“Quentin has a stunner held flush to the back of my skull,” Nikita said, frigidly unruffled.
Max took a step back as Gareth urged Nikita into the apartment. Max saw Nikita’s eyes sweep the room, wondered what she was searching for. “Sophia’s not here,” he said, testing Gareth’s reaction. “The medics wouldn’t release her.”
“Her brain’s likely mush by now in any case,” the other male said, his eyes glittering in a way that spoke of a disordered mind that had lost any sense of reality. “Detective, if you don’t want the Councilor’s brains to leak out her ears, too, please place your own weapon on the coffee table.”
Max did as asked, having caught Nikita’s eye. For some reason, she was cooperating with Gareth. What, he thought, would make a woman of Nikita’s power hold her fire?
“Good,” Gareth said as Max drew away from the coffee table. “Stand against the counter.”
Max did so, facing Gareth. “What’re you planning to do now?” He heard something from the bedroom, felt his spine lock as he realized Sophia had exited the bathroom.
But Gareth didn’t seem aware of anything but his mission. “Now we wait.”
“For Henry, I assume,” Nikita said. “Does he really think you have the ability to dispose of me?”
“I press this trigger, and your brain is so much liquid three seconds later.”
“I’ve infected you,” Nikita said quietly while Max, for the first time in his life, wished that he’d been born a telepath. What the fuck was Sophia thinking? “Your mind,” Nikita added, “is already being consumed by a mental virus.”
Gareth’s hand didn’t tremble, though the odd shine in his eyes seemed to flare even brighter. “I expected as much. It will be a small price to pay to save the Net.”
Martyrs, Max knew, were even more dangerous than fanatics.
“Is Sascha dead?” Nikita asked, giving Max the information he needed.
“No. But she’s in our control. She won’t be harmed if you do exactly as ordered.”
“If she’s alive,” Nikita continued, “I should be able to reach her telepathically, and I can’t.”
“You’re a creature of habit, Nikita—I spiked the water jug in your office with a drug that’s temporarily dampened your range.” A pause. “It’s a variant of Jax, still experimental, so I hope you didn’t drink more than your usual single glass.”
“How could you have possibly reached Sascha?” Max asked, hoping like hell that Sophia would keep herself hidden. Quentin Gareth was insane, but he was still in full control of that weapon. “She’s surrounded by DarkRiver cats.”
“We shot the DarkRiver alpha as he drove her home. It was easy to take her.”
And Max knew without a doubt that Gareth was lying. Because if Lucas was dead and Sascha missing, Dorian would’ve been hunting Gareth down with the lethal rage of a leopard in stalking mode, not running a search for Max. “He’s lying.”
Nikita met his gaze. “I need to be certain, Detective. Quentin informs me that if he tells his superiors he’s been taken, or if his star disappears from the Net, Sascha will be put to death.”
Max saw the bedroom door begin to open. Shifting to the left in a sudden move, he made Gareth swivel toward him—though the man continued to use Nikita as a shield. “I wouldn’t go for your stunner, Detective,” he said. “We need to question you in order to ensure you didn’t share classified information about our cause, but you’re not indispensible.”
A tiny squeak as the bedroom door opened farther, but Max was already talking. “What’s your master promised you?” The choice of words was deliberate. “A position of power? Money?”
“That question shows you know nothing about me. I’m doing this for the good of the Psy race.” And then at last, he confirmed his allegiance to Pure Psy. “Purity will save us.”
“I called Faith.” It was a husky statement from the bedroom doorway. “Sascha’s fine.”
What happened next was so fast, so deadly, Max was never quite able to put the sequence of events in order. A stunner blast hit Gareth from the bedroom, the pulse glancing off him as Sophia’s arm trembled. At the same time, or an instant later, Nikita went to her knees, even as Max’s hand closed around the stunner on the coffee table. He turned, his shot, set to stun, hitting Gareth square in the chest . . . but the male was already falling, blood pouring out of his ears, his eyes, his nose.
Rising to her feet as Gareth crashed onto the floor, his body twitching in the throes of death, Nikita coded in a call on her cell phone. “Sascha,” she said as Max ran to Sophia, “I wanted to ask if you received the contracts I sent last night.” A pause. “Excellent.” Hanging up, Nikita looked down at Gareth’s corpse with an utterly dispassionate gaze. “Henry is very good at telepathic wipes. He made sure Quentin carried no memories I could use to pin this on him, but I know he was behind it.”
