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  Jesús took a breath. “I suppose…I suppose I thought you were selling yourself short. You know how strong you are, how skillful you are. You’ve known this long before I came into your life. But for some reason, you feel content with being someone’s plaything; as if you weren’t worthy of being with a man who would love you as much as you would him.”

  Nia scoffed. “You’re so full of it. You just wanted me for yourself, that’s all.”

  Jesús looked up, then shot to his feet. He grabbed his clothes and began to dress.

  “Where are you going?” gasped Nia.

  “You’re absolutely right, Miss Black. My feelings for you have become a liability…I compromised everything.”

  “What are you talking about? It’s not over yet. We just have to come up with a new plan and…”

  “Wrong,” Jesús grumbled as he fastened his belt. “I lost the Hercules data. It is over.”

  “So, what, you’re just gonna leave?” Nia gasped.

  He fell silent.

  “I don’t believe this shit…” Nia muttered, her voice trembling. “Another one; another man just wants to fuck me and leave me…”

  “It’s not like that, Miss Black, not at all,” Jesús said. “I have no intention of letting you out of my life.”

  “Then why are you leaving?” Nia sobbed. “And why are you back to calling me ‘Miss Black’?”

  Jesús looked down. “I must go report to my contact. I let my feelings for you compromise my mission. I don’t regret that. But it doesn’t change the fact that I lost the data solely because I went back for you. I failed my mission, period. I don’t know what’s going to happen next, but I can’t run. It would probably be better if we separate for a while, for your own protection.”

  “For my protection?!” Nia gasped. “After what we’ve been through, don’t you know there ain’t nothing I can’t—”

  “This one is different,” Jesús retorted. “Believe me. There are people out there far more powerful than you can imagine, Miss Black; people who have no interest in you as a beautiful woman or as a useful hired gun. They’ll either twist you to suit their purposes, or destroy you. I don’t want either of those things to happen.”

  “Tell me who your contact is,” Nia demanded to know. “Who are you working with?”

  But Jesús said nothing else. He finished dressing and turned toward the door. Nia called out to him again.

  “Look me in the eyes and tell me that I’m going to see you again, Jesús Alvarez,” said Nia.

  Jesús lifted his spectacles from the floor and slid them over his eyes.

  “You will see me again,” he responded. “One way or another.”

  And he was gone, leaving Nia sitting alone on the futon.

  Twenty-Six

  A thunderstorm raged as Billy Casey returned to the Corp Hudson-owned laboratory on the man-made island off the coast of the city, escorted by armed Security Soldiers. They walked in double-file, three soldiers on either side of Casey, with rifles at the ready. The doors leading into the facility slid open and Hudson’s security chief, Vincent Marks, appeared just inside, facing Casey with his arms behind his back.

  “Meeting me face-to-face, Vince?” Casey muttered. “How nice of you.”

  “It’s a special occasion, Casey,” Marks replied. “You can thank your own actions for that.”

  “Don’t lecture me, all right? It’s been a long day. I get it. I failed. They got away. It sure as hell isn’t the first time. Plus, Alvarez took me by surprise. He—”

  “Enough, Casey,” Marks said. “Look, you don’t have to explain it to me. Nia Black is a hard target. And she’s in league with Alvarez, which makes her twice as hard. I understand; you know I do. But, here’s the thing…”

  Vincent Marks approached Billy Casey and lowered his voice.

  “Mr. Hudson…he doesn’t care. He doesn’t like failure. He doesn’t like that you had a modified hand cannon, an experimental watercraft and some of our best men with you and still managed to let them get away, not to mention all the accidents and casualties your little escapade on the highway caused. Oh, and Mr. Hudson especially doesn’t like that Alvarez managed to get away with the data on Hercules, with Dr. Romedrux letting him walk right out the front door along with Nia. Believe me; he let her have it for that.”

  “Well, how do you suppose Mr. Hudson feels about the fact that his great ‘number one’ used to fuck our little Target Omega? Or that the only reason you haven’t put a bullet in her head when you had the chance is because you still get a hard-on whenever you see her?”

