at eighteen.”

He took a step closer, and Mori tightened her death grip on the arms of the chair. “I have forty-eight hours, or what?”

Michael’s gaze never left hers. “Or I put the plan in place to do the same thing in New Orleans on Labor Day that I did in Houston. And then I come and take you, take what’s mine. I’m done trying to coax you in like a skittish colt at your granddaddy’s ranch. We both know I can take you any time I want, in any way I want, and as roughly as I want. It’s your choice as to how this plays out.”

He propped a big hand on either arm of Mori’s chair and leaned over her, close enough for her to smell the coffee on his breath and his minty aftershave. “You won’t find being with me unpleasant, Emory. I’m told I’m a very good lover. I can touch you in ways that will make you beg for it, in ways your college boys or your little soldier couldn’t imagine.”

Michael stood, and once again, Mori felt dwarfed by his size and power. She could never overwhelm him, and they both knew it. She didn’t have it in her to kill him, and they both knew that, too. He had enough reach and enough money to find her if she tried to run away.

Which left her one option, her ultimate threat and the only thing she knew he wouldn’t want to risk — her life.

To her surprise, her knees didn’t quiver when she rose to her feet. Now that it had come to this, an eerie calm washed through her and her voice was strong and steady. “Let me speak in a language
you
will understand, Michael. You will forget about your warped threats for New Orleans. You will call off your jaguarundi thugs and leave my coworkers alone. You will forget whatever it is you’re trying to do with the governor. And you will take a nice little cup and jack off in it under a doctor’s supervision. If those things happen, I might —
might
— consider having your children and giving you visitation privileges.”

Michael’s tight smile widened into a grin. “Those are some mighty big demands coming from a woman with nothing to back it up. I’ll do those things, or what? You’ll try to kill me?”

Clearly, he didn’t see her real trump card, so she gave him a cold smile in return. “No, I won’t try to kill you, you jackass. I have a lot of more effective options.” She rocked back on her heels and stared at the ceiling, pretending to think. “I could find a nice big bottle of sleeping pills and wash them down with a fifth of tequila. Or I could go to the top of the Chase Building and splatter myself all over a downtown sidewalk.” She shifted her gaze to the water outside. “Or I could walk into the Gulf of Mexico and just keep on walking.”

She looked him in the eye, challenging him. “I’ll kill myself before I let you touch me or hurt anyone else.
You
have forty-eight hours to decide.”

Mori was on the floor before her brain registered the pain from his fist’s impact. By then, he’d wrapped his hands around her neck and jerked her to her feet again, holding her off the ground a few seconds before slinging her away from him. She landed with a hard crash against the sharp corner of the table, the wood chipping into the side of her arm. Tina’s tray crashed to the floor, and from her vantage point, Mori watched, dazed, as tea spread over the thick, cream-colored carpet.

The world hung motionless as Mori tried to focus, the blood feeling too heavy as it coursed down her cheek where his ring had cut into her, the rasp of her breath too loud, the clink of ice too brittle as Michael picked up his glass. She heard liquid pouring from a bottle, and the stench of bourbon assaulted her nostrils.

But by God, she’d gotten through to him. Finally. And his fury told her he’d taken her threat seriously. He’d retrieved his whiskey bottle from the floor and taken a drink during business hours.

Mori climbed to her feet and waited for the dizziness to pass. “Forty-eight hours,” she whispered. “And I do as I threatened.”

Michael’s voice was tight with rage. “The timetable’s changed. Twenty-four hours and I take you — with or without your consent. I continue with plans for New Orleans. And I’ll kill your new boyfriend while you watch.”