Right Through Me (The Obsidian Files #1)(115)

Mark looked forward to teaching him how things really stood. Guys like that were always so surprised.

Stone jerked his chin toward the entrance. Brenner followed him into what had once been a grand entrance hall with a vaulted ceiling and tall windows, most of them broken, letting the weather in. Drifted leaves, dirt and moss were scattered across a filthy floor barely recognizable as marble. Birds swooped and fluttered in the ceiling and a snake slithered into a pile of smashed masonry. Brenner walked alongside the man down a long gallery with broken windows. Mark could hear glass crunch rhythmically beneath the two men’s boots.

“We’ll talk in the chapel,” Stone said. “It still has a roof.” He pushed open a creaking door.

Mark surveyed the room with distaste as Brenner followed Stone into the room. He hated churches. He had childhood memories of extreme unpleasantness in churches. Life on the streets, with all its squalor and danger, had been preferable to that. And then came the Midlands freak parade. He never caught a break.

Unless he carved it for himself. With a bloody knife.

Many more broken windows encircled the base of the domed roof. A bolt of bright winter sunlight poured through the remnants of a red stained glass window, spotlighting a metal cage protected by clear bulletproof panels and casting the rest of the room into ominous shadow.

The place was a shambles. Dirty, piled with rotten wood, broken furniture, upended pews and garbage. Its moldy walls were covered with scrawled graffiti, in stark contrast to the jewel-like perfection of the glass cage. Mark smiled thinly as he looked at it. So they thought they could protect her with a bulletproof box.

Stone lifted his wrist to his mouth. “Bring her out,” he said into the comm.

A door in the back of the glass box opened. A slender figure emerged. A big, helmeted man in heavy armor stood behind her, loaded down with lethal weapons.

Mark’s body tensed with raw excitement at the sight of her. She wore some black, skin-tight thing, stretched to the max over every curve and hollow of her body. Her hair hung loose, a mane of ringlets framing her face, flowing down to her ass. Her shadowy green eyes stared straight ahead. Her mouth was tight with tension.

She stood as if awaiting the firing squad.

Mark swallowed a rush of saliva. He ached to see her beautiful sig again. And then gobble it up, after he taught her what a bad girl she had been. He was so hungry.

“Why the box?” Mark waited, teeth grinding, as Brenner repeated his question.

“Just protecting my property,” Asa Stone said. “The brainwaves should work just fine right through the glass. That’s all we need her to do. Then she disappears. Happy now? She’s real and she’s here. Just like I promised.”

Rage made Mark’s combat program surge. He almost smashed the instrument panel. “I’m on my way. With my security.”

Mark waited, teeth grinding, as Brenner mechanically relayed the message.

“Two for you and two for me, as we agreed,” Stone said. “If he stays here to monitor her, you come in with one more.”

Caroline was disappearing from Mark’s field of vision as Brenner followed Stone with his eyes. “Turn so I can see the girl!” he snarled into the comm. “Don’t look away from her for one single f*cking second until I’m in the room with her!”

Brenner spun obediently back to face Caroline again, and Mark feasted his eyes on her. He was burning with eagerness to see her, smell her. Touch her.

Maybe he shouldn’t have brought the safe. He had every intention of taking Caroline back for himself, but shit happened. It would be better to get the safe opened and take possession of its contents now. They could discuss who got to f*ck the girl after the other issue was settled. He was a practical man, not a slave to his impulses.

Three clueless unmods and a helpless girl against himself, five slave soldiers, and a truck full of space-age killing toys that he could not wait to play with. Yeah.

Finally, this was starting to be fun.



*



“Hey. Spotted three surveillance drones circling up there.” It was Hannah’s voice in his earpiece. “Flying low, probably armed. Do I block the frequencies now?”

“No,” Noah said. “Let him get closer. I’ll signal when it’s time.”

Noah peered through the screen of his thermal shield helmet. He hated having to look through mechanical eyes, particularly in a combat situation, but the drones were sure to have good imaging tech, and their team had to stay hidden.

Mark’s truck sped closer. Two distinct heat signatures were visible in the cab.

“No one in the woods?” Hannah asked.

“Haven’t seen anyone yet,” Noah said. “Doesn’t mean they’re not there.”

“My brother, the optimist,” Hannah murmured.

“You’re ready to pull Caro out the second I tell you?”

Hannah made an exasperated sound. “As promised. Relax.”

Right. Sure. He watched as Mark’s truck rumbled past the marker.

“Now,” he said. “Jam all frequencies except for this one.”

“Done,” Hannah said, with satisfaction.

He recognized Mark as he got out of the truck. Tall, dirty blond hair, hawk nose, ice blue eyes. Dead heart.

Mark stood, arms folded, while some musclebound dude in a helmet and body armor hoisted a huge silver box out of the back of the vehicle. The GodsEye safe. Asa came out, as he had done before, and exchanged words Noah could not hear.