Passionate Obsession by D.M. Mortier
Chapter Twenty-Three
Mac
The mission to rescue Dr. Reiner and his family hit a major snag, and I spent two days trying to fix it without using the obvious solution I had on hand. I was wasting valuable time, time that I didn’t have, and I knew it. I didn’t want to give into the decision the Director had made days ago because I wanted to protect my family. I didn’t want any of them to be part of this fucked-up world of espionage, murder, deception, and continuous, constant danger. I kept thinking that there had to be a better way, but I was running out of time to find it. Taking part in the mission to obtain Dr. Reiner also helped distract me. Too bad the mission turned out to be a bust.
When we arrived in Alaska, the facility had been stripped and emptied of all previous occupants, equipment, and supplies.
The one good outcome that we did accomplish was stopping the bottomless funding to the scientists. The Director implicated the scientists in the death of Giselle to British Intelligence, and the kidnapping of Justin and his family was world news, forcing the hand of U.S. intelligence, a public relations nightmare that the CIA was fighting a losing battle to contain with Gloria Forbes being so high up in the ranks. This was a mess that the scientists would not get out of anytime soon given that each charge was evidenced on video.
The scientist had powerful and determined backers who would hope to weather the storm of negative publicity and eventually clear the path for another secret operation. So, the legal attacks would not hold them for long, video or not. At least not unless the scientists were made useless to their backers. That made finding Dr. Reiner all the more critical.
The other scientists would be of no use without Dr. Reiner and his knowledge. If Dr. Everette and Dr. Forbes had been able to run the experiments without Dr. Reiner, they would have run the program without him or tried to kill him when they found him. Clearly, Dr. Reiner wasn’t stupid enough to give them the serum. It was obvious that they were ruthless enough to have done exactly that.
“Mom, am I black or white?”
I stopped in my tracks on hearing Liam’s question as I entered the entertainment room when I finally dragged my ass home forty-eight hours after leaving.
Kat sat facing the huge movie screen with the twins sitting on either side of her. The noise of the action on screen immediately stopped as Kat hit Pause on the remote.
“Why did you ask that, honey?”
I was impressed by Kat’s calm voice. Of course, she and I had talked about this when the boys were younger, and it was obvious that their features were so distinctly mine.
“Jayla is brown like Aunty Nakia, and she says she’s black because Aunty Nakia is black,” Liam told her.
Colin climbed into her lap and placed his head on her bosom.
Was I a bad father because I wanted to box my son’s ear because he was rubbing against breasts that I considered mine?
“We aren’t brown like Jayla, Mama.” Colin frowned up at her. “We are like Daddy. Does that mean that we are white?”
“No, baby.” Kat kissed Colin on his forehead and leaned over and kissed Liam as well. “It means that you boys are very special. You have Irish and Scottish heritage from your dad, and you have Jamaican, Indian, and African heritage from me. You’re the perfect mix of the best of your dad and me.”
“So, am I black or white?” Liam clearly wanted a definitive answer and wasn’t at all impressed by Kat’s mixed analogy.
Kat grabbed him and pulled him onto her lap as well. “Well, there’s always the ‘one drop rule’ that you can rely on. It has helped biracial people get over the ambiguity.”
“What is the ‘one drop rule’?” Liam wanted to know.
“What is ambugetty?” Colin piped in.
Kat laughed. “The ‘one drop rule’ means that if you have one drop of black, then you are considered black.” She ruffled Liam’s hair. “So, if anyone has bad manners enough to ask, you will tell them that you’re black.” She smiled down at Colin next. “And for you, kiddo, ambiguity means that something isn’t exact or isn’t one thing or another.”
“So, we’re not black or white?” Liam sounded more confused.
“As far as I’m concerned, it’s up to you, honey. Because you look the way that you do, you will get flack from all the races whichever you chose. However, when you’re older, you may feel more confident in your choice. Baby, you can be whatever race you feel comfortable being or chose not to be defined by one. I’m biased, of course, and will love you whichever you settle on. I hope that you embrace all of the different ethnicities, feel comfortable with all, and welcome your uniqueness.”
