Stronger Than Sin (27 page)

“And she was in the donor database,” Liliana added.

“I started thinking some more about what we discussed the other day. How we could treat Jesse’s problem like leukemia. Kill
off all the hybrid marrow and implant new cells to replace them,” Carmen advised.

“So you checked to see if we could find a donor if we did that, only… Whittaker told Jesse that his sister had an aggressive
bone disease.”

Beside her, Jesse nodded to confirm her statement.

“There are no unusual markers on either of their DNA samples. Just the typical patterns you would expect in siblings.”

Liliana considered Carmen’s report. If there were no out-of-the-ordinary results showing up on their DNA tests, it was possible
that Jesse’s disease wasn’t hereditary and that his sister wasn’t ill.

“See if you can get any information on Jesse’s sister. She’s an athlete. Maybe she had a sprain or something where they might
have done an x-ray,” Liliana instructed.

“You think Whittaker is lying about this also?” Carmen replied, totally in sync with her friend.

“He’s lied about everything else. What better way to get
Jesse to help him?” she said, and as Carmen confirmed Liliana’s instructions, she hung up and faced Jesse.

His features were rigid, set in unforgiving lines. The muscles of his arms were bunched, his fists clenched, warning her that
anger simmered beneath, held on a short leash.

Laying her hand on the taut muscles of his chest, she ran her hand across the hard width of it and urged calm.

“Take a breath,
mi amor.
Whittaker will get the punishment he deserves, but not by your hand.”

“My sister isn’t sick? You know this for sure?” he questioned, his voice tight with barely suppressed emotion.

“Not for sure. Not yet. But by comparing your two DNA samples, we could see that whatever caused your initial bone loss might
not be genetic.”

“How is that possible? So many doctors, and none of them could figure it out. So they assumed it had to be some kind of genetic
disorder,” he said and beneath her hand, the tension fled from his body.

There were so many possible explanations for bone loss, but sometimes the most obvious ones were overlooked.

“Your mother said you were a healthy boy. No sicknesses—”

“Nothing,” he immediately confirmed.

“No serious injuries during high school or college?” she pressed.

“Nothing,” he verified, and then, for a moment, it seemed as if he reconsidered that answer, since he looked away, almost
hesitant in his actions.

“Jesse?” she asked, cradling the strong line of his jaw and applying pressure to shift his face upward.

“I was out for a couple of games in my senior year at
college. Got hit in the middle of the back. Doctor said it was a deep muscle bruise. Possibly some minor injury to my kidney,
since I urinated blood for a day or two.”

Rickets,
she thought instantly.
Renal rickets.

“If your kidney was compromised, you could possibly not be getting enough vitamin D. We can do some tests to confirm that.”

He tightened his jaw as the implications of her comment registered. Sweeping one hand down his body, he said, “All this pain
and damage, and you’re telling me it could be something as simple as a vitamin deficiency?”

“I’m sorry, Jesse. But if that’s what it is, we can treat it. We can kill off the hybrid bone marrow—”

“How?” he asked, bitterness in his voice.

“Radiation is the most likely way, only…”

“Only what, Liliana? Only if we survive the next few days?”

She slipped her hand over his lips, tracing the grim line of them. “We will survive, and after, I will be by your side to
decide what treatment is best.”

She didn’t know what kind of reaction she had expected from him. Certainly not the cold and almost distant glare on his face
that was so far removed from how he had been just moments before Carmen’s call.

She tried to put herself in his place. Tried to imagine what it might be like to lose everything. To sacrifice as much as
he had for something as simple as a vitamin deficiency.

She struggled to imagine but failed. So instead, she attempted to distract him from such thoughts, because she feared where
they would lead.

“Let’s take a bath. It’ll ease all those sore spots,” she
offered, and while he didn’t immediately jump at her suggestion, he also didn’t object.

Brushing a fleeting kiss on his lips, she left the room to prepare the bath.

Jesse remained in bed, watching her go. When she was out of sight, he grabbed hold of one of the pillows and squeezed it in
his muscled arms, imagining that it was Whittaker. Or Howard or Bruno, or the doctors who had treated him and possibly missed
something as simple as what Liliana had suggested.