  “This isn’t about me, Casey. I’ve already been through that with the big man. I admitted that my personal bias affected my judgment, which is why I let you and Alvarez handle the Nia Black matter. One of you betrayed us…the other’s just incompetent. You know what that means.”

  Billy Casey gasped. He looked back and forth and saw the Security Soldiers firmly grasping their weapons.

  “Hey…wait! Wait a minute! I…I’m loyal! I’ve done my best! I…”

  Vincent shook his head. “We have other guys we can promote. We can recruit. We can create.”

  The soldiers turned toward Billy Casey and aimed their weapons. Vincent Marks raised his fist.

  “Come on, Vince! Don’t do this!” Billy cried. “How long have you and me worked together? You can’t seriously be…”

  Vincent Marks lowered his arm and shook his head.

  The soldiers followed suit, lowering their weapons and standing at attention.

  “To be honest,” Marks muttered, “You’re not even worth the bullets. Besides, truth is someone else wants to use you: Dr. Romedrux.”

  “W-what?”

  “Relax, Casey. We’re not going to terminate you. However, I do have to make an example of you; boss’s orders. So, from this moment forward, you’re no longer part of Corp Hudson Executive Security. You’re being transferred. As of now you’ll be working for Dr. Romedrux.”

  Billy bit his lip.

  “Don’t be so upset. Thanks to the doctor, you might just get the chance to redeem yourself. That’s why I had you brought here. If Chelsea wants you to go inside, you can. I don’t even have that privilege…that’s why I’m meeting you in the lobby like this.”

  Vincent Marks stepped forward, past Casey, heading out into the rain as the double doors slid open again. Billy watched as Vincent left, then turned toward the facility’s interior, goaded forward by the Security Soldiers and their rifles.

  Billy Casey stormed into Chelsea Romedrux’s office and stood by the door in silence. He spotted her sitting in her office chair, facing away from the door. She sat back in the chair with her legs on the desk, casually typing on her computer and waggling the wireless optical mouse. The height of the chair prevented Billy from seeing anything other than her blonde ponytail peeking up from behind. She didn’t turn to face him as she heard the sound of the sliding door.

  “Come on in, Mr. Billy.”

  Billy chuckled sardonically. “I didn’t think you’d want to have anything to do with me after today’s little fiasco. I didn’t get you what you wanted. So you called me here just to tease me? Well, forget it.”

  Chelsea Romedrux dropped her heels from the desk. They came to rest on the floor as she let go of her computer and grasped the arms of her chair. She used her feet to swivel around to face Billy.

  Billy’s eyes bulged when he looked upon her.

  Chelsea Romedrux leaned back in the leather-bound office chair, as calm as could be, wearing her glasses, her lab coat and nothing else, except a nearly transparent black lace teddy.

  “See, that’s the thing, Billy,” Chelsea said, “I know it wasn’t your fault.”

  She stood up and walked toward the former security agent until she pressed her chest into his. He briefly scanned her, watched as her cleavage expanded before his eyes and threatened to pop out of her skimpy underwear, and then looked back into Chelsea’s emerald eyes.

  “I mean,
I know you did your best,” she muttered, gently running her freshly painted crimson fingernail across his chest. “You’re, like, the best Hudson had to offer. You’re not love-struck like Vincent, and you’re not a nasty traitor like Jesús…you’re a real man, a real soldier. You didn’t even have to do it…but you went out there on that experimental bike—and for all I knew that thing could have totally blown up under your balls when you tried to transform it…it’s not like I had anything to do with the design…”

  “Say what?!”

  “The point is, you did all of that just for me, and we’ve only just met,” Chelsea smiled slightly. “You’re such an awesome guy for that. I was just thinking, maybe I put too much pressure on you. I mean, you’re just one man going up against a superhuman freak and her lap dog. Hudson doesn’t want us sending out all our security forces like an army because he doesn’t want to scare the people. You know the big man’s gotta keep looking like an angel. So instead of calling in the troops, he’s got lone guys like you running investigations and sneaking around—it’s so stressful, I bet.”

