“How about my freedom?”
He had the grace to wince. “You’ve got me on that one, but once you finish with the project, I’ll make sure your reputation is restored and that you get full credit for all the good that’s going to come out of this. And you know there will be good that comes from this. You’ll thank me in the end when you win a Nobel Prize for medicine.” He knelt down beside her, every ounce of his charm used to make her believe. “Here’s something they don’t know. I found something in Colorado that led me to another one of her facilities. I found one dose of what Dr. McDonald thought was the cure. I need you to break it down for me so we can move forward with this project.”
“You have a cure?” That cure could be the key to Alzheimer’s and dementia. If McDonald had truly figured out how to reconnect those neural pathways, it could open up a thousand doors.
“I think so. I’m not sure. I only know that I found something she thought was the cure,” Levi replied. “She’d made it specifically for one of the men in Owen’s unit. She wanted him to remember something. We can use it for something more, can’t we?”
He knew exactly what to say to her. He knew how to get inside her head and coax her.
“Don’t listen to him, love,” Owen said.
“Wait a minute.” Paul seemed to forget he was trying to make himself invisible. He strode across the large room, a steely look in his eyes. “I thought you were going to ensure she never had power again. Now you’re planning on giving her one of the major finds of the century? You’re going to hand over the cure to dementia? That was not our deal.”
Mo Chou rolled her eyes. “I should have known you’d be difficult.”
Green stood again, facing off with Paul. “Our deal was that I wouldn’t turn you over for setting up Dr. Walsh for embezzlement. You get her research and you get to take over the Huisman Foundation. You can be happy with that or not. It’s your choice.”
Mo Chou moved toward the back of the house. There was a hallway under the balcony that Becca thought led to the kitchen and the garage. “My team should be here in half an hour. We’ve got a plane ready. I’m going to make a phone call. Is that creepy kid still around?”
“That’s my son,” Paul said between clenched teeth. “Another reason you should have taken them somewhere else. I have a child. He can’t be involved in this.”
“Maybe you should have thought about him before you started doing criminal things.” Becca was done with that asshole. She managed to get to her feet. “Maybe you should have thought about a lot of things. You won’t get away with this. Cathy knows I wouldn’t do this.”
“Becca, darling, please sit down,” Owen said, pleading in his voice.
Paul stepped into her space. “Cathy doesn’t matter. She can fall in line or I’ll deal with her, too. I’m done being everyone’s whipping boy. I want this project.” He turned to Green again. “I’m every bit as smart as she is, and we can do it all here. I have a whole foundation at my fingertips.”
Her first impulse was to stand in front of Paul and let him know exactly how she felt. But Levi Green was speaking to him in hushed tones, and that meant he wasn’t paying attention to her. She moved to Owen.
The massive man who’d spoken not a word stepped in her way.
“Please let me talk to him. I want to make sure he’s okay. I’m a doctor.” Maybe they would buy it. He didn’t move an inch. She decided on a different tactic. “What do you think I’m going to do? You’re right here. I don’t have any weapons on me. I want to talk to him.”
“Donnie, she’s harmless,” Green said. “And she likely has a few words to say to our friend. Why don’t you stand by the door and make sure Mo Chou doesn’t decide to take more than she’s been offered? I can handle this.”
She dropped to her knees in front of Owen, looking him over as best she could. She felt stronger now. At least her limbs moved. “Are you okay?”
He shook his head. “It doesn’t matter. I need you to listen to me, Becca. You do whatever he wants, do you understand me?”
His eyes were clear, though there was a cut on his forehead. Someone had cleaned him up and dressed the small wound. “What are they going to do to you?”
“It doesn’t matter.” He stared at her as though he could force his will on her. “You do whatever he asks of you and you wait for the right time. Someone will find you and they’ll come for you.”
“Which is why we should kill them both and let me take over the project,” Paul argued.
Green ignored him. “They won’t come after either of you. I intend to give them something else to run after. I’ll give them just enough of whatever I find to satisfy them. I have no intention of playing Hook. Yes, I know Tag calls you the Lost Boys. Hook was an idiot. By the time I’m done, we’ll all be friends. They’ll forget about you because you were never truly one of them.”
“I assure you my team won’t forget,” Owen said.
Levi chuckled slightly as he started to approach Owen. “Your team? You know you’re only a part of them because Knight didn’t know what else to do with you, right? Your old partner, Nick Markovic, is the reason you didn’t get kicked to the curb. The way I heard it, he fought to keep you with the team when Big Tag wanted to get rid of you.”
She looked at Owen, her heart breaking because he was so strong and they were trying to bring him low. She’d been angry all day and she’d had a right to be, but somehow looking at him now, she couldn’t work up the will to hate him. Maybe she’d never hated him. Raged at him. Been hurt by him. But under all of it there lay a deep and never-ending longing she’d never felt before.
“Doesn’t matter,” Owen said, forcing his head up to look at his enemy. “Doesn’t matter what happens to me. They won’t leave her behind. They’ll come for her. You can kill me here and they’ll still move heaven and earth to find her.”
Green seemed to consider it for a moment. “Because they all want a cure? It doesn’t seem like poor Tucker did. My source tells me he cries a lot when he thinks about who he used to be. That must have been something. That little ray of sunshine as a psycho. Makes me think of Mengele with a movie-star face. I don’t know that he’s going to fight for the doc here.”
Now Owen shifted his focus. She knew the words he spoke were meant for Green, but his will was all directed at her. “He will. Tucker will come for her not because he wants a cure but because we’re brothers and I love her. He’ll save her because I would do the same for him. Because I would risk my life to save River and Ariel and Erin, even though she might not thank me for it. That’s what I didn’t understand before. We are a family no matter what, and we protect what each brother loves.”
Levi stood in front of him and for a moment, Becca was terrified he would lash out. Then he sighed and stared down at Owen. “It must be nice to have a brother who cares about you, who acknowledges you. I suppose I’ll have to be ready for it when they come for her then.” He turned around, facing Becca again. “Now, Doctor Walsh, or should I call you Rebecca? After all, we’re going to get close, you and I.”
“I swear if you touch her, I’ll kill you,” Owen said.
“In a few hours you’ll be on your way to Beijing. I don’t think you’ll do anything to me.” Green dismissed him utterly. “Now we need to talk about where that package is because I might have something McDonald called the cure, but I’m going to need the rest of her research. I think you have it. If we’re going to restart Project Tabula Rasa, I need the background materials.”
Something tightened in Owen’s eyes, like he was trying to tell her something. Like he was desperate for her to do something. Or not do something.
“I don’t know where it is.” She breathed a sigh of relief as that tightness eased. “We were talking about it when you decided to nearly murder us all.”
“Again, apologies.” Green gave her a courtly bow and offered her a hand up.