Rhys (5 page)

Concern showed in Charlie’s eyes. Compassion, too. But no fear.

Damn it
. Why didn’t any of these people have the sense to be afraid.

“I do believe you,” Charlie said. She paused before lifting her eyes to Tessa’s. “But my boss won’t. Until he knows more, Carter will keep asking me to find out everything I can about your work.”

Tessa closed her eyes and drew in a deep breath. That was what she was afraid of. She pulled back her hands, and groaned as she rose to her feet.

“Then, I guess I’m just going to have to go out there and explain it to the
Captain
myself.”

“Now, that’s an idea I can get behind.” Charlie stood up, a wide, mischievous smile spreading across her face. “But I’m thinking that we might want to wash your hair and get you into a pair of pants before we launch Operation Stern Talking To.”

Tessa glanced down at her bare and bruised legs. “Yeah, you’re probably right.”

“I usually am,” Charlie said with a wink.

***

The last twenty minutes had gone by painfully slow for Rhys. He’d spent the first part answering seemingly endless questions about what he’d been doing out at Boyd’s house to his boss, and the second half watching Carter Macmillan silently pace back and forth in front of the empty fireplace as he mused over Rhys’ answers.

Nothing new there. Rhys knew how Carter worked. Just like he knew Carter wasn’t all that happy with him at the moment.

It was nothing personal. Carter was just protective. It might have been years since he’d been Rhys’ CO, but Rhys knew Carter still thought of everyone on his team as
his men
.

It was part of the reason the old unit was still so loyal to the man. Every one of them knew they had brothers they could lean on.

And right now, Rhys knew he needed them. Not for himself, but for Tessa. She was going to need the full power of Macmillan Security behind her if she had any hope of surviving this fight.

After a few more laps in front of the mantle, Carter stopped and crossed his arms. “So, Anders Boyd,” he said with a sigh. “The man is one hell of an enemy.”

Jake, who looked like he’d been about to doze off in the leather chair next to Rhys, popped his head up. “We’ve fought bigger.”

Carter’s jaw tightened. “And destroyed half of downtown Sacramento in the process.”

“I still say one floor of a single office building is surprisingly little collateral damage,” Jake said, dismissively waving his hand.

Carter ignored Jake’s wisecrack, and focused his gaze on Rhys. “If we’re going to pursue this, we’re going to need more information about what Boyd was trying to get out of Dr. Rosenthal.”

Rhys’ shoulders tightened. “Have Charlie do her thing.”

“She already tried,” Carter said. “Whatever Boyd is hiding, he’s buried it deep. Charlie could barely find anything.”

“So, have her dig deeper,” he said plainly.

Carter’s eyes narrowed as his head tilted to the side. Rhys understood his confusion. Carter wasn’t used to being told no…especially by Rhys.

He’d never refused a mission that Carter had given him—never. Of course, he’d never disagreed with one until now.

But there was no way that he was going to interrogate that frail, broken creature in the back of this house. He couldn’t live with himself if he shattered what was left of her fragile defenses. Tessa was barely holding herself together as it was.

Carter took a step toward Rhys’ chair, his stare intensifying.

“Maybe I didn’t make myself clear,” he said. “We cannot take this case, unless I get more information about what I am dropping my men into the middle of.”

“Then I guess you won’t be taking this case, Mr. Macmillan,” a feminine voice said from the edge of the hallway.

Rhys shot up from his chair as everyone turned her way.

“Tessa.”

She glanced his way for a moment before focusing back on Carter. The change in her appearance from when he’d left her was dramatic. Her honey-blond hair was clean and wet. It was brushed back from her face, revealing not just a smattering of cuts and bruises, but also the stubborn set of her chin and her sharp, intelligent eyes.

Charlie’s fresh set of clothes seemed to have given her a new confidence as well. She might still be leaning against the wall to help prop herself up, but there was a new sense of purpose in her stance.

