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  “Shay.” Zoe gently grabbed his elbow. “This would be shocking under normal circumstances. Give her a minute.”

  “We don’t have a minute.”

  She answered his retort with a blazing glare, muttering something in Spanish. Shit. At once, he felt like an asshole. It was a necessary job requirement in typical mission situations, though this situation wasn’t anything close to typical. Neither of these women were the “norm” for him, in ways that sliced to the depths of his damn soul. And if he didn’t make it out of this pressure cooker with both of them alive…

  Fuck.

  That possibility wasn’t acceptable. At all.

  The recognition weakened him. And that perception froze him in place. He had Mom to thank for snapping him out of the shit. Her accusing glare, flung at Zoe, realigned his attention.

  “Who the hell are you?” She was clearly still hung up on Zoe’s stolen identity, though he had to admit, his tiny dancer made even Garfield look fucking sexy.

  “Mom, this is Zoe.” He wrapped a possessive hand around Zoe’s waist. “And she’s pretty incredible.”

  His mother worked her jaw back and forth. “You picked an awfully elaborate way to introduce me to your girlfriend, Little B.”

  “Shit.”

  A blush fired up his face as Zoe reined back a giggle. “Little B?”

  “Yeah. And you can guess which asshat was Big B.” Despite his mortification, it was tough to slide irritation over the words. He liked the “girlfriend” part of that. A lot.

  Mom’s glare returned. “Young man, when did your language hit the deep end of the gutter?”

  “First day of boot camp.” He puffed out his chest a little when her anger burst into a smile. “I’m Army Special Forces now, Mom. That’s why I’m here. Stock and his goons know me as Shane Burnett. I’ve been undercover with them for six months, working with intel from the CIA to get here…to you.”

  “Wh-What?” she finally murmured.

  “I’ve come to finally take you away from here, and…”

  He trailed into silence once the sunshine of her smile started to fade. Something wasn’t right. This was supposed to be the part where she wept harder, threw herself into his arms, and told him how happy she was that her little boy had endured stomping across the globe with a madman in order to finally find her.

  Instead, Mom uncurled her arms as if they’d turned to lengths of chain, took two leaden steps, and then hugged him with heavy solemnity. “I can’t go with you, Shay.”

  He grimaced from the scythe of grief hitting his chest. He tried imagining the blade as a reality, cutting him away from her so he could step back. No fucking go. “Can’t,” he finally grated, “or won’t?”

  Hell. Could he have been that wrong about this? Had Dad been right all those years ago? Had Mom really left them in the middle of the night…willingly?

  Her soft sob told him nothing. “Oh, my brave boy. My sweet Shay.”

  He steeled his posture against her embrace. “Yeah. Right. Who’s not feeling so sweet right now.” At least he got that out with some force. He couldn’t show her the quicksand of his heart right now.

  “I know.” Her empathetic croon didn’t help one fucking bit. How many times had he longed for that voice in his ear? How many knee scrapes, nightmares, and heartaches had he lived through without her? How many Christmas mornings had he and Tait lit their little plastic tree and handed each other presents in aluminum foil, singing the enhanced version of the Rudolph song because it had always made her laugh? And now she had the nerve to talk to him like that, like she understood the loss that ripped at his very core?

  “No, Mom. I don’t think you do.”

  She bent her head back to gaze up at him. “I love you so much, Little B. And Tait too.” Her hand traveled to the locket at her throat. He was close enough to see that the front of it was engraved with two ornate letters: T and S. “But this is more complicated than you can comprehend. There are lives at stake. Lives I saved by coming here.”

  “Valuable enough to leave your sons?”

  Her gaze glittered with fresh tears. With a shaky hand, she reached to him. “Your lives were at the top of the list, Shay.”

  Zoe gasped something in Spanish. For a long moment, he was grateful to let that sound consume the air. God knew, whatever erupted from his throat wouldn’t be so eloquent. Not that there’d be anything there, considering the scythe now had a companion: a battle-ax of shock.

  “What?” The word was as raw and wounded as his spirit. And it served as a shitty stand-in for all the questions he actually needed to ask. He’d detained enough people on missions to know when he was dealing with someone concealing a much bigger story—even his own mother. Her eyes, darkened to the shade of pennies, told him everything…and nothing.