  “I can take them down. All I have to do is…”

  “Shush,” Chelsea said abruptly. “Didn’t Vince brief you on the situation?”

  Billy sighed. “Yeah; apparently if I want to keep working for Corp Hudson, I have to do what you say.”

  “So, like, do you want to keep working for Corp Hudson?”

  Billy nodded. “I owe those freaks. As long as I’m here, I’ve got access to the tools that will help me get them.”

  “Goodie! So I own your ass then,” Chelsea grinned. “And I do have some instructions for you.”

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. The first thing you’re going to do is take off that musty uniform, okay?”

  That was all Billy Casey needed to hear.

  He tore off his clothes and then did the same to Chelsea’s skimpy underwear, pushing the lab coat off of her shoulders and dragging her lingerie down until it fell past her ankles. Chelsea collapsed backward on the swivel chair, lifted her legs and spread them wide, resting her calves upon the arms of the chair and throwing her arms high behind her head with a smile. Billy leaned in, kissed her neck, took hold of her breasts and clasped his mouth over her nipples.

  Billy took hold of the arms of the chair, using it both as support for himself and to pull Chelsea into him. Instantly he plunged into her as Chelsea wrapped her legs around his waist. Billy stared into her emerald eyes as she whimpered in joy. She pressed her fingertips to Billy’s hard glutes and gently dragged her nails up and down his back, moaning and gasping as she felt him inside of her.

  The chair rocked on its wheels, bouncing against Chelsea’s desk, sending the keyboard flying off and dangling in the air by its cord as the optical mouse slid around, clattering between the monitor stand and speakers like a pinball.

  Chelsea’s glasses slipped from her face. Billy instantly caught them in his fingertips and gently slid them back against the bridge of her nose.

  “Oh, so you dig the glasses?” Chelsea panted. “Most guys do.”

  “Yeah,” Billy chuckled. “Don’t lose ‘em.”

  Suddenly the swivel chair slipped off its wheels and tipped backward, leaving Chelsea on her back and Billy on top of her, straddling her with her legs across his shoulders. He and Chelsea smiled together as he leaned forward.

  Her high-pitched squeals echoed through the halls of the facility.

  The two ended up lying together on a cot sprawled on Chelsea’s office floor. Billy Casey rolled over, his fingers limply splaying across Chelsea’s bare hips and thighs as she looked at him. She smiled at how soundly he slept and how heavily he snored.

  Sweetie, I’ve got some plans for you, Chelsea thought. It’s like, such a good thing that bitch took the time to knock you out before she escaped.

  Chelsea gently dragged herself from Billy’s grasp. She lifted her wrinkled lab coat from the floor and put it on, wearing nothing else except her glasses. She stood the swivel chair back up and sat at her computer, placing the computer keyboard and mouse back in their original places. She turned the sleeping monitor back on and ran a program.

  I don’t know how I could have gotten a blood sample from you without you knowing otherwise, Chelsea thought as she analyzed the data on screen. The analysis should be complete by now…good. He’s totally compatible; or he will be for as long as it lasts, anyway. But I gotta make sure he doesn’t blow it. It has to be perfect. I can’t let him screw this up for me. I have to get her back, and I’m only going to have one chance to get it right. I have to get that bitch for what she did to my daddy. And this guy right here…he’s going to be my sword. I just gotta run a few more tests…

  Chelsea climbed back over Billy again, opening her first aid kit. She pulled out an alcoholic swab and wiped his shoulder with it.

  Billy Casey stirred. He patted the mattress and felt the cold fabric under his palm. Wondering where his partner went, he immediately rose from his prone position and sat up. He saw sunlight seeping through the windows, flooding Chelsea Romedrux’s office.

  Billy felt a sensation of relief when he saw Chelsea sitting in the chair, steadily tapping away on the computer. Then he laughed when he noticed she was only wearing her lab coat.

  “It just never ends with you, does it?” he chuckled as he approached her. “You don’t even put on your panties before you get back online.”

  Chelsea smiled and placed her fingers on his cheek as he leaned upon the back of the chair. She kissed him.