Max placed Sophia gently against the wall and looked up at the woman who’d just destroyed a man’s brain in a splintered second. “I guess the drugs didn’t dampen your range enough.”
“A miscalculation on their part. It only affected my long-range sending abilities.”
And Gareth had been standing right next to her. “He was the only one. Marsha’s blood loyal and Tulane’s clean—I’d keep an eye on the intern, but my gut says he’s more apt to give you his devotion than anything else.”
“I don’t have time to keep an eye on everyone,” Nikita said, redoing the single button on her jacket with an efficiency that told Max the dead man on the floor had already been dismissed from her thoughts. “However, you would be very good at it.”
Max blinked. “Are you offering me a job?”
“I need a security chief. Think about it.”
He didn’t have to. “I’m a cop.”
“You can remain one—Enforcement people have been known to be seconded onto a Councilor’s private team. I’m willing to be flexible if you wish to continue to keep track of your old cases.” Her gaze switched to Sophia. “Ms. Russo—the Corps has requested I release you as soon as possible so that you can be returned to the active roster.”
With that detached reminder that Sophia was once again a functioning J, expected to walk into the abyss again and again and again, Nikita headed to the door. “A cleanup crew will arrive shortly. You may want to move into your apartment for the time being. And ensure that large black feline doesn’t taste Quentin’s blood—my viruses have never transmitted through organic matter, but I can’t guarantee that.”
With those chill words, she was gone. Helping Sophia to her feet, Max walked them out of the apartment and into his own. Morpheus had too much class to lick at Gareth’s blood. Turning up his nose at the lifeless Psy, he padded into the neighboring apartment behind Max and Sophia.
Max was just taking a sip of his coffee the next morning before attempting to get in touch with Kaleb Krychek when security dropped off his mail. Checking it, he saw that his super in Manhattan had forwarded what felt like a couple of letters in a bigger envelope.
“What’s that?” Sophia asked as he took a seat beside her on the sofa. She’d had a good night’s sleep, shaken off the final side effects of the drugs.
Max reached out to run his hand through her hair, unable to stop touching her. “Probably bills,” he said with a shrug that tried to be careless.
He knew he’d failed when Sophia touched his shoulder. “Max?”
“I’ve been trying to track down my father,” he told her, admitting his final secret. “I don’t know why. Maybe I’ll know when I find him.”
“Do you think the information is in that envelope?”
“No way to know—but each time I open a ‘mystery’ envelope,” he said, looking down at the plain brown paper, “I hope.”
Sophia shifted to snuggle by his side. It was automatic to put his arm around her, pull her tight against him. She fit perfectly. “There’s something else.” A soft statement from the Psy who owned his heart. “Your expression . . .”
He stole a kiss, needing her. “You’re starting to read me like a book. By the time we’re sitting in rockers watching our grandchildren play, you’ll know my secrets before I do.”
She smiled, and it hit him right in the heart, how fucking much she meant to him. He wasn’t letting her go, wasn’t letting the Corps drag her back down into the nightmare world of an active J—even if he had to fight Silence itself. “I know your secrets, too, Sophie,” he said. “Who were you telepathing earlier?”
“Another J.” A pause. “My shields, Max, I need to explain them, to assess if there’s a chance they’ll fail again.”
His soul repudiated the idea, but he knew she was right. “What did your friend say?”
“That Sascha Duncan is supposed to be an excellent shield technician—he recommended I talk to her, see if she can figure out what’s behind the regeneration of my shields.” Lifting herself up a little, she pressed her lips to the tiny scar on his cheek, the one she seemed to love.
It made his heart smile each time she did that. Even today, now, he felt loved, adored.
“But we can discuss all that later,” Sophia murmured. “Open the envelope.”
Removing his arm from around her, he drew in the vanilla and lavender scent of her and slit open the paper.
He’d opened so many envelopes since he began this search, become so used to disappointment that it took him almost a minute to realize what he held in his hand. Letting the other pieces of mail fall to the carpet, he ran his hand over the crisp white paper of the single piece he still held. “See that?” he said, rubbing his thumb over the emblem on the top left-hand corner.