Chasing Victory (The Winters Sisters) (17 page)

Tristan rolled onto the bed taking Victory with him, still buried deep inside her. He had found heaven and he wasn’t ready to give it up.

Victory’s room phone starting ringing.

“That’s perfect,” Tristan grumbled. He reached for the phone and handed it to Victory. She started to move off him, but he grabbed her and pulled her close, needing this intimate connection for a few seconds longer.

She gasped and then steadied her breath. “Hello.”

“Ms. Winters, this is Max. We have a problem here in the lab. I need you here immediately.”

“Alright,” she responded. “I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

“Fine,” Max answered and hung up the phone.

“It was Max,” Victory said handing him back the receiver.

“I heard. He can wait a minute or two longer.” A devilish smile played across Tristan’s face.

SEVENTEEN

Tristan and Victory walked into chaos. Her previously organized workspace looked like a hurricane had torn through. There were papers on the floor, computers pulled from their outlets, broken glass, cracked storage cabinets, and broken up chairs. There were two additional men besides Max in the exam room attempting to tie Morgan down in his chair.

Tristan automatically jumped in front of Victory, shielding her from the commotion. “What the hell?” Tristan yelled, “someone’s not happy.”

The two men finally secured Morgan in the chair. All three turned to look at Tristan and Victory.

“Seems our client here isn’t happy with his current situation anymore.” Max growled as he entered the lab. “I’m sending for the doc, I want to give him something to calm him down.”

“No,” Victory replied. “If you dope him up he won’t be any use to me. You said that you need some results. Let me try and calm him.”

“Victory,” Tristan jumped in. “I don’t know if that’s such a great idea.”

Max looked from Tristan to Victory. “Fine, but if you can’t get him under control and I mean now, I’m calling in the doc.”

“I can,” she replied. “I need to call him by his name.” She was staring straight at Morgan.

“The boss didn’t want any names,” Max said.

“I can’t communicate with him if I don’t even know his name,” Victory hissed back, determined to stand her ground.

“Morgan.” Max snapped at her.

She glared at him. “Is that his first name or last?”

“Just Morgan.”

Great, Tristan thought to himself. If this was Morgan, that meant that Collin was yet to be seen, and from what Tristan had overheard last night, he was going to be even harder to handle. For now he would keep that to himself. No point in upsetting Victory, nor did he want her distracted.

“I need you and your men to wait outside.” Before Max had a chance to reply she continued on. “Your presence is irritating him. I have Tristan here if I need help.”

Max stood there surveying the scene looking from Morgan to Tristan to Victory. “Alright. The boss wants results, so I’ll give you a bit of leeway. But I’ll be right outside,” he said glaring at Morgan.

“I wouldn’t expect any less,” Victory snipped at him. Max signaled for his two men to leave the lab.

“You do have a plan, right?” Tristan asked.

“Sort of,” she said. Still smiling at him she continued telepathically, so as not to be overheard by any eavesdroppers.
“I have been trying to get him to respond to me telepathically over the past few days. I think I’m going to give it another chance.”
Victory was heading towards the exam room door.

“I’m coming with you.” Tristan replied.

Victory spun around and extended her arm, hand pressed against his chest. “No, please Tristan. You need to wait here in the lab. He will see you as a threat and I won’t get anything out of him.”

Tristan narrowed his eyes and looked from her to Morgan. “Okay, but if I see him so much as lift a finger in your direction he’s going to find out what kind of threat I can be.”

“Thanks.” She patted him with her still outstretched hand and smiled up at him.

God, she could melt his heart if he let her.

“Wish me luck.” She turned back and continued toward the exam room. She could feel Tristan’s stare burning into her back.

She opened the door, smiled at Morgan and without turning her back on him closed the door behind her.

“Hi, Morgan.”
Victory greeted him and remained motionless directly inside the doorway. A look of surprise briefly crossed his face, and was as quickly replaced with his look of hate
. “I’m sure you won’t believe me. But I really want what’s best for you.”
He stared at her making no response.
“Really Morgan, I want to help. I’m here against my will and I have a pretty good feeling you are too. At the very least, you didn’t know what you were getting yourself into. I want to help you.”

