Page 135 of Lethal Game

Con glanced at the woman he held. He’d let her have her secrets because he had no intention of living past his chance for revenge. She’d changed him in ways he was still trying to process, but two things were clear. Death no longer appealed to him, no longer offered the solace he longed for.Shegave him that and he wasn’t letting her go. “Absolutely.”

Blairmore drew some blood, then disappeared with it. An aid worker found a cot for her and Con moved it so it was next to River’s. The staff started an IV with saline for Sophia and after a look at Con’s leg, one for him, too.

“Without the supply drop this morning we wouldn’t have been able to help,” the aid worker said. “We haven’t seen a new case of the illness in six hours.”

Because Akbar had run out of his poison.

“Do you think the worst is over?” the aid worker asked.

“Probably,” Con said wiping the blood off Sophia’s face for the umpteenth time. “Unless someone starts a riot.”

“People are much calmer now. Someone would have to work really hard to start a riot today.”

Smoke set up a patrol around the hospital, keeping an eye on everyone and everything.

Blairmore came back, and from the lack of color on the man’s face, the news was going to be bad. The doctor cleared his throat. “She’s very sick. Not with rabies,” he said quickly. “But her platelet count is dangerously low, the rest of her cell counts aren’t good either.”

A numbing cold flowed over him. “She had leukemia as a child,” Con told him. “It went into remission.”

Blairmore just nodded. “Most childhood leukemias are curable now, but there are always a few that...come back after the patient is an adult.” He swallowed, then added, “I’m not certain, you understand. I can only do cell counts here. She’ll need further testing at a fully equipped hospital to determine if I’m right.”

Con looked at the woman who held his heart, his life in her hands, and vowed to make sure she got the best care there was. “Thanks.”

Smoke drifted over after Blairmore left. “Does she know?”

He thought about all the things she said and hadn’t said. “She knows.” And she didn’t tell anyone, not him or Max.

“Huh,” grunted Smoke. “I thought you were the suicidal one.”

“Not anymore,” Con said. Unconscious and without the force of her personality, he noted how pale Sophia was, how black her eyes were. Her bones stood out against her skin and her lips looked bloodless.

She’d come close, perilously close to working herself to death. If she thought he was going to stand back and let that happen, she was in for a rude surprise.

A unit of Army Rangers arrived first. They secured the entire camp and Smoke finally ceased his unrelenting watch over the hospital and crashed on a cot alongside Sophia’s.

They were going to need their own wing at a real hospital at this rate.

Max arrived three hours later, took one look at their beat-up-looking group and ordered them all back to the base in Bahrain. River was going to need surgery, Con a blood transfusion, and Smoke was ordered to take forty-eight hours to rest.

When Max found out about Sophia’s cell counts he calmed down to an extent Con knew was not good. He stopped talking. He stood there, looking at her for so long that Con had to say something.

“She lied to us?”

“Yes.” Max’s gaze met his own and Con could see that her lies had hurt the other man deeply.

“Why would she do that?”

“I don’t know.”

There was a long moment of silence.

“You’re both stupid,” Smoke said.

When they looked at him in confusion, the big man added, “Cancer doesn’t just hurt the victim.”

“She didn’t tell us because she didn’t want either of us to worry?” He was going to spank her ass when she was better.

Max nodded. “Yes, that feels right.”

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