Maybe
frail
and
broken
weren’t the best descriptors after all. Even though she was obviously still injured and healing, there was nothing fragile about the woman standing before Rhys now.

Rhys rushed over to her side and gave Tessa his arm. She leaned on him hard. She should be resting, not walking straight into a head-to-head battle with Carter Macmillan.

Rhys turned his head as Charlie scooted past them on her way to the living room.

“You were supposed to be watching her,” he said through tight lips.

“I did. I watched her walk right out of the room,” Charlie said.

“You know that’s not what I meant,” he said.

“Well, if you wanted a babysitter, you should have hired one.” Charlie took a position by the mantle. “Besides, I think you might want to hear what she has to say.”

Rhys helped Tessa over to the chair he’d been in moments before.

“I take it you’re ready to explain what’s going on, Dr. Rosenthal,” Carter said the moment she was settled.

“No.” Tessa shook her head. “I’m afraid I can’t do that. But I can make you understand why.”

Chapter Five

Tessa squared her shoulders as she met the stare of the man in front of her.

This had to be Carter Macmillan. He certainly fit the part of the
Captain.
Tall and dignified, he gave off an authority that was impossible to misread. And by the dark expression on his face, he
really
didn’t like being told no.

But if he thought that she was going to be intimidated by his powerful stance, he was bound for another disappointment. There was too much on the line for her to be cowed by a simple glower…no matter how intense it was.

Of course, it helped that Rhys was staying by her side. He took a seat on the wide arm of the leather chair, his hands cupping her shoulders. The simple touch felt good, as if he was imbuing her with some of his strength.

She’d see how long that support lasted after she was done talking to his boss.

Carter Macmillan stepped closer, so that he towered over her.

“You have my undivided attention, Dr. Rosenthal,” he said.

Tessa lifted her chin. “You need to stop looking into the project that I was developing for SciGen, and you need to stop now.”

“And why should I do that?”

“Because there’s nothing to find.”

Carter crossed his arms over his chest. “How can you be so sure?”

“Because I destroyed everything.” Tessa met his hard stare as she pushed a lock of hair back behind her ear. “Notes. Computers. Prototypes. Everything.”

Tessa glanced down at the memory. Years of her life, everything she had worked so hard to create, everything that she ever believed in, gone in a matter of minutes.

A flicker of surprise showed on Carter Macmillan’s face, but it was gone in a flash.

“But even if you managed to destroy the hardware there would still be an electronic trail the moment you sent an email,” Charlie said.

“Which was why I never did,” Tessa said. “My lab was kept under the strictest security, totally self-contained. Nothing was ever sent in or out. Boyd made sure of that. He said it was for the protection of the project, the only way to be one hundred percent sure that no hacker could steal our work.”

“And what exactly was your work?” Carter asked.

Tessa shook her head. “I can’t—”

“—tell me,” Carter finished for her. “You might want to rethink that strategy, Dr. Rosenthal. You might have been able to destroy information about your project, but we were still able to dig up some information on
you
. And I have to say that when you put it all together it doesn’t look good.”

Tessa swallowed down past the lump growing in her throat. “What information?”

“We know you received your doctorate in Bio Engineering from MIT, even though not everyone on your thesis committee agreed with some of your more radical ideas on genome manipulation,” he said.

“All new ideas are controversial,” Tessa shot back. That was hardly a smoking gun.

Carter turned his back to her and moved back to the fireplace. He leaned against the mantle. “We know Boyd recruited you right after graduation. We know that you two were so close that for the last three years you headed a project so secret that only you and Boyd knew the true nature of it.”

Tessa’s shoulders tightened. She didn’t like the way Carter Macmillan was twisting this around.

“A project,” Carter went on, “that Anders Boyd claims you perverted into a biological weapon that you are now hiding until you can sell it to the highest bidder.”

“I didn’t hide anything,” she countered. “I destroyed everything.”

“I only have your word for that.”