“Right.” His abrupt response surprised her. “That’s why you shoot me up with this stuff and study me like a lab rat.” It came out as a snarl.

A low buzzing started vibrating in Victory’s head almost chattering her teeth. She put her hands up to her temples and pressed. “That’s not what happened and you know it. I didn’t give you the serum, I’ve been trying to help your body adapt to what was given to you,” she said aloud.

“If you want to help me, get rid of this stuff, it’s making me crazy.” His pain showed on his face.

“Would it be alright if I took some blood from you?” She needed to make this look real while she continued to communicate telepathically. Victory waited patiently until she saw a slight nod from Morgan. Then she started toward him.
“It doesn’t work that way. That much I know for sure. The serum has bonded with your genetic makeup. With the research that I have done both here and before Braxton brought me here, the best that can be done is to create a buffer that will slow down the process and hopefully give your body time to adapt. With time I’m pretty sure I could come up with this solution.”

Morgan continued to glare at her, but nodded his head in understanding. “Great. I thought this was going to be an easy gig. Now you’re saying we’re changed for good.” he murmured.

“We?” Victory asked. The pain was starting to show on her face. “What are you doing?” She snapped looking Morgan dead on.

Morgan stared back at her, with a slight surprise. “You can hear that. I’m blocking any transmissions from leaving this lab. No one can hear us, doc.”

Amazement briefly overshadowed her pain. “You can do that? That could become very handy. But could you dial it back a tad, my head is throbbing.” A second later relief flooded her. “Thank you, Morgan. Can we still speak freely?”

Morgan nodded.

“Before you explain any further I would like to bring Tristan in on this conversation,” she said.

Morgan remained motionless staring at her.

“He’s here with me, he’s a good guy,” she said.

“He’s military,” Morgan replied. “He might be one of the guys that put us here.”

“Yes, he’s military. But really, he’s here to help you, he wasn’t involved with bringing you here,” she said.

Morgan was quiet, glowering through the glass as he sized Tristan up. “Okay, what the hell,” Morgan finally responded.

“Tristan, can you hear me?”
Victory threw the thought into Tristan’s mind.

Tristan broke his glare from Morgan, glanced at Victory and nodded.

“I’m fine. Morgan has agreed to include you in our conversation. Come in here and join us. He can put up a psychic force field so no one can hear us,”
Victory said.

“Great, but we better make this quick.” Tristan walked into the exam room. “I don’t know how much longer Max will be content to hang out. I’m getting a clear scent of impatience radiating off of him.”

“I understand. Morgan, tell us what happened,” Victory said.

“My teammate, Collin and I had hardly gotten back from a tour. We were told that we would be performing strength and endurance tests for Braxton’s corporation. We both volunteered, we figured it would be a piece of cake assignment, right,” he snorted.

“Before you came here did you have any special skills?” Victory asked.

“I’m a sharpshooter, in the Delta Force.”

“No, I mean like a sixth sense?” she asked.

“I’ve always been able to feel when there was an enemy approaching and at times I could mentally push them away from my position. Is that what you mean?” he responded.

“Yes, that’s it. The foreign DNA must be magnifying that natural ability, and reflecting it back as a force field, very interesting. How about Collin, has he ever said anything about special skills?” Victory pressed, excited at a possible lead.

“No, nothing,” Morgan said.

“That’s it!” she had found the first viable lead. A preexisting natural ability, that had to be the connection. “So Collin isn’t adapting as smoothly.”

“How did you know? No, he’s not doing well. I think he is starting to lose it,” Morgan replied. “He got out of the compound the other night. I was sent out after him.”

Tristan jumped in for the first time. “That seemed like the perfect time to get out of here, why come back?”

“That was my plan. But on the way out the door, Max described my baby sister to a tee. Told me what she had done that day and what she was wearing. He even showed me a dated picture on his phone. Then he informed me that if I didn’t come back with Collin he would have her shot. Shot. Terri is only eight years old, the bastard.” Morgan was hot. “I caught up to Collin as he was closing in on you two at the river. Sorry about him going after you. He seems to have periods when he’s not himself, and recently they seem to be happening more often.”

