Into the Mist (Falcon Mercenary Group #1)(40)

“And there’s this attraction thing…”

He raised his eyebrows. Somehow he didn’t see her as having the balls to own up to the tension between them.

“I’m attracted to you in a way that leaves me baffled.”

“The feeling is entirely mutual, sugar.”

She glared until he fell silent.

“I looked you up in Singapore for information. I wanted a way to help D. I didn’t intend for things to go as far as they did.”

“I’m certainly not complaining,” he offered.

Again she silenced him with a fierce scowl.

“Then you caught up to me in Paris and again, I lost sight of what mattered, what was important.” A faint light of shame passed over her eyes. “I compromised Falcon because I couldn’t keep my hormones in check. But when I’m around you…”

She put a hand to her forehead, a delicate gesture that contradicted her outer steel. “I get crazy. I feel stupid. I do stupid things. And quite frankly, it pisses me off.”

“I’m assuming there’s a point to this sharing of deep thoughts,” he said dryly. He wasn’t about to admit that he was doing a mental double fist pump and already plotting how to get her get all stupid with him again.

“Yeah, there is,” she bit out. “Esteban offered me a cure for D in exchange for killing Ian and Braden and bringing you in.”

He was beginning to understand. “But instead you came here, knowing full well you had a snowball’s chance in hell of pulling off the job.”

She cut him off with a derisive snort, and he rolled his eyes. “Let’s not go over the whole if I wanted you dead you’d be dead thing, okay? We’ve both had ample opportunity to kill each other. We haven’t. Obviously you have no more desire to see me or my team dead than I do to see you die.”

She nodded grudgingly.

“And you feel like you’re betraying Damiano because you aren’t willing to give Esteban what he wants?”

Her eyes flashed coldly, and he saw raw resolve there, simmering, angry.

“If I believed for a minute the bastard was telling me the truth I’d kill your men and package you and deliver you to him in a heartbeat.”

“So you think he was lying.”

“I think he knew exactly what buttons to push in order to get me to do his dirty work for him. Now what I want to know is why he’s so fixated on getting rid of Ian and Braden and why he wants you alive.”

Eli sat back in his chair. “My guess? If what you said is true, and we were all part of his little experiment then he wants me because I’m what worked. Just like you said.” He frowned and leaned forward again. “What it doesn’t explain is why he doesn’t want Gabe.”

Tyana gave him a perplexed look. “Isn’t he the fourth member of your team? Why would Esteban want him?”

“Because he’s stable,” Eli said calmly.

Gabe was the sole reason Eli’s secret hadn’t been exposed. It also meant that Gabe was really the only experiment that worked. Had Esteban just overlooked him on his radar?

Tyana’s eyes rounded with shock. “So you aren’t the only one after all?”

Eli shook his head.

“Maybe Esteban wasn’t lying, then,” she murmured. “Maybe there is a cure.” Her chin came up and she looked at him, her eyes just a little bit lighter. “What went on during your captivity, Eli? Were you and Gabe given injections? Did they give you any serum? Tests?”

Eli’s jaw tightened. “They didn’t have time. We got out.” He couldn’t tell her that his natural shifting ability was what got their asses out of a sling in the prison camp. Not when the others didn’t start exhibiting symptoms until much later.

“We didn’t get in to rescue Damiano until three days after you guys split. He doesn’t remember what happened.” Her hands shook slightly on the table as she balled her fingers into fists. “He was in bad shape when we found him.”

The area right behind Eli’s eye began to pound. It felt like someone was shoving an ice pick right through his eyeball. He didn’t leave men behind. He’d watched Damiano go down. Seen his lifeless body dragged out of the cell.

“That bothers you.”

He looked up at her. She hadn’t posed it as a question. “Hell yeah, it bothers me. I don’t leave a man behind. I saw him die. I watched them take him away.”

“He was more dead than alive when we found him,” she said softly. “I won’t lose him to this. Not after saving him once.”

A silvery apparition shimmered and coalesced beside Tyana. Before he could utter a warning, not to Tyana, mind you, but to Gabe’s stupid ass, Tyana bolted from her chair and grabbed Gabe’s now solid form.

They fell to the floor, Tyana on top, knee dug deep into Gabe’s crotch and her knife across his throat.

Eli stood and leaned over the table. “Dumbass. It would serve you right if I let her carve you up like a turkey. Tyana, back off. The moron you’re about to kill is Gabe. I figure you at least want to stop and ask questions first.”

Tyana pressed her knife just a little harder until a fine stream of blood slithered down Gabe’s neck. “Don’t you ever try and sneak up on me again like that, f**ker.”