Omega Force 01- Storm Force (17 page)

His smile
wasn’t wide, but it was genuine as he reached out his hand and grasped hers.
“You were right. We’re such losers.”

Kell
had been patient long enough.

On the ride
from River Oaks to change vehicles at the lawn-care lot, then on the journey to
Nik’s downtown loft in his friend’s SUV, he’d been
content just to look at Mori, to memorize the little laugh lines around her
mouth, the slight slant of her brown eyes above the high cheekbones, the way
she tightened her jaw when a movement hurt her back, the expressions of longing
and regret and gratitude and fear, all warring for dominance on her face when
she met his gaze. Their hands never left each other’s. She seemed to need his
touch as much as he needed hers.

Nik had slipped them into the freight elevator and gotten
them to his loft without being seen, and Kell
remained quiet while Archer brought in his shifter clan’s doctor. The man had
first sterilized Mori’s back while using a colorful slew of new curse words Kell hoped he could remember, and then plied her with
antibiotics. Afterward, the cat doctor had used similar curses as he cleaned Kell’s scratch marks. Only the shoulder wound was deep, and
everything else he stitched up with a deft hand…paw…whatever.

“Will I
turn into one of those hybrid freaks?” he’d asked, and both the doctor and Mori
assured him at least three deep bites were required for that to happen, and
scratches didn’t count. Only saliva.

Kell had kept his mouth shut while Razorblade Robin came
back from cleanup duty and turned domestic, cooking piles of fajitas and
swearing she used goat meat, not rat. He thought it was only a slight
improvement.

And he’d remained mute as Nik
did his level best to avoid being near Mori. More than once, he caught her
giving Nik puzzled looks, to which his friend was
oblivious — maybe intentionally so.

There hadn't been much to say as they gathered late on Friday
afternoon to eat around the small TV in Nik’s central
living area — the whole apartment being one gymnasium-sized room with cleverly
placed partitions.

The local
NBC affiliate had three breaking stories its reporters were frantically trying
to cover.

Hurricane Geneva, Category 2 and growing, had finally
begun to move again, inching at a ponderous pace toward a projected landfall
between Morgan City, Louisiana, and Corpus Christi, Texas. Unless something
changed, Galveston could be ordered to evacuate as early as Saturday afternoon,
and even Houston by Sunday.

The second story was the ongoing investigation into the
murder of Carl Felderman, complete with images of the
Co-Op offices, the exterior of Mori’s apartment, and then Mori herself. She watched
it with a stony silence Kell could only interpret as
fatalistic. They might have gotten her away from Benedict’s house, but she
didn’t think she could be saved. He could see it in her eyes, a remoteness that
had been broken only when Robin came back from the cleanup bearing Mori’s
backpack.

The final story dominating the news concerned three
mysterious murders in River Oaks, at the home of millionaire shipper Michael
Benedict. One man had been shot, the second stabbed, and the third’s throat
slashed. Michael had appeared on camera, giving an Oscar-worthy performance expressing
his profound sadness over the deaths of his loyal staff members, but Kell recognized fury when he saw it, and Benedict was
furious. In Kell’s opinion, Michael Benedict had gotten
a free ride so far and had a big payday way overdue.

The time to talk had finally come, however, and Kell reached for the remote and turned off the TV. Archer
and Robin settled in on the love seat; Mori sat cross-legged on the floor to
avoid having her back touch anything. Kell had
claimed the recliner, and Nik fidgeted and flitted
from dining chair to sofa chair to floor and back again.

Gator was so damned happy to see everyone he made
periodic tail-wagging rounds, but finally settled next to Kell,
conveniently within ear-scratching reach.

“Requesting blackout.” Kell looked at each of them in turn, waiting for the nod of
agreement, until he reached Mori. “That means whatever is said in this room
goes nowhere, not even to our commander, and we lay everything on the table. No
lies, no half truths. You agree to this?”

Mori closed her eyes and nodded. He wanted to go to her
and tell her it would all work out, that he could both protect her and
exonerate her. But until he knew the truth, he couldn’t make those promises.
And if he had to be a hard-ass to get the truth, then by God it was past time.

“First, has anyone talked to the colonel?”