“And it’s the only one you need,” Tessa said, her voice growing louder with every word. She felt her defenses rise. “You think that
I’m
the one who weaponized the project? That’s ridiculous. I went into bio-engineering to save lives, not to kill people. Boyd is the one that stands to make a profit.”

“I don’t know what to think,” Carter said slowly. “I know that Anders Boyd is no saint, but he’s the only one telling his side of the story.”

Tessa turned her face up to Rhys. His expression was flat, giving nothing away. Surely, he didn’t believe that she was the bad guy.

Tessa drew in a deep breath. She knew it shouldn’t matter to her what any of these people thought of her. They could think she was the living embodiment of the devil himself, as long as she had the opportunity to get to downtown San Jose and end this.

But not Rhys.

For some reason, she couldn’t bear the idea of him thinking she was some kind of monster. Not after all he’d done for her.

“You have to believe me,” she said, slipping her hand over his. “I thought I was working on a medical breakthrough, something that was going to change the world. If I had known what Boyd had planned for Project Exodus I would have never agreed to work for him.”

“What was his plan?” Carter demanded.

Tessa swiveled her head his way. “I can’t—”

“I don’t think you understand the gravity of your situation,” Carter said, his voice stern.

Something snapped inside her. Tessa had no doubt that
Captain Badass
had qualifications of his own, but they most certainly did not include telling her what she did and did not understand.

She pulled forward until she was teetering on the very edge of her seat. Rhys clasped her tighter, holding her steady. But he didn’t pull her back.

“No, Mr. Macmillan. You’re the one that doesn’t understand a damned thing,” she said, piercing him with a glare. “Boyd kidnapped me. He strapped me to a chair and sicced his dog Murtry on me for two straight days. But I didn’t say a word. Not when he hit me, or cut me, or threatened everything I hold dear. And if you think I endured all of that because I was waiting for some big payday, then you are truly an imbecile.”

Carter’s eyes narrowed as his chin dipped down. He opened his mouth, ready to shout, but stopped when Rhys suddenly stood up, positioning himself between her and Carter.

“That’s enough,” Rhys practically growled.

A tense silence filled the room as the two men stared at each other. Tessa looked back and forth between the two, uncertain who was going to win this showdown…or why Rhys was standing up for her at all.

Sure, they’d shared a moment earlier, but this guy was his boss.

In the end, Carter was the one to back down. After a couple of seconds, he turned and, without a word, moved back to the fireplace. The tension didn’t exactly dissipate though. A blanket of heavy silence fell across the room as everyone stared at each other.

Eventually, Jake leaned forward in his chair. “Hell, I don’t know why we’re even fighting over this,” he said. “Everyone knows Anders Boyd isn’t winning any humanitarian awards. He’s always cared more about money than people.”

“We can protect you, if you trust us,” Charlie chimed in. “You don’t have to be scared.”

If only things were that easy.

“You don’t understand.” Tessa shook her head.

“So, help us understand,” Carter said. For the first time he didn’t sound like he was chastising her.

Tessa looked up into Rhys’ ice blue eyes. The man had risked his life for her. He’d patched her up when she was hurt. Even now he was protecting her from his friends. The least she owed him was the truth.

Unfortunately, that was the one thing she couldn’t give. Not the whole truth at any rate.

But maybe she could give him something better—a chance to save his own life, and his friends’ as well.

“I’m not frightened for my own safety. I’m frightened for yours.” She tore her gaze away from Rhys’ long enough to glance at everyone in the room. “For all of yours.”

“Explain,” Carter said gruffly from his post in front of the mantle.

Tessa saw Rhys’ jaw tighten. “Please,” he added.

“The day that I tossed all my years of work into the SciGen incinerator, I destroyed every link to the project…except one.”

“You,” Rhys said. His chest expanded as he drew in a long breath. “You’re the last link.”

Tessa nodded. “That’s why I risked escaping. If Boyd ever hopes to resurrect the project, he needs me alive. He may make me wish I were dead, but he will never kill me.”

Rhys’ shoulders visibly stiffened. “He is never going to touch you again.”

