Submission Impossible (Masters & Mercenaries Reloaded 1)

“Where did Layne go?” Michael was the only one who wasn’t dying. He looked all whole and shit. Hadn’t even gotten blood on his clothes.

Noelle was moving under him.

“Her well-dressed corpse is at the bottom of the stairs,” Kyle managed through obvious pain. “She shouldn’t have run in those heels. Broke her neck. MaeBe?”

Hutch groaned as Noelle got out from under him and he hit the floor.

“Kyle?” MaeBe was crying. “I thought you were dead.”

From his place on the floor, he saw MaeBe struggle to her feet.

Noelle’s sweet face hovered over his. “Hutch? You’ve been shot.”

Yep, she was a smart one. “Multiple times. Tag’s going to yell at me because blood is hard on these floors.”

Tears fell from her eyes. “Don’t joke. Please. I love you so much. Please stay with me.”

He reached up with his good hand. “I’m going to be okay, baby. Ask Kyle where he put the duct tape.”

He heard the sound of the officers rushing in as Noelle cried and the world went dark.

Chapter Nineteen

The woman formerly known as Julia Ennis stood to the right of the nurses’ station. She had a clipboard in her hand and a professional-looking nametag. When the nurse had asked why she was walking the floor, she’d explained that she was with oversight and doing the first of her reports to the hospital board. This particular system was so large the nurse had simply shrugged and went about her business.

Of course if the nurse had called, she would have discovered that there really was an oversight committee and the name she was using was on it.

The hospital system was owned by a larger healthcare system, and that system was owned by a multinational conglomerate, and so on and so on, until no one could truly understand how much of the world was run by a few incredibly powerful men.

Men who were going to be deeply upset that she’d been outplayed by a naïve chemist and a dumbass, do-gooder hacker.

She couldn’t explain to them that she thought it had been the presence of Kyle Hawthorne that had done her in. Like he always did.

After all, he’d been the one to kill her.

The door came open and two kids strode out. Carys and Luke Taggart. Carys was fifteen with auburn hair, and Luke was eleven and already had an inch on his sister. Neither looked like Kyle, but they might be a fun way to twist a knife in his heart since she knew how much he cared for his half siblings.

They walked by, chattering like the sheep they were about something Aidan had done and how someone named Kala was going to end up in military school if she didn’t stop making trouble.

She barely heard them since that door was taking a while to close and she could see him.

Kyle. The love of her life. The man she intended to pay back for the hell he’d put her through.

She didn’t know if she would kill him yet. He really was too beautiful to die, but love was supposed to be forever. It wasn’t supposed to wilt simply because one of the lovers found out the other understood the world and her place in it. He’d folded quickly when he’d discovered her side job and brought the CIA down on her head.

She’d barely survived him. He’d cost her everything, even her face since she’d needed surgery to hide the fact that she wasn’t as dead as they thought she was.

Yet here she was—just a girl standing in front of a boy’s hospital room asking him to love her.

Her cell phone buzzed and she sighed because the door was closed again, and it would be a while before she got another glimpse of him. She stepped away and answered the call. She didn’t need to look at the number. There was only one person who ever called. Kyle had cost her all her other relationships. Not that there had been many. A few women and men she referred to as friends. Her mom had been useful from time to time.

Now there was only the man on the other end of this call, the one who sent her out to do the bidding of her bosses.

“Hello?”

“I’d like to know why I’m hearing rumors about Drew Lawless buying Genedyne.”

Fuck. She felt her jaw tighten. She’d wondered why the tech billionaire had visited the day before. He’d shown up with his wife and kids and disappeared into the hospital room Kyle was sharing with Greg Hutchins. Lawless wasn’t in her group. The truth of the matter was Lawless wasn’t big enough to be welcomed into the Consortium, even if he hadn’t been an uptight Boy Scout no one trusted. But he was big enough to do some damage. “I suspect Taggart called him in. Or Hutchins. He’s done some work for Lawless’s company over the years, and he’s still friends with Lawless’s brother-in-law. I suspect he’s trying to save Noelle LaVigne’s work.”