“He called twice today.” Nik
had finally taken a seat on the sofa chair for a while, his jiggling right leg the
only sign he was stressed. According to Robin, Nik
had been weird ever since touching Mori when they took her from Benedict’s attic.
He must have seen something he hadn’t expected and hadn’t liked. Kell intended to find out what that was — from Nik if he had to, but preferably from Mori.

“How long you think we can keep the colonel on ice?”

Nik shrugged. “His last message
was pretty hysterical, and I don’t mean funny.”

“I’ll call him later tonight, then.” What the hell he’d
tell the man, Kell didn’t know. Maybe
the truth. See if he could handle it.

“Next, update on the mission today.” He filled in his
activity, up to the point where the second jaguarundi
had parachuted onto his face. Seems Archer had taken down Travis’s brother in
an extremely one-sided catfight. Nik had been forced
to stab the tall guy when he pulled out a weapon of his own.

“That was the estate manager, I think,” Mori said, her first
contribution to the conversation. “I met him once before, but don’t remember
his name.”

Gradually, the reports came to a close, and there
remained only one ten-ton rhino in the room: Mori and her secrets. Kell looked at her and nodded, and she smiled in return.
Her hands were shaking, but her voice remained calm.

“I guess it’s my turn, then.” She looked at the floor and
fiddled with the edge of an area rug. “Only, I’m not sure where to start. Maybe with this.” She pulled her backpack from where it had
been propped against the side of the love seat and pulled out some folded
sheets of paper. She handed them to Archer, who passed them on to Kell without looking at them.

He unfolded the sheets and frowned at what appeared to be
a contract. An agreement signed by Michael Benedict and Paul Chastaine regarding the promise of marriage between Emory
Elisabeth and—

“Wait. Tell
me what this is.” He looked up at Mori.

“It’s a bill of sale, basically.” She raised her chin,
almost defiant. “My parents promised me in marriage to Michael Benedict on the
day of my christening. The marriage — or at least the formal engagement — was
supposed to happen on my twenty-fifth birthday. That was the day after the
bombing. Apparently, quite a bit of money was involved.”

Only Nik didn’t look surprised.
Kell struggled to understand.

“But why
would your parents sell you to a man twice your age? I mean, even for money.
Something’s missing here. You’re both wolf-shifters, right? Does it have
something to do with that?”

“Not just wolf-shifters. Dire Wolves.”
Mori sighed and went back to playing with the fringe on the rug. “The Dire
Wolves in the wild have long been extinct. All the children born to the people
of my parents’ generation were males. So we die out too unless…” She paused, then took a deep breath. “Unless the only female Dire of
childbearing age reproduces and, it is hoped, bears at least one daughter.”

“And you’re that woman, aren’t you?” Robin moved to the
floor and sat beside her, taking her hand. “And Michael, as your alpha, thinks
he’s the one who needs to sire the children.”

Mori nodded. “That’s been the plan since I was born. I
learned about it when I was a teenager, but you know what teenagers are like.”
Her laugh was bitter. “I thought the years until I turned twenty-five constituted
an eternity. I was sure that, by that time, he’d change his mind, or my parents
would get me out of it. Or somebody else would have a daughter to carry on the
lines. I thought once he knew I didn’t want him, he’d give up.”

“Only, he didn’t, did he?” Nik’s
voice was low and tense, his eyes fixed on Mori from his new perch in the chair
next to Kell. “Benedict blew up the fucking Zemurray Building and implicated you to get your attention.
More than two hundred people died because he
wanted to get your fucking attention
.”

Mori flinched as if Nik had
slapped her.

Kell put a hand on his friend’s wrist and shook his head.
Throwing blame was going to shut her down just when she’d finally opened up. “To
be clear about this, Mori, you didn’t know Michael had planned this bombing,
did you?”

Her eyes widened. “God, no. I
didn’t know about it until the night of my birthday — after you’d picked me up at
the FBI offices. I got a flower delivery from Michael, with a note asking if I’d
received his message.” She described her trip to the ranch, where she’d learned
the truth, and her trip to Galveston the next day, where Michael had not only
admitted to the bombing, but to taking Felderman as
well.

“And he hit you,” Kell said
softly, remembering how vulnerable she’d been that night, how tender and yet
desperate.