  She definitely, positively, wasn’t here by choice.

  She definitely, positively, wasn’t leaving here of free will, either.

  But why? What the hell was going on?

  Before he had the chance to ask her either question, a boom shook the building. Glass jars rattled in the laboratory part of the room. Shay knew the sound all too well, though that didn’t stop it from frying his nerves.

  Instinctively, he yanked both women close and muttered, “Mortar blast.”

  Zoe, with eyes showing more white than color, tucked herself against him. After his statement, her skin followed suit. “Caramba,” she gasped as another explosion hit. “What the hell is happening?”

  Before Shay could start on an answer, the door to the hall slammed open. In the portal was a Badlands cliff hacked into the shape of a man. The guy shut the door without looking back, stalking closer with his hard-hewn face set in a determined scowl. Though the fucker was dressed in sand-colored fatigues and a matching T-shirt, which outlined every vein in his muscles, his gait reminded Shay of a forty-something, nasty-ass Komodo dragon. The suspicion wasn’t helped when Mom ran into the man’s arms.

  “What is it?” she queried the guy. Her tone didn’t mirror Tait now. It was all Zoe in its no-nonsense strength. Spare the damn sugar.

  “Company’s arrived.” The walking cliff sounded like one too. “And it seems they don’t care for the cheese in the fondue pot.”

  Mom’s shoulders tensed. “You were good to warn everyone that this might happen.”

  He nodded tightly. “We knew what to expect.” His gaze lifted and pinned to Shay. “You’re one of Cam’s guys, right? What the fuck’re you doing, bothering Dr. S?”

  “Gabriel.” Mom soothed a hand down his arm. “I want to introduce you to someone very important to me.”

  Cliff Man took that in with a short grunt. At the same time, he swung his bright-green eyes in the fastest head-to-toe assessment Shay had ever endured, taking only a second to note his resemblance to Mom.

  “Huh,” Gabriel muttered. “Well, weren’t you clever, making the Cameron Stock connection and using it.” He narrowed his gaze. “So’re you Tait or Shay?”

  At least ten smartass comebacks came to mind, but Shay nixed them all. Mom didn’t make it a secret that she held the guy in high esteem. As in the pedestal-worshipping kind. “Shay,” he replied. “And this is my…uhhh…friend, Zoe. It’s nice to meet you…Gabriel, right?”

  The guy didn’t return his offered handclasp. “Ghid.”

  “What?”

  “It’s Ghid,” he countered. “Pronounced geed.” He didn’t waver his stare through a meaningful pause.

  “Sure.” Shay shrugged. “So that’s as in…what? Not your real name. Stand-in for your gamer name or something?”

  The guy grunted again. “As in Ghidorah, the only dragon who made Godzilla shit his pants. I don’t have time to play games.”

  “Yeah.” Shay finally let a subtle snarl of his own unfurl. “I know Ghidorah.” Classic monster weekends at the movies had made sure of that. “He was a nasty motherfucker with three heads.” And thinking of this grouchy dickwad with any of his “heads” near Mom…
/>   Shit.

  “Can you two save the pissing contest for another occasion?” Mom yelled over the thunder from another detonating mortar. “I think we’ve got bigger concerns.”

  “Damn straight,” Ghid growled. “Like getting your ass out of here.”

  Shay gave a grim smirk. “There’s something to agree on.”

  Ghid took Mom by the elbow. “The sooner we get you to the roof and the helipad, the better. Trinity’s got the chopper juiced and ready. Sounds like those Special Forces suckwits only have a few more taps of the battering ram left until they’re fully in.”

  So much for seeing eye-to-eye with the bastard. “What the fuck?” Shay snapped. “That’s Special Forces out there?”

  “Damn it.” Mom grimaced. “I thought Cameron had things under control.”

  “Yeah, well.” Ghid’s face barely changed, despite the dry overtone. “Guess his fondue wasn’t a tasty treat, either.”

  “Crap,” Mom mumbled.

  “No shit,” Zoe concurred.

