Hot for His Hostage (29 page)

Colton shifted forward, voicing what they were all thinking. “So Homer took things
into his own hands?”

Ghid’s face hardened into the hardest scowl Zoe had seen from him. “That’s the nice
way of putting it.”

Tait dropped his fingers to the couch’s arm again. “Tell us the not-so-nice way.”

“When the holidays came, Homer told your mother he was going back to his country for
a family visit. He went to Washington, instead.”

“And swapped spit with Big Idea on his own,” Tait spat.

“Who probably threw their hats over the windmill with glee at the information,” Colton
added.

Ghid dropped a confirming nod. “They instantly authorized more funds for bigger tests,
expanded labs, and new serums—all in the name of scientific advancement, of course.”

“Never mind the blatant military applications.” Tait tacked on a growl of disgust.

Before all the conclusions were reached, Zoe braced herself for Shay’s tighter hold.

It didn’t come.

Instead, he fed her worst fear.

He let go.

Tait grunted. “No wonder Mom popped a thousand gaskets when he got back from that
trip.”

“So what happened then?” Colton queried.

Shay’s interjection was a jagged knife on the air. “Cameron Stock happened then.”

Tait’s face exploded on a disbelieving glare—quashed by another nod from Ghid. “At
that time, Stock had started to make his name in Hollywood. He was working with some
pharmaceutical companies who’d backed some film projects, and kept his eyes open for
new investment opportunities for them. Believe it or not, he met your mom at the grocery
store in Des Moines one weekend. He was there scouting locations for a movie, and
she was there—”

“Buying us Ding Dongs.” Shay’s voice was a rough blade edged in deep emotion.

“She always bought us Ding Dongs in Des Moines.” Tait’s explanation was just as serrated.
“Our local grocery didn’t carry them.”

“Stock saw a biomedical thriller poking out of Mel’s purse. He was interested in what
she thought of the story. Her review gave away enough about her profession that his
interest turned to fascination.”

“That doesn’t explain Mom’s gullibility,” Tait snapped. “She’s a smarter woman than
that. Or at least she was.”

“Unbelievably, Stock wasn’t always such a huge prick,” Ghid stated. “There was a time
when the only thing he wanted was to make big money and have a little creative fun
in Hollywood. And he was damn good at both.”

Tait’s forehead creased. “That tidbit and six bucks will get you a latte and a barista
who cares,” he growled. “And I’m not him.” His lips compressed. “So Mom was standing
there with Ding Dongs in the cart and a chest full of pissed off at Homez. I take
it she spilled all to Stock?”  

“Pretty much.” While Ghid’s face remained, as always, an inscrutable wall, his eyes
gave him away again. Shadows of deep memories turned them into dark moss forests.
“And in return, he offered her everything, too.”

Tait’s shoulders tensed against his T-shirt. “You’d better tell me my mind just jumped
to the wrong conclusion about that, man.”

“It did,” Ghid replied. “Because believe it or not, here’s where the story gets uglier.”

“Fuck.” Shay’s reaction came from deep in his gut. Zoe ran a hand up to his shoulder,
happy that he didn’t shirk her off again.

“Your mom didn’t know it, but Homer was already working with others to make all of
it happen. Though the funding came from Big Idea, they kept it all ‘off the books,’
with knowledge about the project limited to a select group—and the sad-shit volunteers
they scraped up for the program, of course.”

Watching the man’s eyes was proving to be a wise move. They revealed his soul with
heartbreaking clarity. “
Mierda
,” Zoe uttered. “You were one of those volunteers, weren’t you?”

Ghid let out a heavy breath. “A man will sign on to do a lot of dumb things when he’s
desperate,” he uttered. “Spend thirty years in prison or sign up for a couple of weeks
in a simple science study? That’s a no-brainer, right?”

“But it wasn’t.”

The second Shay slammed out the words, he surged to his feet. The burst wasn’t a surprise.
Zoe had been the one to feel the tension climb higher through his body. She longed
to rise with him, to help him through this, but how could she soothe away the confusion
from a situation
she
hardly understood? There wasn’t a user’s guide for this picture. No handy online
video to help ease the soul of a man who’d just learned that his mother’s “magic honey”
might really have been a tainted elixir.