Mori blushed, as if being hit was something that shamed
her, something she’d asked for. Kell didn’t know what
Dire Wolves were, but he didn’t much like them if they took the woman on whose
shoulders they’d burdened the continuation of their entire species and then
beat the spirit out of her, whether by physical or mental methods. Abuse was
abuse.

“Tell us the rest.” Kell
glanced at Nik. He’d relaxed, the fierce light gone
from his eyes, and that more than anything convinced Kell
that Mori was being truthful.

She talked for almost an hour, explaining the offers
she’d made to Benedict to have his children via artificial insemination, in
hopes of keeping the species alive while maintaining her independence. The
point at which she’d finally decided she had to give in to Michael was after
being with Kell, realizing it might be the only way to
prevent Michael from doing the same thing in New Orleans that he’d done in
Houston and hurting Kell in the process.

Kell squirmed a little at that,
the bandage over his shoulder feeling tight and itchy all of a sudden. He
appreciated that not one single member of his team looked at him,
because he definitely wanted to thump himself on the head for being an idiot
and not seeing what she’d been willing to sacrifice for him.

Mori talked about how Michael had taunted her when she
finally went to him, branded her, locked her up, and planned to use her. She
managed to talk without emotion, not meeting anyone’s eyes, but not hesitating,
either. Kell thought she was relieved to be unloading
it all.

“The sad thing is,” she said, finally looking up at Kell, “I’m not sure it matters. Michael liked the power
that controlling Felderman gave him, and he liked
that the bombing put an end to the industrial-expansion talks, which would have
destroyed more of our habitat. I have a horrible feeling he’s going to do it
again, no matter what does or doesn’t happen with me.”

“Have you heard him say anything about New Orleans?” Kell leaned forward, letting out a hiss as the pain in his
back from falling on the fucking floor met the pain in his shoulder from being torpedoed
by the fucking flying cat.

Mori nodded. “Just once — the day I went to Galveston to confront
him about the Houston bombing. He said if I didn’t give in, he’d do the same
thing in New Orleans on Labor Day. I got the feeling he’d already put the plan
in place. It didn’t feel like a spur-of-the-moment threat.”

Kell wasn’t surprised. Even if
Benedict hadn’t planned it earlier, once he had a taste of the power he’d
gained by bombing Zemurray and taking Felderman, he would want to try again.

He needed a solo chat with Nik
to talk about their next move, but his cell vibrated before he could come up
with a way to get rid of everyone else. He looked at the screen, expecting to
see Colonel Thomas’s name, but it was Gadget.

“Sorry we didn’t call you, man. We’re back at—”

“We found the bomb site.” It wasn’t Gadget’s interruption
that startled Kell, but the gravity of his voice.
Gadget was never serious. Ever.

Kell switched the phone to speaker and held it out. “Tell
us what you found.”

“Well, what Adam found.” Gadget cleared his throat and
paused as if having trouble getting the words out. “He’d been tailing different
employees of Tex-La Shipping, and today his target led him to the headquarters
of the World Trade Center on Canal Street.”

Nik shuffled through some
papers on the table and pulled one from the stack. “The WTC people were
planning a kind of meet and greet with new oil interests the state wanted to
lure in, right?”

“Yeah, for the day after Labor Day.
But then you—wait. Is this on speaker? Take it off speaker, Kell.”

Kell shrugged, shut off the
phone’s speaker mode, and raised it to his ear. “What’s up with that?”

Gadget’s voice cracked. “Adam walked in on two of
Benedict’s employees arming one of the bombs. He called me about it from the
hallway, but they must have overheard him. Kell, Adam’s
dead. I didn’t want Archer to hear it this way.”

Kell closed his eyes.
Damn it. Adam shouldn’t have been working
alone.
“I’ll take care of it.” He leaned back, aware of the others’ eyes on
him but not meeting anyone’s gaze. “What about other bombs?”

“I’m going in tonight, after hours, to cover the
building.” Gadget’s voice cracked. “Damn them. If there’s anything left, I’ll
find it.”

Kell ended the call, the
silence in the room louder than any conversation. He raised his eyes to look at
Archer, who flinched at whatever he saw in Kell’s expression.
Anger. Pity. Sorrow.