I knew that Kat herself had struggled with the same question her entire life. Because she had her mother’s obviously dark skin tone, people immediately saw her African heritage. However, she had her father’s bone-straight hair, and it had been difficult for her to not acknowledge her East Indian parentage more. She had loved her father even though he’d died when she was so young. She had remembered what a loving father he was to her and always felt as though she was denying his heritage every time she documented herself as being black only, as most forms dictated. Our sons would face the same challenge. Hopefully, with the vast diluting of pure races since I’ve been on this earth, that form of identity or differentiation marker will become less and less important. And people will stop being judged, victimized, or exalted because of their skin tone.
I cleared my throat, deliberately gaining their attention. Not that I needed to have done that with Kat. The sizzle and pop of my senses, so intoned with hers, told me that she had been aware of me since I stepped into the house. This innate awareness of each other, our scents, our very heartbeats had gotten stronger since we started making love. It was as if our senses were in sync, feeding off each other.
“Daddy!” The boys’ screams reverberated throughout the room as they propelled their bodies in one mad leap from their mother’s arms and torpedoed into my chest. Thank God I was as strong as I was. The dual impact of their sturdy weight and their speed would have knocked a lesser man on his ass.
“We went for a swim in the lake!”
“Mom let us dive off the waterfall!”
“Mom says you will teach us to ride the horses!”
The boys kept talking, one on top of the other. They were so excited, and I realized that I hadn’t spent any time with them in days. This business with the scientists had to be brought to an end, sooner rather than later. And then Kat’s dark gaze met mine.
The vulnerability I saw in her eyes almost brought me to my knees. I knew leaving while she slept was probably seen as a bitch move. Hell, I left the night after we made love as though the earth would end if we didn’t. Yeah, that was a bitch move. I also didn’t forget that she told me that she loved me. Although she had said the words, I suspected they were wrung from her because of the passion between us. After all, only a few weeks ago, she had been trying to find an excuse to contact her former fiancé. In fact, she had still considered herself engaged to him even though we had been married for over five years. No, I wasn’t trusting words induced from a sexual high.
I didn’t know if I could say the words. It was so damn difficult to tell her how I felt because I felt so much. It wasn’t her beautiful face or her beautiful body or even her erotic coloring that had me so enthralled. I had never been attracted to black women before or any woman of color for that matter. And I’d lived enough years in my sexual prime to know that what happens between us when we make love is something special, something amazing. I have certainly never had such enticing curves under me, over me, or around me. Curves that I suspected I had become obsessed with. I smiled inwardly at that thought. No, I loved her because of who she was. Her beautiful spirit. Her beautiful, loving soul. She loved our sons with such unconditionality despite the circumstances of their birth, and I was humbled by it, honored by it. I loved her for it. And I would love her until the day I died.
“The telephone was invented more than a century ago,” Kat drawled when the boys took a breath in their excited chatter. Her dark gaze held mine steadily, not hiding her hurt. I wanted to kiss her, hold her, more than I wanted my next breath.
Knowing that I was going to get hell no matter what I did now, I did what I wanted most. I closed the space between us and kissed her gently. With the boys present, I didn’t dare deepen it the way that I longed to do. I had to fight the smile from reaching my lips on seeing the dazed look on her face following that brief kiss. She would skin me alive if she caught me looking even mildly pleased at her apparent loss for words. We both knew that if I had angled our heads and gone in deep that we wouldn’t have stopped, boys or no boys. It would have been impossible to stop our mutual desire after so many days apart. At that arousing thought, I couldn’t help pulling her closer to me, where she wouldn’t miss just how potently that kiss affected me too.
She narrowed her eyes and tried pulling away from me.
I reluctantly let her go.
“Do you and I need to have a conversation about communication and common courtesy?” she asked softly with a slight tremor in her voice.
I held her gaze, appreciating that she was fighting so hard to not let our desire for each other derail the hurt I had inadvertently inflicted. Rolling around her simple words to me, I realized that she was hurt by my absence and not keeping her informed as to what I was doing. I had no excuse for that. She had every right to be pissed at me, but she was deliberately not acting on her hurt in front of the boys. She was very aware of the boys listening to us. We had never had an argument in front of them. In fact, we had never had an argument until the other day with the Giselle thing. I think, if I pushed her now, she was warning me that that record would be broken.