“Tell me.” Shay’s voice thickened to a growl, harsh in its demand—but not just from
Ghid. He needed the revelation for himself, and clearly waged an inner war of self-pride
and loathing about it. Elite soldiers insisted on knowing every detail of what they
faced, no matter how horrifying the intel.

Tight emotion jammed the bottom of Zoe’s throat. Part of her gave in to a girlish
swoon at observing the proud warrior side of him. The other part succumbed to her
growing dread for him.

Both conditions were distant memories within the next minute.

Ghid replied to Shay’s command with a respectful nod. “You deserve to know,” he stated,
“but sometimes, the telling is best done in the showing.”

Without any more preamble, the man stripped off his shirt.

As anyone with a brain would expect, Ghid was as ruthless and chiseled below the neck
as above. Every inch of his tan skin was stretched taut over huge mounds of tendon
and muscle. It was all a bit too daunting for Zoe, though she gave Melody Bommer a
silent high-five for being the lucky female who shared his bed.

And then he turned around.

Proving, in graphic reality, that she’d remembered everything from the hallway with
perfect detail. And bringing an insane new meaning to the words
side effects
.

“Holy sssshhhh…”

Dan never completed the exclamation. Shay didn’t blame him. The expression was beyond
what his mind could produce, fumbling past shock and bewilderment, scrambling for
the fortitude just to keep him on his feet instead of crumpling to his ass in a ridiculous
ball of horror.

Get your shit together. You’re a member of the finest fighting force on the planet.
You’ve been through cluster fucks and fire storms that would spin the heads of most
men. You need to look. And see. And try to understand.

Ghid’s back…wasn’t a back. Instead of muscle and skin, his spine was bracketed by
swaths of thick green scales. Shay would’ve even guessed that the plates were simply
painted on, but they jutted from his back at least an inch, and shifted with every
move he made…which so far, the man subdued to a few uncomfortable shifts of balance.
The sight was like a damn car wreck. Shay couldn’t help gaping but was sickened with
himself for doing so.

When their shock ticked past the one-minute mark, Ghid turned back around. “As you
can see, Mel’s concern about long-term effects pretty much smacked the target.”

“No shit,” Dan muttered.

“Fuck,” Tait spat.

“Wow.” They all threw stares at Zoe in the wake of her awe-filled murmur. The smile
she gave Ghid conveyed even more admiration. “So that explains your eyes.”

Ghid snorted. “My eyes?”

“Of course. They’re beautiful. And fascinating.”

Ghid blushed to the base of his neck. Shay joined Tait and Dan in a burst of laughter.
The moment was a needed, if temporary, reprieve from this insane revelation.

Insanity. Right. If only that was where Shay’s senses stopped. Inside the next ten
seconds, he blew past insanity and straight down the highway to terror.

“Fine,” Ghid finally huffed. “That’s what drinking lizard blood will do to a guy.”

“Lizard?” Dan drawled. “You mean those cute little guys who run around on my backyard
wall until my dog eats ‘em?”

“Hmmm.” Ghid pulled his shirt back on. “Nice image, but no. More like a mix of monitors,
komodos, and gilas—the kind that like human limbs for breakfast.”

Dan stepped back. “Oh.”

“But if you count rhinos as ‘cute’, then I guess I qualify.”

Shay joined Tait in a smirk as Dan paled. “No. Rhinos aren’t cute.”

Ghid clicked his tongue against his teeth. “Didn’t think so.”

All the humor aside, Shay’s gut left terror behind and dove into a vortex of raw dread.
There was an elephant in the room—and dammit, it might even be him. He saw now that
all of Ghid’s intense glances had actually been attempts at commiseration. He was
officially a member of the Big Idea freaks club now, and the guy had been attempting
a series of awkward welcome mats since hauling his ass out of hell. While he was grateful,
this was one goddamn card he longed to rip out of his wallet.

Have you learned anything about life yet, asshole? Don’t you know the choices aren’t
always yours?

Great fucking tip. Because years of choking down MREs, humping his ruck through miles
of hell, and getting shot at by crazy jihadists hadn’t taught him the lesson already.

He didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

Or break something. Maybe all those fucking picture windows.

Who the hell was he?

What
the fuck was he?

If he wanted to find out, he had to hump the goddamn ruck again. And listen to the
rest of Ghid’s story.