“Did you tell Max or anyone else that we were out there?” Tristan asked.

“No. So now it’s my turn to ask a few questions. Why are you here, Military?” Morgan asked as he scrutinized Tristan.

Tristan didn’t know how much he should tell him, but he knew he had to give him something to gain his confidence. “I was sent in to keep tabs on Victory. To pull her out if the need arose. I’m also trying to get some inside information on Braxton and the people working with him.”

“Do you have a way out?” Morgan asked.

“My team on the outside is working on that as we speak.”

“They’re here on the island?” Morgan asked.

“Yep.”

“Then let’s get the hell out of here,” Morgan said.

“It’s not that simple,” Victory stepped in. “I need to gather all the research that Braxton has. Together with my research, I’m certain that I will be able to help you and hopefully Collin. If we leave now I’m sure I could reconstruct the research, but it could possibly be too late for Collin and you.”

“For now we need to stick to what we have been doing. I’ll work on getting all of us out as soon as we can,” Tristan said.

The door to the lab swung open. Max came striding through. “At least you settled him down. That’s good. Now let’s get back to work.” He opened the door to the exam room, and instantly Victory noticed the buzzing stop.

“We are working,” Victory sassed him. “I was preparing to draw a new blood sample from Morgan,” she said as she pulled a syringe and large rubber band from her pocket. She tied the band around his upper arm and inserted the needle.

“Thank you,”
Morgan whispered in her mind.

She looked into his eyes. She felt the warmth of his words, but not the words themselves. She made a leap of faith.
“You’re welcome Morgan. I’m going to do all I can to help you and Collin, I promise.”
She smiled at him then withdrew the syringe, untied the rubber band and left the room.

* * *

“Wyatt, I’ve gotten additional information,”
Tristan was stretched out on a blanket next to Victory. They had taken their lunch to the beach away from the hubbub of the lunch room.

“Good to hear from you Tristan. What do you have for me?”
Wyatt responded.

Tristan debriefed Wyatt on the morning’s events
. “I believe the guy is for real,”
Tristan commented before Wyatt had a chance to ask.

“I’ll have Jack do some digging and see who assigned Morgan and Collin to Braxton. We’ve been running up against brick walls back here. We can’t get a clear lead on who is connected to this group.”

“So are you saying that you want us to stay for the rest of the week?”
Tristan surmised.

“At least for a few more days. The more information both you and Victory can gather, the better off we will be. It doesn’t look promising on my end at this point.”
Wyatt said.

“So, do you think Braxton is simply going to let us go home at the end of next week? And even if he does, we can’t leave Morgan and Collin here.”
Tristan said.

“I don’t know, probably not. Victory is too valuable to him. What I do know is that Braxton is not the kind of man that will allow Victory to leave if he feels there is anything she can still contribute to his cause,”
Wyatt said.

“I agree. We’ll stay here for a few more days. Then I think we should pull the plug, no matter what,”
Tristan said.

“
Sounds like a plan. In the meantime gather as much intel as possible and plan on pulling Morgan and Collin out with you. I’ve got a couple of outside guys that I can call in, I’ll put them on Morgan’s sister. Take care Tristan.”

“Always,”
Tristan assured his brother.

Tristan looked over at Victory lying beside him. Her eyes were closed and she looked so peaceful that he thought she had fallen asleep.

“So, what’s the scoop?” she said without opening her eyes.

“Wyatt wants us to stick it out here for a couple more days, gather as much information as we can. Then we need to plan on pulling out and taking the two men with us.”

She rolled over onto her side and propped herself up on one elbow. “I can’t leave. Braxton will do something awful to Payton. Besides, my time is up in ten more days. He promised to let me go home then, and he said he would leave my sisters alone.”

“Victory, do you really think Braxton is a man of his word? Do you really believe he is going to let you get on a helicopter and leave? You’re too valuable to him. At the very least he will try and convince you to come to work for him permanently and the very worst, he will kidnap you again.” He sat up and was staring down at her. Tears were gathering on her lids. The sight of her upset pulled at his soul.