I can't stop myself, the words tumble out and expand between us. "Come back this weekend. Maybe we could go to a park and hang out or something. You can meet him. If you don't tell him you're his dad."
Agent Dune
CHARLIE SCALES the rope hanging from the skylight of his target's mansion and slips out, gently replacing and sealing the domed covering.
Bugs successfully planted in international smuggler Duke Ducey's home. He had to rush back from his personal jaunt to Tucson to obey these orders.
Quiet as a cat, he slips over the edge of the roof, hangs from his hands, and throws his body away from the house, over the seven-foot metal fence. Landing noiselessly in a deep squat, he pulls up the black mask that covered his pale skin and stays in the shadows as he walks swiftly up the block to where he parked a car under cover of some bushes.
He calls his handler as he drives away. "It's done. Feed should be live. Check it."
"Already on it," Agent Ann Gray sings, the clack of her fingers flying over keys audible in the background. She's a thirty-something analyst-never been in the field, but highly utilized for information security and transmission. "Yep, feed is live. I'll have it stored on the Degas server and to yours. Anything you want me to monitor for?"
"No, I'll handle it." He hesitates. "I need you to look for something else for me, though. For a different case."
"You bet. What it is?"
"A lab in Mexico City that burned to the ground eighteen months ago."
She goes quiet. "This is a personal request?" There's a tautness in her voice.
Fuck. He doesn't know Gray well enough to ask this favor. She seems eager to please, but that means she's eager to please her superiors, too. Their superiors.
The ones who told him to stop nosing around the Data-X case. His job had been to bury it. Not dig it up.
You don't know what you are. The taunt of Jared Johnson, the cage fighter he picked up and questioned in Tucson rings in his ears.
He'd trailed Nash's associates-the ones connected with the lab fire-to Arizona, where they staged another fight. Charlie got inside, but the local police showed up and blew his cover. His only option was to take over-to make sure they pulled in Jared, one of the fighters, for questioning. Because Charlie saw his eyes change, just like Nash's had in Afghanistan. Just like he remembered his father's changing. Jared is one of them-the superhumans who'd been created or enhanced in the government-funded Data-X lab. And Charlie needed to know more about the project. How his father was connected. What happened to him.
And his government clearance didn't go high enough to get that information. He was chasing it down on his own. And after Jared's comment, the pursuit became something beyond curiosity. Now it borders on obsession.
He researched everyone around Jared-from his pretty blonde attorney to her partner Garrett Green, whose name is behind the warehouses where the illegal fights were being held in Tucson, to Garrett's sister, Sedona, who had a missing person report filed on her in Mexico. All of the people associated with the fights were in Mexico City at the time of the lab fire, just like the San Diego cage fighters had been involved in the Data-X fire.
Yet he hadn't found much in the government files on the Mexico City lab. Not even redacted, above his pay grade information.
"Yeah, it's personal." He blew it his breath and waited.
Gray waits a beat. "Am I going to get in trouble for looking?"
He recognizes his opportunity. She hasn't refused yet. She wants to help. "I haven't been given a direct order not to investigate."
She lets out a strangled laugh. "That's probably because no one knows what you're up to."
Does she? She must know something about Mexico to even question his motives here.
"Tell me something, Dune. Why are you so interested in these lab fires? Did you lose someone?"
He hesitates. "Yeah." It's a lie, but he hopes it will gain her sympathy. Could be a huge mistake, though. If she thinks he's out for revenge, she might not give him anything.
"I'm sorry." Her voice is soft. "I'll look into the lab. I don't think we had anything to do with that one, though."
"That's what I'd gathered, too. Anything you can get would help-what they're studying, who they experimented on. Thanks, Gray."
"Someday I might need a favor."
The corners of his lips turn up. Favors for favors. What could the lovely play-it-safe Ann Gray need from him?
Intriguing.
"Then you'll know where to come." He disconnects the call and stows his phone.
Soon. He might have answers after a lifetime of wondering who-no, what-his father was.
Nash
I SIT ON A PARK BENCH, watching the little boy named Nolan play in the sandbox. He's bright-eyed and alert, filling a bucket and using a shovel to pat the sand down. Smart kid.
My boy. My son.
My stomach flips. I've been numb all week. In a stupor, really. I hardly remember how I filled the hours until I could drive back to see them.
But I'm not fit to be a dad. Or be a decent mate. Not the kind Denali deserves. I'm nothing but a shell of a male with an animal I can barely control.
For the fortieth time, I survey the park for dangers, cataloging every person, every piece of equipment that might cause injury.
Denali approaches, stopping a few feet away from me. She texted me the address for this park. I guess she didn't want me to come to her place again, and I gotta respect that.
I notice she stands between me and the boy. She hasn't introduced us yet. I arrived and sat down to observe. I'm not sure I even want to be introduced. She doesn't want him to know I'm his dad.
Even while I know that's for the best, my lion roars with the injustice of it.
Mine. My cub. My mate.