Page 66 of Too Lethal to Love

Nic’s curse broke the silence over the mind comms.“That was too easy.”

“Agreed,”Linc said.

God, Kane hoped they were fucking wrong.

Beth rose from her seat at the massive conference room table in VIPER headquarters and stared at the screen taking up an entire wall. Two years’ worth of messages from her stalker scrolled like the closing credits of a horror flick. She looked away as the final slide showed a photo of Chavez, but not before she caught the sinister look in his dark, menacing eyes.

She wiped her hands on the black knee-length skirt Scarlett brought along with a plum-colored sweater and her tall black leather boots. A shower and her favorite clothes had settled her adrenaline after the chaos back at the safe house. Now, anxiety ran rampant through her body, threatening to stop her heart.

She looked at Ryan, who sat behind a technology console embedded in a long, sleek silver table. The setup looked as high tech as Kane’s leg. “Please take that man’s photo off the screen.”

“Sorry.” Ryan tapped his computer. The display went blank for a second before the VIPER logo appeared. “I wanted to show you the history we found on the phoneinside Chavez’s car. We also found a stack of photos of you inside the glove box.”

She nodded as she wrapped her arms across her chest. Relief that her stalker had been finally apprehended and anger that he’d done it at all thrummed a volatile current through her body. She should be celebrating Chavez’s capture, or experiencing the catharsis of closure-induced tears, but neither happened. Something she couldn’t identify, more like didn’t want to acknowledge, paralyzed her body and brain.

After she’d watched Chavez’s car careen onto the lawn, Linc herded her to the SUV and brought her to headquarters. Once inside, she’d been escorted to a room to wait to be debriefed by Admiral Edgar. Neither Linc on the drive nor Edgar during the debriefing would explain how the tires on Chavez’s car had simultaneously blown. Edgar reminded her that everything she’d witnessed was classified and assured her Chavez was in FBI custody at the hospital with a concussion.

That had been hours ago. She wasn’t even sure what time it was. Midnight maybe? Was it Christmas Eve yet? Lord, she hoped not. Watching her nightmare unfold in sharp literary clarity did not make her wish list.

Neither did spending it in a sterile government facility. But Kane was in the building somewhere. Edgar assured her that Scarlett and Chris were home from their engagement-moon and at headquarters, safe and sound.

“Beth.”

She whipped her head to the door. Kane stood under the VIPER logo painted above the frame dressed all in black and looking every inch a super soldier, from his long-sleeve shirt to his tactical pants to his boots. He crossed the few feet and cupped her cheeks in his large hands, his gaze assessing every nuance of her face.

The concern in his gaze, his steady, powerful touch andhis earthy smell righted her tilted world enough to take a full breath. “Please tell me it’s over. Tell me Chavez’s associates are being rounded up and that I’m not a target any longer.” But even as the plea left her mouth, she knew the answer. She’d only known Kane a short while, but she could already read the truth in his eyes.

He wrapped his arm around her waist. Without letting her go, he pulled a chair from the conference table. “We just got word Chavez’s been drifting in and out of consciousness. The FBI hasn’t been able to get any information out of him yet.”

“Dammit.” Her stomach pitched in time with the pounding in her head. She collapsed into the chair. She’d been praying to God, Santa, and any other deity or mythical creature who might be listening for Chavez to wake up and spill the Diablos’ secrets so Triple X would be safe and she could enjoy Christmas with Kane.

Without the threat of him dying trying to protect me.

She pinched her nose to suffocate the thought.

I’m not a black widow.

The name still tasted like poison on her tongue, but it didn’t sicken her as much as it used to. Even though Kane had helped exorcise the curse, she didn’t have the strength to fight the stubborn tendrils that lingered.

Edgar strode into the room. He stopped at the head of the table next to Ryan. “We’re working under the assumption Chavez was your stalker but not the force behind snatching you to get the Triple X formula.”

Beth nodded, drowning in a weird state of relief and dread, and clinging to unsubstantiated hope. “But he could be both, right?”

Kane sat next to her. “I know you want this to end, but it’s not likely Chavez is behind everything. He was too easy to apprehend. We suspect he was doing a drive-by, trying toget a glance of you for his own sick perversion, and got sloppy. If he’d been acting under orders from his higher-ups to snatch you, there would have been a trained team like the one that ambushed us at the first safe house.”

She jabbed her fingers into her temples. Kane made sense, but she scrambled for a better explanation. “I get it, but maybe I’m not the cartel’s target. Maybe Chavez mobilized his buddies to come after me at the safe house because he’s obsessed. The history on his phone proves that. Maybe this was all about me and nothing about the drug.”

Edgar tugged at his mustache. “You’re the only one known as the Black Widow working on the project.”

“No, she isn’t.” Ryan shot up from his computer console so fast his chair spun. “We just got word that her colleague, Dr. Estelle Sable, has been reported missing since.”

Beth jumped from her chair. “Sable is a blackish color. And Estelle is a…” The pizza she’d eaten during her debrief threatened to come back up. “She’s a widow. A black widow.” The panic she’d kept at bay stormed through her like a nor’easter. “You have to find her. She’s in her seventies.” She swallowed bile. If the Diablo cartel’s tactics were half as torturous as Kane led her to believe, not only was Dr. Sable’s life in danger, but so were the millions of people who could benefit from Triple X.

“Fuck.” Kane looked at Ryan. “How did we miss this?” He shot his gaze back to Edgar. “And it doesn’t make sense. If Sable was their target all along, why did they come after Beth?”

Beth grabbed Kane’s shoulder and spun him to her. “Figure that out after you find Dr. Sable. She can’t withstand torture. She’s tough as nails, but…”

Edgar held his hand up. “There’s a team working on it. Once we confirm a location, we’ll extract her if necessary. I’ll keep you posted. In the meantime, don’t go anywhere byyourself until we get more information and are certain you aren’t a target.”

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