“So what happened then?” he forced out. “When all of you started to—to—”

“Morph out of control?” Ghid narrowed his eyes a little after filling it in. “What
do
you
think happened, kid?”

The man’s reasoning for the response was clear. By assisting with the answer, Shay
could reclaim a couple of things he hadn’t had a lot of lately: his identity and his
control. He was a trained member of a Special Forces Alpha team, not only capable
of connecting this kind of information, but processing it at least five different
ways then serving it up an enemy’s ass if that was the ordered plan.

Ghid wasn’t just a genius; he was a friend.

Shay communicated his gratitude with the nod he prefaced to his answer. “Operating
outside the radar allows the government to deny culpability if they have to. In this
case, I’m sure the Big Idea folks did everything they could to squeeze you all back
down to a damn small idea.”

Ghid’s gaze turned the color of a moss-lined torture chamber. Shit. Zoe was right.
The guy’s eyes told profound truths. “It was a shit-rough time,” Ghid uttered. “They
talked about secured camps, maybe shipping us off to an island…”

“
Dios mio
,” Zoe whispered. “You’re human beings!”

“
Creatures
,” Ghid corrected. “At least in their eyes. Walking, talking reminders of their big-time
shit on the fan, but not sentient beings with lives or futures to be considered.”
The guy sent a benign stare to Zoe—well, his stilted attempt at one. “Zoe, before
the study, we were all convicts, remember?”

“Who became something else in the name of their science.”

“Not everyone’s.” Tait rose as he professed it. “Just that pudwhack Homer. He didn’t
present the full facts to the brass. He had a big ego and a pencil dick, and he should
have listened to Mom.”

“And nobody knew that better than him,” Ghid stated. “The guy was the first one out
the door—figuratively speaking, since there really wasn’t any door. It was a warehouse
roll-up with fifteen kinds of security, which they bumped to seventeen even after
they started keeping us strapped down all day.”

Shay dropped to the couch again, backed by a stream of Spanish obscenities from Zoe.
“Christ,” he muttered. His blood chilled, a horror martini tossed over ice cubes of
incredulity.

“What happened then?” Dan queried.

“I think I know.” Tait’s gaze followed the dreamlike lines of the print on the wall
again. His eyes hazed over with memories. “Somehow, somebody got word to Mom about
Homer playing off the Big Idea pier then falling into the royal drink of fuck-up.
I happened to be home sick from school. A woman came to the house, flashing papers
and ID, saying she was from some lab in DC.”

Shay scooted his head out from the cocoon of his hands. “That’s one hell of a vivid
recall.”

“I’m sure of this one,” his brother asserted. “I won’t forget that goddess as long
as I live. She looked like a living version of Pocohontas. Hell, she was—” He had
the grace to squirm a little. “Sorry, Zoe. But she
was
fucking hot.”

“Awww, sheez.” Shay let his head fall again.

“Pocohontas?” Dan nailed his stare to Tait. “You mean the cartoon I was always embarrassed
about pitching a tent over?”

“Hair in the wind, big doe eyes,” Tait concurred. “Those legs you couldn’t help imagining
around your waist and—”

“The subject?” Shay cut in. “We had one, dorks. Can we stick to it?”

Tait shrugged. “Yeah, though my part of the story wraps up there. Two days after Pocohontas
came to visit was the last time Homez dared show his face at the house again. That
was also the night he and Mom threw down like Rocky and Apollo. We all know the fall-out
from there, though I’m surprised Homez didn’t come back and curse the house just for
good measure.”

Shay left his head where it was. Low. Really low.
If a curse on the house was all he came back to accomplish, brother
…

“I take it this is where Stock entered the picture for good,” he finally said.

“Excellent word selection,” Ghid replied. He let several moments weigh in for emphasis.
“And though you all may throw tizzies at me for it, I’ll say it again: at first, the
man really did do some good.”

Tait opened another beer then dragged hard on the brew. “He can take that up with
the good karma angels
after
I drive a Bowie into his throat.”

Wisely, Ghid didn’t push that issue harder. “The thing was, Stock had already approached
your mom about accepting a research deal with Verge Pharmaceuticals. She’d flat-out
turned him down but he kept in touch ‘just in case.’”