“Boys…” I chuckled at the stunned look on the boys’ faces. I had forgotten that, despite the intimacy established between Kat and me over the past week, this was still new to them. For five years they had only known us as friends, not as parents who slept together. And from their wide, round-eyed expressions, I knew that there were going to be some questions coming.
“You’re kissing Mom again,” Liam whispered in awe. “Are you having a baby, Mama?”
“Yeah, like Aunt Nakia?” Colin went to stand next to Kat and patted her belly.
Kat gasped.
I don’t know if that was from the future possibility or whether she was horrified at the thought. Unlike most women who would only have to worry about a few baby spills, a possible colicky baby, a few sleepless nights, Kat had had to worry about her babies breaking themselves out of every crib that we bought them, crawling and walking before babies are supposed to, sucking on her breasts so strong that it often drew blood, and the most egregious being when they pull their diapers off to see how far across the room they could project their urine. Yeah, babies with superpowers had been no joke.
I didn’t bother answering my sons. I had enough issues to deal with today. “Boys, go put on your combat gear. You have missed enough practice.” Training them in combat served a dual purpose. One, it taught them how to defend themselves without mortally hurting someone. And secondly, it helped them to gain control over their growing powers. I had no doubt that my sons would eclipse my powers someday. They were almost as strong and fast as me already, without even an eighth of my body mass. They were going to need significant discipline to not kill anyone who truly pissed them off.
As soon as the boys disappeared to do my bidding, I turned to Kat. “How much do you know about where I was? So, I don’t cover old ground.”
She narrowed her eyes at me. “I have already told you that I don’t follow you around or astral project into your personal space like that. I’ve only done it three times deliberately, once at your request, and the others you already know about. First of all, I’m too damn busy taking care of your sons to be that obsessive over you. And secondly—” She gave me a hard stare. “I want our relationship to be based on mutual respect and trust, where we don’t keep secrets from each other. I prefer you tell me what you’re doing than eavesdropping on you without your knowledge.”
“Thank you, I didn’t intend to imply that you had done anything nefarious,” I told her calmly. “I was called in for a mission to get Dr. Reiner and destroy the facility the scientists maintained in Alaska.” I barely restrained the grimace at the half-truths I was telling her. I should have come clean to her long before now.
“But they don’t have Dr. Reiner in Alaska.” She looked at me in total exasperation. “The scientists took him to a facility in Cuba.”
“Jesus. How the hell did Dr. Everette and Dr. Forbes get out of British custody?”
“They were supposed to be in custody?”
“Yes. For the murder of Giselle and the abduction of Justin and his family.”
“Well, they are definitely not in British custody and are, in fact, planning on killing Dr. Reiner and his family. That’s why I wanted to be able to contact you. You have to get them out of there. They gave him twenty-four hours this morning to give them the serum, or they will feed the serum they have to his family.”
I frowned at her, even more pissed at myself for not communicating with her properly. “You can contact me at any time with the same Bluetooth device we used when we rescued Justin and Nakia.”
“And how was I supposed to know that?”
“I’m sorry, Kat. Our mission was time sensitive, and I didn’t want you getting tired tracking our movements. I should have told you before leaving you like that.” I held her gaze, still not sure what I was going to tell her, afraid to be completely honest with her and run the risk of losing her. But of course, she wouldn’t know that because she doesn’t know that I’ve lied to her by omission, if not told her an outright lie.
“Well, getting Dr. Reiner is time sensitive as well, and I had been tracking him anyway.”
I recognized the urgent fear in her eyes, telling me that if I didn’t act, it would cost the lives of Dean and his family. “I need to get a team together to help.” I turned to leave, but Kat stopped me.
“Are you seriously going to leave again without telling me what you’re going to do or where you’re going?” She sounded incredulous.
