Page 28 of Too Guarded to Love (Project VIPER #3)

N ic didn’t speak as he hurried through the underground hallway. Rage coursed through his blood as he guided Olivia around a corner.

She tugged on his arm. “Where are we going?”

“War room.”

“War room? I don’t like the sound of that.”

“Above ground, we meet in a conference room. If we’re down here, it means shit’s gone sideways, so it’s a war room.” And shit had definitely gone sideways. The mind comms he’d received had twisted things even more.

“How did you know we were needed? You did that thing back there where you get all stiff and serious and look like someone is talking to you from the beyond.”

“I get messages here.” He held out his arm and showed her the communications unit embedded in his wrist.

She raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t see you look at your arm, and I didn’t hear anything beep.”

“It vibrates.” He wasn’t lying. Before Scarlett implemented the mind comms technology, their communications unit beeped and vibrated with incoming messages.

She gripped his hand as he reached for the doorknob. “Am I supposed to be in there? The war room sounds like a classified area.”

“My orders are to stay with you twenty-four seven. Until I’m told otherwise, you’re with me.

” He opened the door. The sound of Olivia's pleasure still resonated through him like a symphony he’d never get out of his head.

He didn’t however, worry about Kane looking at him and somehow knowing he’d just given his sister an orgasm that made her scream.

The only emotion that could possibly be apparent in his countenance was controlled fury.

“And the intel we just received concerns you.”

She stopped short on the threshold. “What kind of intel?”

“Come on.” He nudged her inside the war room, which mirrored the conference room upstairs except in size. “You’re about to find out.”

Ryan sat at the head of the silver conference table that could seat a dozen, instead of two like the one above ground.

Talking under his breath, he tapped on several computer touchscreens like he was playing one of those boardwalk games where you whack a furry critter back into its hole with a hammer.

A projector screen to fit the smaller room rolled down from the ceiling as he lifted his gaze and spotted Olivia.

“Edgar arranged the necessary security clearances for you to be down here.”

“Wow. Not that I know much about how these things work, but he made that happen fast.”

“Well, he’s Edgar.” Ryan handed her a stack of papers as he shrugged his shoulders. “By signing these, you vow under penalty of imprisonment what you see and hear at VIPER headquarters stays classified. Are we clear?”

Nic watched the post-orgasm rosiness in her cheeks cool with the gravity of the situation. She nodded as she accepted the folder with the Department of Defense seal embossed across the center.

Linc and Kane filed in and took seats as Olivia sat in the chair Nic pulled out for her and signed her name on the multiple dotted lines. With a tap on the last page, she closed the folder. “Done. Any update on Gran? Did she make it down here okay?”

Kane caught his sister’s eye from across the table. “I just came from her room. She’s still out, but her vitals are good. Patience is confident she’ll wake up soon.”

Linc reached across the tabletop and touched Olivia’s fingers. “Gran is the most stubborn woman I know. That’s one of the reasons I love her so much.”

Kane chuckled. “That’s because she puts up with you when you get moody like a teenage girl.”

“Fuck you, farm boy.” Linc flipped his middle finger as he kept his gaze on Olivia.

“Gran is going to wake up when she’s good and ready, don’t you worry.

And as soon as she does, you can bet she’ll be asking when she can get out of here so she can go home and cook us all her famous Irish stew and apple pie. ”

“Yeah, that’s exactly what she’ll do. And soon. Her body and brain need rest. She’s just recharging both.”

Olivia’s optimistic answer didn’t hide the fear in her voice.

Kane’s nod didn’t hide his either. Nic wished he could stand over Gran and use a V-Strike to jump-start something and wake her up.

Olivia and Kane had already endured the loss of their parents.

If his heart was aching at the thought of losing Gran, he couldn’t imagine what they felt.

Hell, he’d mourned the loss of a father he’d never known and a mother who’d punished him if he struck out at a baseball game.

Olivia handed the folder to Ryan. “Now that I’m all cleared to learn national secrets, can you tell me what’s going?—”

Her head snapped to the door as a feminine curse carried from down the hall. The folder in her hand dropped to the table with a thud as Scarlett stalked through the doorway. Chris and Edgar followed a few feet behind as if afraid to get too close to the fuming scientist.