“You can’t know that. I know how ruthless he is, and how determined,” she said. “That’s why I can’t risk talking to anyone about the project. That’s why I don’t want you digging into my work. I can’t risk making any other links for Boyd to track down.”

“I’m not afraid of Boyd,” Rhys said.

“You should be. The longer I’m in the wind, the more desperate he’ll become. He’ll come after all of you, and the more you know, the less likely he’ll leave you alive.”

“We know how to take care of ourselves,” Jake said.

“I’m glad you’re so confident, but that’s not a risk I’m willing to take. I refuse to have your lives on my head.” She looked past Rhys, up to Carter. “So, it seems that you and I actually agree on something, Mr. Macmillan. I don’t believe you should take this case either.”

The lines around Carter’s eyes tightened as his chin tilted down. She’d seen the same look on more than one face over the past few days. He was studying her, trying to figure out her motives, gauging the truthfulness of her words.

Tessa stayed still in her seat, her gaze never wavering.

“You’re right, Dr. Rosenthal. We do agree on something,” Carter said finally. “I’m afraid I can’t have your life on my head either. I’m assigning Rhys as your personal security detail.”

Tessa’s brows shot up. “But that’s not necessary. I already told you, I’m the one person that Boyd is never going to kill.”

“You’re right,” Carter said, giving a single nod. “He’ll do much worse, and, despite what you might think of me, I can’t allow that to happen.”

Tessa opened her mouth to argue, but snapped it closed just as fast. She could tell by the stubborn set of Carter Macmillan’s chin that she wasn’t going to win this one. Not with words anyway.

Fortunately, there were other ways.

“If you insist,” she said. “But if you’ll excuse me, I’m getting tired. I think I’m going to go lie down for a while.”

She propped her hands on the arms of the chair and lifted herself up.

Rhys wrapped his arm around her shoulders. “I’ll help you,” he said.

“I can make it on my own,” Tessa said.

Rhys gave her a skeptical look. “You’re sure?”

She certainly hoped so, because she needed to go a hell of a lot farther than the bedroom today.

“Positive,” she said, taking her first, slightly unstable, step. “Maybe you can walk your friends out instead. I’m sure they need to get back to the office.”

She paused and turned toward Carter as she passed him. He gave her another openly assessing look, one that made it clear he didn’t trust her at all.

Maybe the man wasn’t a total idiot after all.

***

“Well, that could have gone better,” Charlie said the moment that Tessa disappeared behind the bedroom door.

“It was successful enough,” Carter said, keeping his voice low. “We know a lot more than we did an hour ago. Boyd is after a weapon. Something big. A game changer.”

Carter started toward the kitchen where they would have more privacy. They all followed. Rhys stayed in the doorway where he could still keep an ear tuned to the rest of the house.

“
Was
,” Charlie said. “Tessa said she destroyed all traces of the thing.”

Rhys’ back teeth ground together as Carter and Jake both turned to look at him, waiting to see if he would say what they had all seen.

“She showed signs of deception,” Rhys admitted. There was no use denying it. The woman was a terrible liar. “But that doesn’t mean that she has the weapon that Boyd is after, or that she has any plans of selling it.”

“Why else would she lie?” Charlie asked, hopping up to sit on the kitchen counter.

“I don’t know,” Rhys said. He remembered the honesty shining in her eyes as she pleaded for him to believe that she hadn’t willingly created something deadly.

That wasn’t all that he’d seen there. She might not be telling him the whole truth, but she wasn’t lying about fearing for everyone’s life. He’d seen the desperation in her face, the worry, bordering on panic. The same frantic mix of emotions that she’d shown last night before trying to claw her way out of his car.

“I need you to find out what the good doctor is still hiding,” Carter said. His eyes narrowed. “Can you do that?”

Rhys stiffened.

Of course, he
could
. Carter knew that better than anyone. The man had seen Rhys pull information out of dozens of tougher subjects. What Carter was really asking was if he
would
.