  Shay glared harder at Ghid. “In case you don’t know, lizard breath, they’re the good guys.”

  If it were possible, Ghid’s face turned stonier as he pulled out a gorgeous SIG pistol, checked the chamber, and then glanced back at Mom. “You didn’t get a chance to fill him in on much, did you?”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean?” But Shay had part of his answer deduced already. It meant that his conclusion from before, that his mother was here because of both force and choice, was true. It also meant that all the questions surrounding that theory were back—this time with a load of friends just to heighten the confusing fun.

  Because this whole situation wasn’t enough of a clusterfuck already.

  When Ghid yanked open the door again, that assessment was proven in detail. The other side of the hallway wasn’t visible anymore through the smoke, and paint chips dusted everything like snow. A couple of abandoned gurneys now lay on their sides, no attendants or patients in sight, causing Mom to clamp a hand over her gasping mouth.

  “Breathe, Mel. You know Simon and Nick would’ve carried those guys out on their backs if they had to.” Ghid’s order was the perfect combination of patience and power. Shay admitted it grudgingly. Patience and strength aside, why the hell was Mom trusting a granite slab who spoke of Cameron and his gang almost like comrades and referred to a Special Forces team as suckwits?

  He forgot the anger as he turned back to Mom. Her lips trembled as she lowered her hand. “But… But what if they couldn’t make it? What if they’ve been st-stopped? What if they got t-taken back and—”

  “Taken back where?” Shay asked. Ghid impaled him with a silent version of don’t ask, dude. But it was too late. Mom’s tears thickened, ripping at his chest. And galvanizing his actions. “I’ll make sure they made it.” Though he couldn’t believe what he was promising, the words sprang from the depths of his heart, connected to the desperate little boy who tried to soothe her bruises with ice packs. The man he’d become could do something real for his mother’s hurt. “I’ll make sure every one of your boys gets on the plane. I promise.” When Zoe added her own anguished sob, he leaned and gave her a quick, hard kiss. “Ssshhh. I’ll be okay. My cover’s still solid. I’m the logical one for this, dancer.”

  Ghid fired off an approving snort. “He’s right.”

  Hell. The man was making it damn hard for Shay to decide which column to put him in, asshole or ally, which was likely how Ghid wanted it. “What’s your destination for the chopper?”

  The fucker quirked up one side of his mouth. “I could tell you, but then I’d have to kill you. Not that your corpse wouldn’t feel right at home at our rustic little backup camp.”

  Shay sighed heavily. “Fine. Keep the twenty on your magic treehouse a state secret. Just tell me you can get Zoe safely back to Vegas from there.”

  “We have plenty of resources. She’ll be safe.”

  Who the hell is “we”? He didn’t bother pushing for the answer again. Ghid’s enigma act was firm on the shutdown right now.

  There was another matter to deal with too. One ticked-off little dancer, now launching herself at him with new terror in her eyes. “Pendejo testarudo. No. No.”

  Ghid clearly recognized a good moment to pull away when he saw one. “You ready to roll, Doc?” he asked Mom in a tone too intimate for Shay’s comfort. Despite every asshole move Dad had pulled, including death due to an exhausted liver, it had never occurred to Shay to think of Mom with someone else. Shit. The notion was reasonable, even justifiable. Just didn’t stop it from being weird.

  Mom raised a brave smile. “I have to grab my backup drives and the source serums.”

  “Shit,” Ghid returned. “Yeah. Good call.”

  No more mortars hit the building, which was good and bad rolled together. Instead of the big blasts, gunfire rat-a-tatted nearby like Chinese fireworks, indicating whatever team had been sent for the party now had boots on the ground. Though the battle still raged at the other end of the building, adrenaline jacked Shay’s blood as he took advantage of the few seconds he had left with his tiny dancer.

  His tiny dancer.

  He’d have to let go of that concept as soon as this moment was over.

  On that dismal note, he hauled her tightly against him. They simply stood for a long moment, absorbing each other’s energy, until he sifted fingers into her hair and tugged, lifting her face for one more selfish gaze.

