Robert moved forward to assist her and caught her hand in his. She felt the slow draw of his finger over the back of her hand, a familiar stroke he often used when they met. Come to think of it, Robert often found an excuse to touch her.
Nothing sexual, just platonic touches to endear himself, or so she'd once thought.
Not sure why she'd never noticed it before, she instinctively pushed a psychic block at the contact. Then she caught the faint trace of Melissa Ramirez on him.
Stunned and not sure what to think, she kept her expression pleasantly polite and nodded her thanks. “I'll see you later, Robert? Dinner, my treat.” She forced a smile and glanced at Berstrom.
Robert's lips quirked. For an older man, he kept himself in shape. Thick black hair threaded with silver was coifed in a sophisticated cut and gave him a polished look. His nails, his grooming, even his manners were always so carefully displayed.
Wondering if Melissa thought to use Robert against them or if Robert could possibly be an enemy to beware, Alicia kept up her internal shields while projecting friendship and the scent of trust. Unlike others of her kind, Alicia could and did scent emotions. Robert's seemed typically driven, nothing dark or untoward. Yet Alicia couldn't help feeling a bit hazy where he was concerned. Too bad Olivia or Jesse couldn't have accompanied her. She could have used their input.
No matter. By projecting her own light scent of trust, she'd control the players of this game she had no intention of losing. Her Circs, her great-great-granddaughter, and her entire future depended upon coming out the winner.
Her mind now on this new mystery, she slowly made her way from the room into the hallway. She walked down the corridor toward Admiral London's office in this five-sided puzzle palace. Time to see just how deep Lonnie had sunk in this quagmire of deceit.
He watched carefully as she walked down the hall. Lonnie had to make damn sure the woman couldn't see the truth. She had eyes like a bat and the intuition of a soothsayer. For all he knew, she really did see the future. Alicia Sharpe knew enough to be dangerous, like that asshole Kisho Hayashi. Personally, Lonnie had no use for prognostication. What was the use of knowing a future that might or might not come true? It gave him a headache to ponder the probabilities—if tomorrow would happen because he'd affected it that way, or because it was meant to happen.
Fortunately, his talent lay elsewhere. He'd been working his mojo on Sharpe for years. Though they'd only come together officially on this project, he'd set the stage some time ago. He needed her to trust him, and with the press of his fingers against her hand, those harmless handshakes, he'd infused a link she had yet to deny. He had her right where he wanted her. If she'd found him out, she'd have killed him long ago.
He could respect that. From one predator to another, taking out the weak, disabling the enemy, made sense. And speaking of weak… He felt the small note Melissa had left in his jacket pocket and wanted to kill her, right the fuck now. He'd been so careful for so long. Apparently, forcing her to leave the other night hadn't done him any favors. The bitch had sneaked an apologetic love note into his inside pocket, amid a few other business cards he'd tucked away.
He had only himself to blame, of course. He should have gone through his things before coming to work. Aside from Sharpe, there were hidden psychics running amuck in the Pentagon, more turnouts from the PWP. Both a blessing and a curse. While he took credit for the project's successes, he also had to guard against being found out. Unfortunately, he couldn't count on all of his men standing by him, not when he sometimes awarded foreign nations rights that ran counter to American objectives.
Lonnie tried to shrug off his concern. If Sharpe had detected him or his tie to Melissa, she would have confronted him about it. It's not as if he hid from her, not with his office a stone's throw from Berstrom's.
Berstrom suddenly stood with a sick smile. “Admiral. So good to see you here.
Robert and I were just finishing up.”
“I just wanted to make sure our budget for the next fiscal year is in order. No worries, right, Berstrom?”
All three men nodded at one another, the semblance of friendly camaraderie one that they all knew to be false.
“Things are fine, Admiral,” Berstrom answered in a chipper voice. “Just fine.” And it would be. Just as soon as Alicia and her Circs were no more. Time to scrap the Dawn Endeavor project, finally, and move on to bigger and brighter things.
Chapter Eight
Gunnar sat in the cabin where he could think, away from everyone and everything. He couldn't help it. He knew Jules and the others needed him. Admiral London was due to visit in another fourteen hours, and they needed to prepare. But fourteen hours was half a day away. He had some time to kill.
Time to kill, not people to kill.
Regret for the way he'd ended things with Ava hit him hard. His berserker and beast refused to rise, weighted down under lashing sorrow. For all that he'd claimed he'd killed his girlfriend and sister, he could too easily see their happy faces glowing just for him.
Gentle Sophie, his younger sister. He remembered white-blonde hair and blue eyes. A soft smile, that special pleasure she reserved just for him. The poor kid hadn't had much to smile about growing up dirt poor under the stern eye of an autocratic dickhead. And what about Susanna? For all that he thought he'd loved her, would never live without her, he'd survived long enough to join the navy, become a SEAL, a Circ, and fuck anything that moved.
At first the sexual needs had felt like a betrayal. But since screwing other women had hurt him as much as it soothed his physical needs, he'd reveled in the emotional pain, because he deserved it. If he'd been less selfish, less concerned with his fucked-up need for affection and belonging, he never would have invited Susanna into his life, and she'd still be alive today.
Sophie he should have protected, and he knew that. She'd always been in danger, but Susanna had been a true casualty of bad timing and the bad taste to see something good in him.
A replica of his father, Gunnar had the same height, the same brawn, the same cold, ice blue eyes, or so his mother had repeatedly told him before she'd died.
The bitter woman had blamed him for so much. Too weak to leave his father, she'd put the fault for Eric Tersch's abuse at Gunnar's hands.
You’re too loud, too quiet. Too neat, too sloppy. Hurry up. Slow down. No matter what he did, he was fucked. She doted on Sophie, though. His father did too, until he drank or forgot how much loved her. Sophie was the little ray of sunshine in a house from hell.
Was it any wonder he'd killed his father? Tersch had been born and trained to destroy—by example.
Eric Tersch loved order, and he loved control. The raging beast was never far from his father's mind. No, not a beast. A berserker. The fucker didn’t deserve a beast. He’d have killed it for being a pure-hearted thing. Though Tersch's beast liked his anger, he knew better than to harm because of it. His beast protected the innocent. Always. It was the berserker that went off half-cocked.
His beast puffed up with pleasure at the distinction before urging Tersch to return to the mansion to find Ava. Claim her. Need her. Love her.
Tersch rubbed his eyes, so tired of fighting himself all the time. “Christ. I do love her. That's why I'm protecting her from it, you bastard.” And now I’m crazy for talking to my schizoid beastly personality. Fuck.