Zara detested the idea that Whitney might have paired them. She wanted one thing without his taint on it. She loved Gino. She loved the way he made love to her, even when it was wild and crazy or he was introducing her to things she hadn’t known could be done. She didn’t want to think that Whitney was in any way responsible. Gino brought his hand to the back of her neck, his fingers massaging. She knew he could feel the tension in her. She wanted to leave the room, not be around anyone while she tried to decide if Whitney had really used pheromones against them. She actually made a move, as if she might leave.
Gino leaned into her, put his lips against her ear. “Do you really think Whitney could make me love someone? You’ve got my heart, Zara. He couldn’t possibly make that happen. Settle. Let Trap puzzle this out. His mind is … something.”
She took a breath, made herself relax under Gino’s magic fingers. What did she know about Whitney? She was an observer. She’d trained herself to pay attention to the details around her. Whitney didn’t understand emotion, but he did love his flowers. He always had a hothouse and he spent time there.
“Trap, he spends time in his greenhouse. A huge amount of time. If he loves anything at all, it’s his flowers.” The moment the thought escaped, she was certain whatever that password was, it had something to do with his obsession with his flowers.
Trap’s gaze was fixed on her immediately. Speculative. “Simple,” he murmured. “Zara means ‘flower.’ ‘Orange flower’ in Italian. Hothouse. His only real emotion.” He repeated it, still rumpling his hair and staring at her. “Device named Fiore Brillante. Bright flower. Bright flower.” Once again his gaze went to Zara, his laser-like stare focusing completely on her.
She realized he wasn’t really seeing her at all. He was in his own mind, shuffling through a thousand possibilities and discarding them.
“You refer to the place he keeps his flowers as a hothouse, not a greenhouse, is that because he does?” Trap demanded.
“He never called it a greenhouse,” Zara said. She glanced at Bellisia for confirmation.
Bellisia shook her head. “It was always hothouse.”
“He thought the entire green conversation for the planet was taking too much attention off the military when we needed it most.”
“Try ZagarAINHothousE,” he said suddenly to Ezekiel. “Capitalize the first and last letter of each word. He likes to do that. With Bluetooth we don’t need the exact location of the SSD in her brain, just close to it, so get close.”
“Why that combination?” Ezekiel objected. “What’s your reasoning, Trap?”
“It’s Arabic, and a fusion of two words. Zara for ‘flower’ and ‘Zahara’ for beautifully bright,” Wyatt provided. “Zara is beautifully bright and she’s one of Whitney’s flowers.”
“Still doesn’t make sense. Why that specific spelling? Trap, how could you possibly come up with that phrase?” Ezekiel demanded.
“He named Zara after the word for flower in Arabic so it means something to him. He has a hothouse and grows flowers. Citrus flowers vary, but zagara specifically indicates sweet orange and bitter orange trees. If you travel and want to keep citrus, you’re going to have to grow it in a hothouse. Citrus can’t be grown everywhere. Then there’s the Italian input. Zara means ‘orange flower.’ Zagara has been in literature, specifically Italian literature. In the work, they mention a hothouse variety of zagara.” He shrugged. “I could be far off, but his mind works like that. He believes he’s very clever. We know he likes to capitalize the first and last letter of every word. It all comes back to Zara. She’s his shining star. His bright flower.”
“He didn’t think that of me,” Zara objected. “That I was beautifully bright.”
“He didn’t let you know he thought that,” Gino corrected. “Baby, no one could see you, know your skills, and not feel you shine bright. It just isn’t possible.”
Zara stiffened when Ezekiel moved very close to her and began typing into his small device. Her heart beat so hard she pressed her hand to her chest. What if they couldn’t get the information? Would she have to leave Gino? What if they got it and it fell into the wrong hands? She became aware of Gino rubbing his hand down her back soothingly and knew her breathing had changed enough to give away her fears to him.
“It’s entered, and the SSD seemed to accept it. Can you do your thing, Zara?” Ezekiel asked. “Tell the SSD to download to our device?” Clearly, he wanted to see if she could do it.
She held her breath, but nodded. Reaching for the machine, she gave it orders to connect with the device Ezekiel held. She felt the response, the way the machine accepted her energy and immediately, as if she were part of the hard drive, did her bidding. There was a moment of silence and then Ezekiel’s breath hissed out as he stared at Trap’s storage prototype in his hand.
“Holy fuck, Joe, she’s really got these files. They’re downloading right now. I can’t believe this. She didn’t do anything, say a word. Zara, has anyone ever told you that you’re a miracle? Because you are.”
“She is,” Gino agreed, “in more ways than one.”
Zara shivered, glancing warily toward Joe and then Trap. These were men who thought in terms of weapons and how they could use them. She had a gift that was unparalleled. As far as she knew, no one else could talk to machines, let alone give a speech and talk to them. Why had she let Whitney make her think she was worthless?
She glanced at Bellisia. Immediately Bellisia reached out and took her hand, smiling at her, pride in her eyes. “I knew you’d be able to do this.”
“I think Trap and the others helped.”
Trap shook his head. “The hothouse thing was the deciding piece in my mind.”
She had no idea how he could get Zagara in hothouse as a password, even after he explained it. Joe stood up and took out his cell phone, indicated to the others that he wanted silence. It was only a matter of seconds before it became apparent why.
“Whitney? Joe Spagnola here. Just thought I’d connect with you. Really hoped this phone number still worked. We just extracted the information from the SSD you installed in Zara’s brain. Very clever. She has a one in a million gift, doesn’t she?”
Joe was silent a moment, nodding his head. “Yeah, Trap figured it out. That was your main worry, wasn’t it? You knew once Trap was brought in it was going to be over. Stay out of Zara’s life. Keep your word this time. You want to send your supersoldiers against us once in a while to test them, we accept that, but you know Gino’s a wild card. You don’t want him set loose on you, and you take his woman, he’ll be coming after you. They’ll be no stopping him.”
Again, there was a small silence while Joe listened to Whitney. “No chance that I’ll send you any of that information. None, Whitney. I won’t bargain with you. You knew Violet was flawed, but you sent her out anyway and in the end, you may as well have pulled the trigger that killed her. You sent Zara after Cheng knowing what would happen to her. You’re never going to be my favorite person. I’m not the man who will help you. I’m telling you to back off Zara and giving you the warning that if you don’t, you’ll be contending with Gino.”
There was another silence. Joe shook his head. “Not happening. You can figure out who will end up with the information, if anyone does. For all I know, it will be destroyed.” They all knew better. Joe shrugged. “Don’t know. Don’t care. Just leave her alone, or you’re going to find out what happens when four teams of GhostWalkers decide to make you their number one priority. You need to start thinking about that.”
Again silence. Then Joe sighed. “I get it, Whitney. You’re a great patriot, blah, blah, blah. I’m getting damned tired of seeing the havoc you wreak with your fucked-up experiments on these women. You have no right to hold them prisoners. I’m hanging up now. Things happen if my temper gets loose, but you already know that, don’t you?” He ended the call and looked at Zara. “I believe he’s smart enough to take me seriously, honey.”
“Thank you.” She indicated the device where the information was stored. “What are you going to do with that?”
“I’m hand delivering it to Major General. It’s his problem, not ours. I wouldn’t want to be in his shoes when he gets this little bomb. It could blow up in his face. Again, not our problem. I’m leaving tonight.”
18