Buried and Shadowed (Branded Packs #3)(59)

He had to accept that she was an intelligent woman, who was perfectly capable of choosing where she wanted to go, and how she wanted to get there.

If he wanted a submissive female, who would obey his every command…well, he needed to keep looking.

Not that she wasn’t afraid.

She knew better than anyone just what the SAU was capable of. Hell, she still had the bruises to prove it. But she was determined to see this through to the end.

After eighteen months of hard, sometimes terrifying work, she would never forgive herself if she hid in a cave while Sinclair finished their mission.

It was mid-afternoon when Sinclair pulled into a large parking lot. Halting behind a dumpster, they studied their surroundings.

It’d been over twenty minutes since they’d last seen any hint of civilization, which made the large brick building in front of them more mysterious.

Why would anyone choose to open a business in the middle of nowhere?

The obvious answer was that the people inside the building didn’t want to be bothered by society.

Her gaze moved over the flat roof and the tall, arched windows. She could see a high hedge at the back of the structure that she assumed enclosed the hospital’s private gardens. There were also balconies that ran the length of the front of the building with fluted columns.

The place might have been built in the boonies, but no expense had been spared.

There was a large sign near the edge of the manicured lawn at the front of the building that was painted with gold letters.

“Great Plains Home of Tranquility,” she read aloud. “I think this is the place.”

Unbuckling his seatbelt, Sinclair reached to shove open his door.

“I want you to stay here,” he commanded.

If she had any sense, she’d let him go. She could see the wolf in his eyes, which meant that he was at the edge of his patience.

But, she couldn’t let him put himself in danger when she had the means to prevent it.

“I can help,” she said.

He turned in his seat, reaching out to brush the back of his fingers over her cheek.

“You already have, sweetheart,” he said. “Now let me take care of this.”

She swallowed a sigh. It was going to be a fight. A shame. But she intended to make him listen to reason.

“Look around, Sinclair,” she insisted.

His brows drew together as his gaze skimmed over the half-empty lot before moving toward the sprawling brick building.

“Look at what?” he demanded.

“This is clearly a private institute,” she said.

“And?”

“They’ll have strict security.” She nodded toward the heavy double doors. “You won’t get past the front guard.”

Blue eyes flared with offended male pride. “You can’t seriously be suggesting that I can be stopped by one human guard?”

She felt a small burst of annoyance. Did all men have the same oversized ego?

Yeesh.

“First.” She held up a finger. “You don’t know that there’s just one guard.” She put up another finger. “And second,” she continued. “I thought you were trying to avoid attracting the attention of the authorities.”

He scowled, refusing to acknowledge that she was right. “I can sneak past any security.”

She gave a lift of her shoulder. “Okay, say that you sneak past security. How will you find the room you’re looking for?”

There was a tense moment as he wavered between following the urgings of his heart, or accepting the logic of her argument.

“Dammit,” he at last said. “What’s your plan?”

“I need your phone,” she said, holding out her hand.

“Why?” he asked, even as he pulled out his phone.

“Do you trust me?” she demanded, using the same words that he’d used the night before.

Releasing a resigned sigh, he placed the phone in the palm of her hand.

“I thought I was good at manipulating people,” he said with a shake of his head. “I’m an amateur compared to you.”

Ignoring his grumbling, Mira used his internet to connect to her private cloud. A few minutes later, she was pulling up the file she’d been searching for.

“This should get us past the front guard,” she said, turning the phone so he could see the I.D. badge that filled the screen. “And hopefully to Lowman’s room.”

He leaned forward, studying the officially CDC document with a furrowed brow.

“Who is Dr. Rachel Miller?” he demanded, reading the name listed beneath a picture of her.

“She’s me,” Mira said.

His gaze lifted to study her guarded expression. “I don’t understand.”

She cleared her throat, suddenly realizing that Sinclair wasn’t going to be happy when she confessed why she’d made the badge.

“When I was running searches through the CDC system, I occasionally needed a clearance beyond my pay grade so I invented a new employee who had the credentials to open the most sensitive files,” she said, keeping her voice light, as if it were a common habit to create imaginary employees. “Unfortunately, we both know any information related to the Verona Virus and the shifters’ blood that created the vaccine had already been purged from the archives.”