  “Hi. Last night was fun. But it’s time to clock back in now, okay? We’ve got work to do.”

  “What kind of work?” Billy wondered.

  Billy glared at the monitor and saw Chelsea clicking and perusing files and folders with expert speed.

  “Hey, how can you access that?” Billy gasped. “Only the upper officers can…”

  “Because I’m me, silly,” Chelsea smiled. “Even if they didn’t give me access—which, like, totally wouldn’t make any sense seeing as how I’m head of Corp Hudson’s R&D—these security protocols are so last decade. You’d think Corp Hudson would be more up to date. I’ll have to do something about that later.”

  “So what are you looking at?”

  “Alvarez’s records about Target Omega.”

  Billy grimaced. “We don’t need to look at the scraps left behind by that traitor. He probably set all that up to throw us off.”

  Chelsea rolled her eyes. “You totally need to get over your little jealousy trip because Mr. Alvarez did something neither you nor your precious number one Vincent could ever do. He captured Nia Black. Twice. So like, get over yourself, hush up and pay attention, okay? You might learn something.”

  Chelsea cleared her throat.

  “I was going over the recordings of executive security meetings, and I remembered something Alvarez said about Nia Black during your last get-together. He said that if she were pushed hard enough, she’d probably make plans to run away. You know; like fight-or-flight. If I’m right—and I’m always right—then she’s so ready to fly. Luckily, Corp Hudson’s got men watching all the major exits out of town. No sign of her yet—I’m thinking that she’s in hiding right now, waiting for all of this to blow over. Then she’s going to skip town.”

  “Okay,” Billy said. “So we gotta find her!”

  Chelsea scoffed. “Uh, yeah; good luck with that. The girl’s, like, a magician. She’s been fooling you guys left and right all this time; what makes you think she’ll be any easier to find now that she’s actually making an effort to hide?”

  “Well then, what’s your—”

  “Dude!” Chelsea bellowed. “Relax! Alvarez totally had the right idea, see. You have to use your head with her. See, that’s your problem. You’re all ‘gung-ho’, guts and glory. Kill ‘em all and let God sort ‘em out and all that. And it’s not working. Alvarez succeeded where the rest of Hudson’s men failed because he’s smart.”

  “There’s no way
he’s any smarter than—”

  “Look at this,” she interrupted him. “Everything Alvarez did, all the intel he collected during his operation, it’s all recorded in his file. He got through to Nia Black not by kicking her ass, but by outthinking the stupid bitch. Tricked her into thinking she was going on a legitimate job, and then had an ambush waiting for her at the Hallegan building. Then he set her out to a death trap by tricking her into thinking she’d be able to take out the big man by herself, only to leave her fighting the best of Hudson’s security with a couple of pea-shooters, and she ended up getting caught. I’m surprised she still trusts the guy after all that, frankly. But then again, it doesn’t take much to trick a trick.”

  Billy stood straight and folded his arms. He hated to admit it to himself, but Chelsea’s words made sense. Every time he tried to take her down with violence, his efforts ended in failure, pain or even death for his men. Yet Alvarez managed to get to her repeatedly without as much as a scratch.

  “That’s her weakness, Billy. She’s strong; stronger than you, even stronger than Alvarez. But she’s not that smart. Of course, you’re not that smart either…fortunately for you, you have me.”

  Chelsea tapped her LCD monitor with her index finger, guiding Billy’s glance to a data entry on the screen.

  “What’s that?” Billy wondered.

  “That, sweetie, is how we are going to draw Nia Black out again. You’re going to make a phone call.”

  Twenty-Seven

  Charlene Wright sat on the front steps of her home, enjoying a quiet, peaceful afternoon on her block, watching the boys and girls of the block, frolicking in the streets with their bikes and foam rubber footballs and jump ropes.

  It was her day off. She listened to the faint hip-hop music flooding from passing vehicles mixed with soft rhythm and blues from residential homes on the block. She relaxed outdoors, at peace for the first time since the hectic events that threw her life in upheaval.