Ava pinned her in place with a cool look. “I should think you’d appreciate a tactical advantage, given what’s at stake.”
“Well, I don’t.” Nina tossed the knife to the nearest mercenary, who caught it reflexively. “I’m a fighter, not a murderer.”
“You and your damnable honor. You haven’t changed a bit, have you?”
“Come on, Ava. You know better.” Nina lowered her voice to a taunting croon. “What’s that old saying about leopards and spots?”
Ava glared at her for another moment before waving at Luna. “Cut the girl free and get me a tablet.”
The mercenaries leapt to obey. Luna eyed them warily but remained still as they removed her bonds, though she shoved one away when he attempted to help her to her feet.
Another man returned with an expensive folding tablet. Ava opened it and tapped in a code, then offered it to Luna. “This should be sufficient for your needs.”
Luna stared at it for a moment, but even her obvious shock and confusion couldn’t keep her hands off of it for long. She cradled the tablet like something precious and frowned. “You want me to optimize his implant?”
“I want you to fix him,” Ava replied shortly. “After all, he’s just one man. You may as well soothe my sister’s overactive conscience.”
Luna’s fingers began flying over the screens. Hopefully, she was just as brilliant as Ava had claimed, and she’d find a way to get Knox back up to full fighting speed. Even then, Nina still wasn’t sure they’d be able to plow their way through Ava’s mercenaries.
It was a slim chance. But it was their only one.
* * *
SECURITY MEMO
Franklin Center for Genetic Research
HS-Gen16-B’s employer has been found. Cause of death: asphyxiation. Forensics techs are still attempting to trace her digital activity over the past few months. We suspect she may have been embezzling assets from her employer’s business for at least that long.
Even half of his money would make her one of the richest people in Washington. I don’t like to imagine what she could do with those kinds of resources.
Dr. Keller, April 2082
* * *
TWENTY-THREE
Knox’s cheek stung. His muscles trembled with the effort it had taken to check his instincts and not respond to Nina’s attack with one of his own.
Letting someone slowly cut you to pieces was even harder than it sounded.
Maybe that was why it had taken him this long to recognize the glint in her eye. That perfectly arched eyebrow demanded that he stop. Think. Understand. It required the intimacy of knowing Nina. Knowing her team. Knowing what they were capable of risking.
Everything, always. Even for people who might not deserve it.
A tiny frisson of electricity snaked up his spine. Not from the realization, but because Luna had connected to his implant. It always felt like a prickle at first, mild and hardly painful, but still discomfiting. The doctors always swore it was psychosomatic, but the fact that there were no nerve endings in his brain to feel the implant didn’t matter. Like Conall’s brain overriding the anesthetic, Knox’s brain understood what was happening and filled in the blanks.
In the heartbeat before the calibration kicked in, Knox caught Conall’s flinch and Rafe’s slightly widened eyes, and he knew.
He knew.
Luna, their glorious, ridiculously talented genius, was doing the impossible. She was fixing all of them.
The jolt hit him then, and Knox gave in to it with an unnecessarily dramatic groan. He hit his knees, drawing all of the attention in the room—just in time. Conall swayed, and Rafe jammed a shoulder against him to hold him up. Knox let out a roar that could have been agony, keeping all of the morbidly fascinated gazes in the room fixed on him.
Just a show. A good show. Because nothing hurt. Strength washed through him on a blissful wave, sweeping away a hundred aches and a bone-deep lethargy that had crept over him so slowly, he hadn’t realized how far he’d fallen.
The wave broke inside him, and it wasn’t just his body that was reborn. The cleansing feeling roared through the broken, agonized wreckage of his mind and erased the past week of tortured indecision. The misery of terrible choices fell away as he drew in an unsteady breath and released it on a laugh that must have sounded insane.
He’d never felt more stable in his life. He was Garrett Knox, commanding officer of the Silver Devils. The best damn soldier to ever come out of the Protectorate, operating at full strength and angry as hell.