“No, I need to call this in and organize something.” I turned to face her, slightly distracted because part of me was thinking about the mission ahead. The other part was trying to understand the power behind these scientists. There was something I missed, and I didn’t like that blind spot at all. The safety of Katia and the boys was potentially at risk if I had gotten so much wrong. I needed to review who had access to what at the Agency. The Director was supposed to know all the movers in the Intelligence clog. Was there a leak that the Director knew nothing about? There was something seriously wrong if such a huge breach was missed.
“Be patient a moment longer, lass.” I grabbed Kat’s hand and was hit by such a sizzling jolt of awareness at the feel of her soft-as-butter skin that I had to fight for control. I couldn’t afford to be distracted now but also couldn’t force myself to relinquish my hold of her.
Given her mood from before, I didn’t expect her gentle smile, her palm on my chest as though to soothe me, or the tender kiss to my neck.
I cleared my throat, trying to find my voice around the sudden frog lodged there. “Given that you knew what was going on and the Agency didn’t, I am definitely going to need your help, Kat.” My voice sounded croaky, but I ignored it and pressed on. “Clearly, there is a leak somewhere. I can’t use Agency assets until I can find out where the leak is.”
“What do you need?” She wrapped her arms around my waist, instantly settling me.
The anxiety I hadn’t known I was feeling suddenly eased, and I felt such an exquisite calm. When did the feel and touch of her become so essential to me? I pulled her in close, loving that I could touch parts of her body that had filled my dreams for so long. Fuck it. I wrapped one arm around her waist, ensuring my fingers edged under her blouse to sink into soft skin, and the other hand palmed one voluptuous cheek of her ass. “First, we need to get Dr. Reiner, and then I will deal with the leak in the Agency,” I managed to wheeze out.
“You can’t rescue Reiner by yourself.” She tightened her hold on me, burying her face in my chest and almost purring with contentment.
That she seemed to glean so much enjoyment from just this, my arms around her, humbled me. I realized that, for the first time in a century, I was happy. Yes, there was a lot of shit going on, but I had this. I had her, and all the rest didn’t matter.
“There were armed Cuban and Chinese soldiers all over that complex in Cuba,” she was telling me, totally oblivious to my inner revelations.
“Tell me.” I suddenly realized that this talk with her couldn’t wait. She had information I needed before making any plans.
She gave me a detailed description of the complex Dr. Reiner was being held in, the number of men guarding them, and any heavy artillery she noticed.
“You’re right,” I said finally. “Since I can’t use the usual resources from the Agency, I will have to ask Colt and Justin to help. They’re in that part of the world anyway.”
She nodded in agreement and then said something that made me stiffen with indecision.
“Do you think you can continue trusting the Director?” She looked up at me, her gaze cloudy with concern. “There was no way that anyone would have known that you were about to hit that facility in Alaska. Hell, even I didn’t know, and I am the one who told you that Dr. Reiner was being held there. Someone had to leak your planned attack. I am just grateful that no member of your team was hurt.”
I bent my head and kissed her lips briefly before putting her away from me, knowing that whatever I say right now would be another half-truth, and I hated doing that to her. I needed to come clean with everything, and I just didn’t have time for that now. “I won’t worry about any of that now. Let’s get Dr. Reiner and his family out, and then we can deal with the Agency.”
“Okay.” She looked up at me doubtfully. “I can look into what the Director is doing if I see a picture of him or hear his voice. So, when you get back, you have to give me one or the other for me to astral project to him.”
“No. I need you to watch the boys as they go through some of the exercises I have been doing with them. They know what to do and can practice on each other. So, you don’t have to do anything other than make sure they don’t kill each other.” I smiled to divert her attention from any further discussion on the Agency. I didn’t bother telling her that no one ever saw the Director. His instructions were always communicated via encrypted voice or messaging. Holding her hand, we went to find our sons before I sequestered myself in my study to contact Colt.
Twelve hours later, we moved stealthily into the compound where Kat assured us Dean and his family were being held. With her voice in our headphones, Kat told us where Dean’s wife and children were. Colt and Justin went to retrieve them as planned. I went after Dean, who, according to Kat, was with Dr. Everette and Dr. Forbes.