  “Damn,” he murmured, blown away as if beholding her beauty for the first time…forcing his mind around the miserable truth that it was the last. She finally lifted both arms, tangling her hands against his scalp too, forcing his mouth down to hers. She didn’t wait for him to do the invading this time. Her lips and tongue pulled and sucked on him with hot hunger. Her tearful mewl echoed through the deepest reaches of his being. Whatever part of his soul that hadn’t been branded by her yet was officially lost to the resistance now.

  When he pulled away, her protesting whimper filled the air between them. She kept her hand in his hair, soaking him all over again with the midnight-blue magic of her eyes, as she repeated her sweet little rasp from just an hour ago.

  “This is crazy, right?”

  Like that perfect moment from the medical room, he pushed their foreheads together and nodded.

  “Shay?”

  “Hmmm?”

  “I’m scared.”

  “Don’t be scared.”

  “What if—”

  “Ssshhh.”

  He kissed her into silence not only for the words but all the shitty things his mind filled in to the blank after them. Life in Special Forces was all about what ifs. Some sucked harder than others. He’d had to confront them every day he went out with the team, including the real possibility of his own death. But that knowledge had always existed in the game room of his mind, like an irreverent neon beer sign. Other than Tait, who fully understood the hazards of his job, he’d never had to worry about anyone missing him much.

  In the space of twenty-four hours, the perfect woman in his arms had changed all that. Damn it.

  Mom reappeared, bearing a small satchel filled with notebooks and rattling with computer flash drive sticks. In her other hand was a clear Lucite box loaded with a dozen tubes, all filled with dark-gold liquid. Shay stared at them. He blinked, struck by a strange memory from those days when Mom and Homez were intense at work on their project in the garage. He had seen Homez with one of the vials in his hand, holding it up so the afternoon light made the liquid glow like—

  “Magic honey.”

  The words fell out of him with the amazement from the memory. Mom stopped and blinked now too. She didn’t look amazed. She looked stressed. To the power of ten. “Shay? Why did you say that?”

  “Because I was the one who thought of it.”

  “Why?” Her questions were demands now. “How?”

  “During the summer, when you and Homez were working so hard, he used to let me watch him d
uring the breaks you took to go get lemonade and shit.” He wondered if she would pinch his cheek again, but she was clearly too upset about something, still beyond his comprehension, to wield the discipline. Hoping to yank free the sword he’d apparently jabbed into her, he went on. “It was only for a few minutes at a time, Mom. He never let me stay for very long. I was just a curious kid, and—”

  “He never let you near it, did he?” She jerked free of Ghid’s hold, though Shay couldn’t tell if the guy had attempted to comfort or restrain her. “The magic honey…” She ran her gaze over him with eyes that were different than a mother adoring her son. This time, her attention was filled with…fear. And horror. “Tell me, Shay Raziel Bommer,” she insisted. “I know Homer adored you, and I know you knew it. Did you ever talk him into letting you touch the serum…or taste it?”

  As soon as she ignited the question, more years burned away between then and now. His recollections crashed on each other like the gunfire that grew closer and clawed at him like Ghid’s impatient growl.

  He grimaced as an image rose from that fuzzy fire.

  “I… I didn’t know,” he murmured. “The note… It was from you, Mom…right?”

  He should’ve cussed. Even one of her treacherous pinches would’ve been better than her motionless silence.

  “Wh-What note?” she finally asked. “Didn’t know about what?”

  He took her hands. Needed to feel her reassurance. The consequences for this one felt much worse than getting grounded for two weeks. “It was the night after you disappeared,” he began. “Dad had hit the sauce all day and was already passed out. Tait was watching TV. I went to my room. One of the vials was just there, in a gold holder on my nightstand, with a note.”

  “Oh, my God,” she rasped before squaring her shoulders in a you’re-a-mother-don’t-you-dare-fall-apart jerk. “Okay, tell me. Wh-What did the note say?”

  He looked up at her anguished face. Her lips shook harder than before. Desperate breaths worked in and out of her nose. Without a doubt, if he spoke again, he’d drive the damn sword in deeper. But had he come all this way, worked this hard to find her, to hide them both from the truth—even if that reality wasn’t a perfect movie plotline?