How different would his life have been?

He could have avoided becoming some kind of scientific freak.

He could have gone back to playing football.

He could have been alone again. Without his family and without Liliana.

He relaxed his crushing grip on the pillow and tossed it aside. Jumped to his feet and took a step or two, the heat of anger
still swimming dangerously close to the surface, ready to explode.

Liliana feared that anger, he knew. She was scared of the violence lying just beneath his skin, but despite that, she was
here for him.

With him, he thought.

Inhaling a few slow, deep breaths, he marshaled the rage. There was no place for it here now with her.

The only thing there was room for was love.

He strode to the door of the bathroom, somehow contained the desire to rip it open so he could be closer to her faster. Guardedly
he opened it.

She was by the bath, spilling something powdery into the swirling waters of a Jacuzzi.

“Please tell me I won’t smell like petunias,” he said, dragging a smile from her.

“I’m not sure petunias have much smell,” she teased and ran her hand through the water. Cupped a handful of it and brought
it to her nose.

“More like eucalyptus and citrus. It’ll destress us,” she replied, opened her hands to let the water cascade back into the
bath.

Rising, she held her hand out to him, her beautiful body naked. Welcoming. Her face peaceful and with a slight flush at his
prolonged perusal.

He stepped toward her, took her hand, but brought his other up to trail it across the rosiness on her cheek. “You’re not embarrassed,
are you? Because you’re lovely.”

She dipped her head down and mumbled, “
Gracias.
”

Something new he was learning about her. She occasionally slipped into Spanish when she was discomfited.

Or when she made love.

To ease her apparent shyness, he stepped into the water and then sat down. With a tug on her hand, he asked her to join him,
but she shook her head.

“Just relax for a bit. I’m going to bathe you,” she said, reaching past him, those enticing breasts just grazing his chest
as she grabbed a pale pink shower puff and a bottle of bathing gel.

She squirted the gel onto the puff and lathered it up. Smiled as she leaned toward him and said, “Now, this
will
make you smell like roses.”

The light scent he had detected on her. Not perfume, but a remnant of her bath.

Liliana brought the puff to his chest and ran it across the muscles there. Then to his shoulders and arms, spreading the slick
lather across his upper body. After, she cupped her hands and washed it off, running her hands over the spots where the suds
clung to his skin. So smooth beneath her fingers.

Her gaze skipped to his to see his reaction to her touch, because need was rising in her despite her wish that this would
be about comfort and not sex.

If he was feeling anything, he was a master at hiding it, she thought.

Grabbing the shower puff once again, she reached beneath the surface of the water, passing it along his center before easing
toward his side.

He snagged her hand then, obviously uncomfortable with her touching him there. Where he was broken. Only she needed for him
to understand.

“You’re beautiful to me. This,” she said, pushing past his resistance to spread her hand over the bone on his side, “proves
the strength of your love. For your sister. For me.”

He literally melted before her eyes, losing all of the stiffness she had first experienced in him.

With a tug on her hand, he said, “Join me.”

She didn’t hesitate.

Slipping into the tub, she lay across his body and he cuddled her to him. The moment one of tenderness. Desire banked as the
need for understanding took the forefront.

The Jacuzzi kept the water heated nicely, but eventually they both recognized it was time to leave their cocoon.

As they stepped out onto the bath mat and snared some
towels to dry off, Liliana heard the insistent buzz of her phone.

She raced from the bedroom and grabbed it from the nightstand.

Whittaker.

Their short-lived interlude was over, she thought as she answered.

L
iliana scooped up all the tubes of inhibitor complex Carmen had prepared over the course of the last few days. Then she handed
one back to her friend.

“Caterina isn’t due for a treatment soon, but keep this just in case.”

“You won’t be gone long, right?” Carmen asked, and her worried gaze skipped over Liliana’s shoulder to where Jesse stood.

