Page 25 of Ballistic

For the next hour, I lay beside Dax, focusing on the muscles in his arms that had gone slack, yet the contact with him still had my skin buzzing with contentment. I could’ve left and gone back to my room, but I didn’t.

I lay there listening to his slow and steady breathing and closed my eyes.

As I did so, something clicked. The distorted fragments came together in perfect clarity, as the fog from my slowly encroaching sobriety lifted just enough to see what I couldn’t before.

What’s your purpose, Nicoleta?

My eyes flipped open. Suddenly, I remembered.

10

Dax

One arm wrapped around a pharmacy bag, which held Nicoleta’s antibiotics, some vitamins and a pack of smokes, I clicked off the phone call and climbed the stairs to the apartment. Doc Aikens had called to let me know that all Nicoleta’s lab work had come back negative, including the pregnancy test she’d performed. The antibiotics would clear up the Staph infection she’d apparently developed on her leg. Nothing too serious, in spite of how it looked. I’d made a point to let her know how she’d progressed over the last couple days, getting stronger by the hour, which meant she was on the homestretch.

The first few days getting off Hedonic were straight up hell, but after a week, the effects tended to lessen dramatically.

The apartment stood silent when I opened the door and made my way across the small space toward her bedroom.

She lay facing the window across the room, as I entered.

“How are you feeling?” I set down the bag, noticing the way she held her arms slightly crooked, which might’ve suggested some stiffness. The sweats and fresh T-shirt still lay draped on the chair, where I’d set them out for her before running out to the store.

“Better today.” She rubbed the faint markings reddening her skin, from the restraints she’d worn the day before, and kicked herself backward toward the wall, knees to her chest. “What day is it?”

Good question. The days seemed to merge into each other so much, even I didn’t know. I tugged the phone from my pocket to check. “October second,” I said, stuffing the phone back into my jeans.

“You’re one of them.”

Frowning, I crossed my arms over my chest. “One of whom?”

“Their little circle.” She lifted her chin, eyes cast toward my arm. “That’s why you wear their tattoo?”

“I’m not one of them, I can promise you that.” For fuck sakes, the thought of that made me ill.

“Then, why do you wear their mark? Why would you brand yourself with it?”

I nabbed the chair set beside her bed and spun it around, resting my elbows on the back of it as I plopped down on the seat. “I’ve spent nearly an entire year trying to infiltrate their group. They don’t let outsiders in without it.”

“You think you can take down an organization like that? Do you have any idea how big they are?”

“I wasn’t trying to take down their entire organization. I just wanted Tesarik. And to find you.”

Brows pinched, she paused in rubbing at her wrists. “Why? What value am I for you?”

“A human life.” I lifted the antibiotics from the bag and dumped one of the pills and a vitamin into the palm of my hand. “Doc says your thigh is infected. She called in an antibiotic for you.”

“What’s the other?”

“A vitamin.” Hand outstretched, I offered the two, watching her wary eyes scan over them. “I’m sending you back tonight.”

Those eyes flicked to mine, and all I could surmise in them was anger staring back at me. “Sending me back? Where?”

“Not to Tesarik. To your father. Dmitry is your father, right?”

Her eyes narrowed, and she popped the pills into her mouth, washing them down with a glass of water from the nightstand. “What do you know of him?”

“He contacted me before I found you. Gave me a number to reach him.”