Although we had seen in the scans from our shields that the compound was saturated with soldiers, it was stunning to walk among them and not react to the incredible knowledge that these were not just Chinese and Cuban soldiers. I was fluent in ten different languages and, even if I wasn’t using the shield, immediately picked up the language and translated it. We were surrounded by Chinese, Cuban, Russian, and North Korean soldiers. What the fuck had we stumbled on here?!?! It was no secret that these countries were friendly. However, for them to be operating jointly in the backyard of the United States was alarming.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Colt’s drawled question was stated without emotion and in an almost bored tone, but I wasn’t fooled in the least about how angry he was. Colt was a U.S. soldier, born and bred. It was as much a part of his DNA as breathing. Colt wanted to engage and take away any threat to the United States as soon as possible. However, we were not here for that. We had to get this family out of here before the scientists carried out their threat.
“I am thinking it, but there’s nothing we can do about it now,” I told him with the same bored drawl. “We’ll come back once the doc and his family are safe. Can’t have this kind of vermin so close to home.”
“What the fuck is the Pentagon doing to allow shit like this to develop unchallenged?” Justin muttered.
“Yeah, well, this won’t impact only the United States if this is what I think it is.” The ugly germ of doubt in my mind on what the Director should have also known made me clench my teeth in frustration. It was more than clear that the resources I thought were available in the Agency needed a hard reboot. A complete overhaul.
“Mac, Dean has just been forced to retrieve the serum for a demonstration.” Kat’s voice came through the headphone urgently. “They have sent soldiers to collect his family. You guys can’t let them be injected.”
“On it,” Colt muttered. As a former United States Army colonel, Colt was used to leading. In fact, he had been my commander for a few years before I transferred out to Special Forces. At least, that’s the experience Colt and Justine thought I had. They didn’t know that, at some time in the past ninety years, I had worked in all branches of the military. The combat training and experience had been invaluable to lending legitimacy to my numerous identities.
The challenge for us now was to get Dean and his family out of here without bloodshed. A plan Colt had grumbled about when we were on the boat. Now I knew he was bitterly regretting agreeing to that plan. The disgruntled scowl on his face was testament to that. With the map of the compound already memorized by us and with the digital navigation available in our shields, we separated and ran swiftly for our assigned targets.
Our plan required Colt and Justin to deactivate their shields when escorting the family out; consequently, they had to disable two of the soldiers and steal their uniforms. Something they had done already. With the soldiers already being dispatched to retrieve the family out, Colt and Justin left to intercept them. They would then take the family to the military van we had pilfered from the compound and had parked at a back exit, waiting our return.
My job was a little trickier because there was no soldier my size and revealing myself would garner immediate notice. I tend to stand out in a crowd. So, I had to get Dean out, disabling everyone in the room with him without raising the alarm. Justin or Colt would backtrack to get him while they were still in their uniforms. I would clean up any messes left and ensure their vehicle was not being followed. We had a speedboat, captained by Cuban smugglers, waiting in a nearby jetty. Colt had a yacht anchored in Bahamian waters which would take us to one of the Bahamian islands that Colt owned.
Thanks to Kat’s warning, I was prepared for Dr. Everette, Dr. Forbes, and three other men in the room with Dean. What Kat wouldn’t have known was that the three men were men known to the Agency. They were high-ranking Chinese, Russian, and Cuban generals. The Chinese and Russian generals were of particular concern. On any given day, coming into contact with either of these men would be bad news. However, coming across them in this part of the world was a fucking deadly omen.
The Russian, General Kamenev, was linked to many reported war crimes in Chechnya, Ukraine and Syria. He didn’t dare show his face in Europe or the United States for fear of being arrested and brought before the International Criminal Court. Until now, the bastard had been grounded in Russia.
The Chinese, General Zhang, was also suspected of being the mastermind behind some of the most atrocious human rights violations against the Tibetans and some of their own people in Hong Kong and in China.
I had to wonder about who the high-ranking official from North Korea would be. I know the bastard had to be here somewhere. I understood Colt’s difficulty in not taking these bastards out right here, right now. We had no idea when we would get another chance like this, with such plum targets in one location.
“Doctors, I hope for your sake that you will demonstrate the effectiveness of your serum without any further delays,” General Kamenev drawled. “To date, it has been all talk and promises, but no evidence.”