“You’re going to make sure she’s okay, right?” Carmen pressed, the hint of challenge in her voice making it clear she would
hold him responsible if anything happened.

Jesse stepped up to Liliana and laid his hand on her shoulder. “I’ll take care of her.”

With a curt nod, Carmen moved to another part of the lab and grabbed a handful of syringes. She handed them to Liliana.

“You’ll probably need these to dose the patients.”

Liliana nodded, took the syringes, and arranged them in her bag. Beside the test tubes and other supplies sat her scrip pad
and the pen Ramon had given her, clipped onto the pad as if it was just another pen.

When the door to the lab opened, she quickly reached
in and was about to twist the pen but then reconsidered activating the GPS.

Closing the bag, she turned to find Whittaker standing there with Bruno and Howard.

“Howard, check them out,” Whittaker said and jerked his head in their direction.

As Howard approached, Jesse stepped into his path. “Don’t lay a hand on her.”

“It’s okay,” she said and sidestepped her lover. Raising her arms, she advised, “Check whatever you want.”

Howard’s grin was part leer, but he merely pulled out a small wand from his inside jacket pocket and waved it across her arms,
legs, and torso. The wand beeped as it passed over her suit jacket pocket.

He waggled his fingers, palm upward.

She reached into her pocket, withdrew her cell phone, and handed it to him. He laid it on the workbench and then gestured
to her bag.

“What’s in there?” he asked.

“Medicine, syringes. Routine treatment items,” she advised, but he urged her to open it with a wave of his hand.

She did, holding her breath as Howard passed the wand over the bag and then into the open interior where the GPS pen sat in
a side pocket. She dared not look upward at Jesse to see his reaction and tried to school hers to be as neutral as possible.

It must have worked.

“She’s clean, boss. Now it’s your turn, Bradford.”

Jesse assumed a position similar to the one she had adopted earlier, arms up and legs spread wide. Howard quickly ran the
wand across Jesse’s body, but not a chirp registered from the machine.

“Also clean.”

“Very good. Then we’re ready to go,” Whittaker said and swept his arm forward.

Bruno immediately jumped to do his silent bidding, approaching them with two long black strips of cloth while Howard put away
the wand and returned to Whittaker’s side.

Blindfolds, Liliana realized. She also realized she had to activate the GPS device so that Ramon and his team would be able
to track them.

She held up her index finger. “One second.”

Opening her bag, she removed the scrip pad and the pen. She twisted it to activate the device and reveal the point of the
pen but also took a moment to jot down an order as a ruse to cover her actions. She handed the scrip to Carmen and advised,
“You’ll need this to get the supplies from the hospital.”

Before Carmen could grab the slip of paper, Whittaker snapped his fingers and Bruno snared the scrip. He handed it to Whittaker,
who perused the note.

“It’s a prescription for the citrate we need for the plasmapheresis treatments,” she explained.

Whittaker peered at the prescription more closely, then muttered, “Damn chicken scratch.”

He handed the paper to Bruno, who passed it to Carmen.

With a sigh of relief, Liliana clipped the pen back onto her scrip pad and dropped it into her bag.

Jesse had to admire her calm and foresight. She had managed to engage the GPS device and cover her tracks like an expert.
But as her gaze flipped to his for the briefest of moments, there was no denying the apprehension
there. He wished he could reassure her somehow, but a second later, Bruno was slipping the blindfold over her eyes.

Several seconds passed before Bruno came to his side, and from the corner of his eye, he caught Carmen’s concern. “Don’t worry,
Carmen. We’ll be back for dinner and margaritas.”

The barest hint of a smile passed over Carmen’s lips before the blackness of the fabric blinded him. He reached out and encountered
the warmth of Liliana’s arm. Followed the line of it down to her hand, where he twined his fingers with hers and squeezed
gently.

She returned the caress, but a second later Bruno’s rough shove at his back pulled them apart.

“Get going,” the other man said and applied pressure on Jesse’s back to guide him forward.

He stumbled against a chair leg. Bumped his knee sharply along the edge of a cabinet. As he hesitated, Bruno shoved him hard
once more.