Tait narrowed his eyes. “Because he was such a great guy and wanted to do it for humanity,
right?”

“Never said the guy was bucking for sainthood,” Ghid qualified. “Cameron was always
business first. Brokering the deal would’ve earned him a pile of flow like he’d never
known. But by then, he also had a general idea of the shit that was going down at
home with your dad. He started feeling more protective toward your mom…and probably
a few other things, too.”

“Shit,” Tait spat.

“You may want to go for the fast recap on this part, G,” Shay muttered.

“Acknowledged.”

Dan tipped the neck of his beer forward. “I think I can help braid this rope a little
tighter. Verge Pharma, right? They invested in a lot of space in Austin in the late
nineties. I remember their complex being built. Lots of big glass buildings with spacey-looking
security shields. We called it the star fleet.” He tossed a quizzical glance to Ghid.
“Was that because Melanie inked the deal through Stock?”

Though the answer was obvious, the observation did nothing for Tait’s tension level.
Shay glanced at him and murmured, “She did what she had to, T.”

“Fuck off.”

“Shay’s right.” Ghid braced both legs wide again. “She didn’t know where to turn.”
His gaze sharpened to laser green. “Unlike that chicken fart Adler, she felt responsible
for what had happened to us, which was why she left home so abruptly.”

Tait’s glower darkened. “With the intention of never coming back?”

“That what your turdtastic father tell you?” Ghid waved a dismissive hand. “Never
mind. I already know the answer.” As he lowered that hand, he curled it into a fist.
“Let me be real clear about something. There wasn’t a day that passed without your
mom having deep conflict about the decisions she made and the consequences you all
paid for them. You really think she just walked away, never thinking she’d come back?
What kind of a snow globe did your dad dunk you two in? He had a front row seat for
the knock-downs she had with Homer. He knew
everythin
g that was at stake when she left for DC and that she had every intention of returning
after she handled the crisis. And yeah, kids, it was a
crisis
.”

A soft sob shredded into the middle of his explanation. The source didn’t surprise
Shay. Zoe had seen others like Ghid, the men Bash had originally described as mutants.
Her face reflected that horror—and encompassed his deepest fears—but he couldn’t hang
on to that fear when gazing at her. The woman’s heart was so huge, every drop of its
compassion showed across her incredible face. She took his breath away.

“How many of you were there?” she softly asked Ghid.

“Fifty, maybe sixty,” Ghid estimated. “And we all would have been left to die in that
warehouse, if not for Dr. Melody Bommer.” As he took a breath, a shocking change overcame
his whole body. The man’s posture actually softened. “When she walked in, with her
cheeks rosy from the cold and her hair in all those gorgeous curls…” His shoulders
dropped in unspoken surrender. “I had no idea who she was, so I assumed I’d just died
and was getting a lucky break from a living angel.”

Tait peeked at Shay. “I should be disturbed by that, right? Why aren’t I?”

Shay gave his brother a meaningful smile. “Because he sees her how we do.”

“She promised we’d be moving out of the warehouse within a few months,” Ghid went
on. “Kept her word, too. Five months later, we moved into preliminary buildings at
the complex outside Austin. Melody was with us the whole time…and always talked about
how she was excited things would be settling down so she could finally get back home
to her three men.”

He made the last assertion with a defined stare over his shoulder. Shay could see
that he meant it but Tait insisted on the snide asshat angle. “So did you still think
she was an angel?” he alleged.

Ghid’s riposte was immediate yet composed. “Of course I did. But it stayed capped
there until well after your mother took her wedding ring off, after she received word
about your dad’s death.”

Tait snorted before voicing the obvious retort to that. “At which point, she
still
didn’t come home.”

“At which point, she wasn’t able to.”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

Ghid picked up his water glass and took a huge drink. “You remember I said that Stock
started
as the nice guy.” Another gulp went in. “Well, stories are often filled with twists.”

Tait took another long, angry pull on his beer. “
Here’s
where we get to the part justifying my blade through the bastard’s neck.”

“Pretty much,” Ghid muttered.

Shay didn’t feel like drinking anything. Could’ve had something to do with the ball
of apprehension in his gut, snowballing by the minute. “I take it Stock finally rolled
in his gold pile and liked the dirt.”