Scarlett threw a file folder on the table as she looked around the room. “If any of you ever have the opportunity to kill my stepfather again, I beg you to take it.”

Nic stiffened. “What’s happened?”

“Henry Richardson is what happened. I swear that man, who thinks he’s a king and is above the law, is a menace whether he’s wearing pinstripes or prison stripes.”

Scarlett paced to the end of the long conference room and back.

Her shoes clicked on the tile. “Why can’t he just rot in prison like a normal criminal?

No, Henry always has to have the upper hand, whether he’s behind his desk in that damn house he insists on calling a mansion or inside the boardroom.

And now he thinks his office is a prison cell. I swear that man…”

Olivia leaned into Nic. “Why is everyone just watching her?”

“She rants when she’s nervous or pissed. It’s best to let her go until she’s through.”

“Well, she looks fabulous doing it in those red boots. They match her sweater perfectly. She and I need to go shopping.”

Nic laughed into her hair. “She hates shopping. Beth likely bought them for her.”

“Then Beth and I need to go shopping.”

“You should. The president’s birthday party is a black-tie affair.”

“Am I really invited?”

“If you’ve got the security clearance to be in this room, you’re good to go at the White House.”

Scarlett stopped pacing and sank into a chair. “Anyone care to guess where the great Henry Richardson is?”

Linc snickered. “Working as a greeter at ValueMart? That’s the last place anyone would look for a guy who thinks he’s a king.”

Chris laughed. “Richardson wouldn’t stoop to a blue-collar level. He’s holed up with a woman somewhere in the lap of luxury.”

“We have a winner.” Scarlett stood as a photo of Maria Chavez, the leader of the Diablo Mexican drug cartel, appeared on the screen. “Meet my new alleged stepmother.”

Kane rose from his chair so fast it slammed into the wall behind him. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

Chris rubbed the ink on the back of his shoulder as he stood and moved to Scarlett’s side.

“I wish I were kidding.” Scarlett picked up the folder she’d slammed on the table and shook it toward Kane.

“According to intel, my stepfather, who tried to sell me to a Middle Eastern terrorist faction, married—in God’s eyes, of course, and not legally since they’re both wanted criminals—the head of the drug cartel that tried to kidnap your fiancée.

I’m pretty sure that makes us step-somethings or other. ”

Even though the news alarmed the shit out of him, Nic smiled.

Valentina was doing a great job following through on the deal she’d made with the Department of Defense to funnel information about the Diablos from her sources deep within the cartel.

She hadn’t been kidding when she said she’d happily help send her mother and the rest of her family to prison for the atrocities they’d committed.

If she turned out to be working both ends, he’d miss her when she went to jail.

Linc pulled out his phone and scrolled. “Checking to see where the newlyweds have registered so we can send a wedding present. Do you think they’re under Chavez or Richardson? Or maybe Diablo?”

“Try Deadly. And make sure you send some cyanide with the gift.” Nic slipped his hand under the table and rested it on Olivia’s knee. Richardson and Chavez alone were bad enough. Their blessed union and ties to Middle Eastern terrorists could only mean double the evil.

Olivia stared at the screen. She opened her mouth, but no words came out as she looked at her brother. “Jeez, Kane. You told me Beth was targeted because of a project she was working on at the National Health Agency. You didn’t tell me she was kidnapped by the Diablos.”

He glanced at the folder of documents next to Ryan’s elbow. “Now that you’ve signed your life away, you know. And now you know why we’re hypervigilant around here.”

“I wish I didn’t know any of this.” She rubbed her injured shoulder. “Jesus. Terrorists and cartels? I should have just called about my problems instead of flying here. Now I’m trapped underground in this crazier than fiction VIPER-verse.”

“VIPER-verse?” Linc laughed. “You must read the same shit as Nic and Valentina.”

Yeah, she did, and Nic loved that. He squeezed her knee as he ignored visions of his favorite sex scenes with a certain sirena as the star.

He’d never fantasized about turning fiction into reality with Valentina.

But dammit, Olivia would look too hot for words in his bed, her face flushed and her knuckles white as she gripped the headboard while he?—

His thoughts halted as she swayed closer to him. He dipped his head to her ear. “You okay?”

“I should have stayed in Atlanta.”

“You did the smart thing coming here.”