“We have advised what our test subjects did in Texas and London. We saw them in action, even had it on tape, however, someone erased the recordings,” Dr. Everette whined. “Now we have no visual evidence of their power. Dr. Reiner has made fresh samples. And to prove how sincere and confident we feel about this serum, he will inject his family with it.”
“We are also interested in the subjects that got away, not just the serum.” General Zhang’s bitty little dark eyes were icy cold, almost as frosty as his voice.
I edged closer to Dean but stopped as Kat muttered, “Yeah, I bet he is. These doctors have to be desperate to get into bed with these assholes.” I had to agree with her there. At the sound of her voice, I was immediately calmer. With Kat’s powers, these motherfuckers were no longer safe from us. They could not hide, could not huddle behind diplomatic immunity or U.S. military power. We would get them eventually.
“We have given you the information we have on the McAllister family. You have the resources to extract them from England whenever you’re ready. We are assured that they are hiding there.” Dr. Forbes tried to sound soothing, but her voice had too much of a tremor in it for her anxiety to not leak through. “Further, we feel we have a new incentive that will ensure their compliance, at least the compliance of Mrs. McAllister.”
“That bitch,” Kat hissed in my ear.
“Kat, take the boys to the bunker as we discussed. None of the staff, not even Calvin and Martha, know about the bunker.”
“They aren’t going to be happy about that. You do remember what happened the last time we regulated them to a bunker situation?”
“I’m not taking anything for granted with these assholes. I will feel better if you are hidden behind several tons of steel until I get there.”
“Okay. But I would have to end the projection now and need at least five minutes to recover before I can get to the boys.”
“Get going. We will be fine from here.” I couldn’t help being worried about what these fuckers planned for my family, and again alarm bells were going off on the possible leak in the Agency. I forced myself to refocus on the mission in front of me. Anyone wanting to get at Kat and the boys would be in for a surprise at how difficult that endeavor would be.
I needed to get Dean the hell out of here.
“Dr. Reiner, you must be ready with the serum now,” Dr. Everette muttered impatiently.
“The serum needs to be cooled to two degrees Celsius before use,” Dr. Reiner mumbled.
“No more delays,” General Zhang growled.
I didn’t wait for Dean to come up with any more delaying tactics. Still in my shield, I zipped around the room and, in seconds, with a strategic pinch to the appropriate nerves, had everyone other than Dean out cold on the floor. It might have been comical seeing the look on Dean’s face as the generals and the other doctors dropped to the floor seemingly out of nowhere. However, we didn’t have time for levity, because the countdown started then. I had five minutes before they regained consciousness, and Dean and his family had to be on that speedboat before Cuban authorities caught up with us.
I stepped out of the room, removed my shield, and entered the room again to avoid having to explain the shield to Dean. We had agreed ahead of time that the shields and weapons were not to be displayed to Dean or his family.
“Dean, come with me.”
“What are you doing here? Did you do that to them?” Dr. Reiner pointed to the unconscious people on the floor of the lab.
“No time to talk now. We have to get out of here.”
Responding to the urgency in my voice, Dean followed me out of the room without a backward glance.
“Don’t you need to take the serum with you?”
Dean grinned. “That’s just a saline solution.”
As soon as we stepped out of the lab, Colt was there to escort Dean farther. Colt smirked at the sight of the number of armed guards that littered the corridor. Unlike the doctors and the generals, these men would not be waking up in this lifetime. The less men we left alive, the less pursuers we would have.
With Colt and Justin escorting the Reiners to the rendezvous point, I remained behind to disable communication devices, vehicles, and basically blow shit up to slow down any pursuit of us and keep the fuckers busy while we made our escape.
In a wetsuit and scuba gear, I swam out to meet the yacht minutes after Colt and Justin had arrived with Dean and his family. I climbed onto the yacht quietly.
“One of these days you’re going to trust us enough to tell us what the hell you eat for breakfast,” Justin drawled.
I laughed. “Would you believe oatmeal and raisins?” I knew that he and Colt would never ask awkward questions, no matter how many times I displayed powers in front of them.