Midnight Rising (Midnight Breed 4)

"There's a couple of messages here from the newspaper," he announced darkly. "And several outgoing calls to other New York numbers. Residence of one Sharon Alexander, a cell number for the same, and a connected call to a blocked number in Manhattan. That's the one we shut down."

Rio swore vividly. "Did you tell anyone about us just now? Or about what you've seen?"

"No!" she insisted. "I haven't said anything, I swear. I'm no threat to you - "

"There is the matter of the pictures you distributed, and the story you sent to your employer," the dark one reminded her, the way you might remind the condemned of why they were heading for the gas chamber.

"You don't have to worry about any of that," she said, ignoring Rio's harsh scoff as she spoke. "That message from the newspaper? That was my boss, letting me know I was fired. Well, technically it was an involuntary resignation, on account of the fact I no-showed an appointment in Prague because I was busy being abducted."

"You lost your job?" Rio asked, slanting her a scowl.

Dylan shrugged. "It doesn't matter. But I doubt at this point my boss is going to use any of the pictures or the story I sent him."

"That's no longer a concern." The grim one stared at her like he was measuring her reaction. "By now the virus program we sent him should have wiped out every hard drive in his office. He'll be putting out that fire for the rest of the week."

She really didn't want to feel the least bit happy about that, but Coleman Hogg up to his quivering jowls in hard drive crashes was one tiny bright spot in an otherwise unbearable situation.

"The same virus went out to everyone you distributed those photos to," he informed her. "That takes care of any hard evidence leaks, but we still have to deal with the fact that several people are walking around with knowledge we can't afford to let them keep. Knowledge they could, willingly or unwittingly, pass on to others. So we need to remove that risk."

Something icy settled in Dylan's gut. "What do you mean...remove the risk?"

"You have a choice to make, Miss Alexander. Tonight you will either be relocated into one of the area's Darkhaven sanctuaries under the protection of the Breed, or you will be returned to your residence in New York."

"I have to go home," she said, no decision at all. She looked at Rio and found him staring at her, his face unreadable. "I have to get back to New York right away. Do you mean I'm going to be free to go?"

That hard gray gaze turned to Rio now, without giving her an answer. "Tonight you leave for Miss Alexander's home in New York. I want you to handle things with her; Niko and Kade can scrub the other folks she's been in contact with."

"No!" Dylan blurted. The ice in her stomach suddenly turned into a glacial sort of fear. "Oh, my God - no, you can't...Rio, tell him - "

"End of discussion," the dark one said, directing his attention at Rio, not her. "You'll leave at dusk."

Rio nodded solemnly, accepting the orders like it didn't faze him at all. Like he'd done this sort of thing a hundred times before.

"As of tonight, Rio, no more loose ends." The flinty eyes slid pointedly to Dylan, then back to Rio. "Not one."

As his terrifying friend departed, Dylan turned shakily to Rio. "What did he mean, remove the risk? No more loose ends?"

Rio glowered over at her darkly. There was accusation in that piercing topaz gaze, a scathing coldness and very little of the wounded, tender man she'd been kissing in this very room just a short time ago. She felt cold under the blast of that hard glare, like she was looking into the face of a stranger.

"I'm not going to let you or your friends hurt anyone," she told him, wishing her voice didn't falter as she said it. "I'm not going to let you kill them!"

"No one's going to die, Dylan." His tone was flat, so detached it was hardly reassuring. "We're going to take their memory of what they saw in your photographs, and of anything you might have told them about the Breed or the cave. We're not going to hurt anyone, but we need to scrub their minds of any recollection of those things."

"But how? I don't understand - "

"You don't have to understand," he said softly.

"Because I'm not going to remember either. Is that what you mean?"

He looked at her for a long moment in silence. She searched his face for some hint of emotion beyond the stony resolve he projected. All she saw was a man fully prepared for the task he'd been given, a warrior committed to his mission. And none of the tenderness she'd seen in him before, or the need she thought he'd felt for her, was going to stand in his way. She was a captive at his mercy. An inconvenient problem he intended to eliminate.

Rio's brows came together slightly as he gave a vague shake of his head. "Tonight you go home, Dylan."

She should be happy to hear it - relieved, at least - but Dylan felt oddly bereft as she watched him leave the room and close the door behind him.

Chapter Twenty-one

He came back for her after a couple of hours and told her it was time to go. Dylan wasn't surprised that her next conscious memory was waking up in the backseat of a dark SUV as Rio brought it to a stop at the curb outside her Brooklyn apartment building. As she sat up drowsily, Rio met her gaze in the rearview mirror.