Author: Jaci Burton

At Wild Riders, the guys were all waiting for them, and when she produced the jump drive and pronounced her mission a success, she was greeted with whoops and hollers and clapped on the back, as if she was one of them. Admittedly, that felt damn good.

Grange smiled as she handed over the jump drive.

“Well done, Lily,” he said. “Now let’s see what we’ve got here.”

Mac took her hand and pulled her aside as the rest of them headed into Grange’s office.

“I know you’re upset about your dad, even though you like to act as if you don’t care.”

She shrugged. “I’m fine with it. Used to it.”

He smiled, the tenderness in his eyes unnerving. “I know how that feels. But you have no family other than your father. And I know what it’s like to feel alone. Even when I had family, I was alone. My parents were drunks, they didn’t want the responsibility of having a kid around and wished I’d just as soon disappear off the face of the earth. They didn’t want me, so I made sure to stay as far away from them as I could.”

Her heart ached for him, for the way he grew up. She cupped his cheek and pressed a soft kiss to his lips. “I’m sorry for what you had to go through.”

He grasped her wrist and pressed a kiss to the palm of her hand. “It’s okay. It toughened me up for what was to come.

But what I need you to know is that you’re not alone anymore.

You have me. I can be your family. I’ll be here to share the burden with you.”

She couldn’t believe what he was saying, the things he’d told her today. He loved her, he was offering to—what?

To take care of her? Not exactly a marriage proposal, but for Mac, it was a huge step. For a man who prided himself on no ties, it meant everything that he made this kind of offer to her.

The depth of caring that caused him to make this admission was overwhelming.

Her knees were shaking. “I love you, Mac.”

“I love you, too.”

The words spilled easily from him. She knew in her heart he meant the words, and that made all the difference in the world to her. She wrapped her arms around him and held him tight, not wanting to break the spell of his moment.

“Christ, Lily, do you know how scary this is?”

She pulled back and frowned. “What?”

“These feelings.”

She nodded. “Yes.”

“I don’t want to let you go. Ever. But what kind of life is this for a woman who grew up in luxury and wealth?”

She inhaled, let it out slow and easy. She knew it cost him to bare his soul to her. That loving her scared the hell out of him. She didn’t take it lightly, nor did she think he wanted to rush head first into any kind of lifelong commitment.

“I live a very simple life in Chicago, not in any kind of luxury. You should see my apartment. It’s a mess. Not a servant around for miles. And not a spec of pink in the whole place.”

He grinned. “Thank God.”

“You two aren’t going to be having sex or anything out here, are you? Because Grange is waiting.”

Lily smiled at Mac, who said, “No, AJ. We’ll go outside and have sex later.”

“Great,” AJ said. “I’ll be sure to get the video camera set up for that one. Now move your asses and get in here.”

By the time they settled in Grange’s office, he had the database up on the big screen and was scrolling down the list of names and corporations.

“Tell me about this database, Lily,” Grange said.

“My father keeps a contact database of everyone he’s affiliated with in some way or another. Company names, and who works for whom. Basically, how everyone is connected,”

she said, moving to the front of the room. Grange stood and let Lily take a seat at the computer, so she could manipulate the data. “I didn’t have a chance to look at anything while I was at my father’s house, because I only had a few minutes to make a copy.”

She studied the information now. “Each person is linked with a corporation or with individuals within corporations.” She searched until she found the name she sought. “Okay, here’s Belanfield. It’s kind of like a flowchart, each person’s name linked to everyone he’s connected to.” She demonstrated by clicking on Belanfield’s name. The screen expanded to showcase every person, every company, that Belanfield had contact with.

The list was extensive.

“Damn,” Rick said. “That guy gets around.”

She nodded. “I’ll say. The list of corporations and bigwigs connected to Belanfield is impressive.”

“Major corporations, from the looks of them,” Mac said.

“So I see,” Grange said. “If Belanfield was in the car and shooting at Tom, that means he’s dirty. And if he’s dirty for any of these companies, we need to look closely at all of them to see which could be involved with the virus.”

Lily scanned the list, zeroing in right away on one that caught her attention. “What about Delor Pharmaceuticals?”

“What about them?” Mac asked.

“I remember reading an article last year about Delor having financial difficulties due to a recall of one of their prominent drugs. It hit them pretty hard.”

“Interesting,” Grange said. “I wonder what a pharmaceutical company would be willing to do to get hold of a potentially harmful virus?”

“A company cornering the market on the cure for a virus no one has ever seen could make billions,” Mac added.

“Oh, my God,” Lily said. “You’re right.”

“Good plan from a business standpoint,” Mac said.

“They want the virus, they want to develop the drug for it, then they want to let loose the virus on the population and be the first to come up with the drug to cure it.”

“Damn,” Spence said. “That’s vicious.”

“Sadly, it’s often how big business works. They don’t care about hurting the little guy,” Lily said, shaking her head.

Now she really wanted to nail them.

“Which means, if we can tie Delor into the attempts to steal the virus, we’ve got this case nailed,” Grange said.

Excited, Lily clicked on Delor Pharmaceuticals. “Let’s see what we can find out about them.”

Of course, they already knew Belanfield was tied into Delor, which in itself wasn’t damning evidence, since Belanfield was affiliated with several major companies. His front was a security company, though that was bullshit, of course. He was hired muscle, and obviously a hit man, since he was involved in Tom’s attempted murder.

But there had to be more, because Belanfield took orders—he didn’t give them. They had to find out who was directly responsible for putting this together.

“Got it,” she said. “Monty Richardson.”

“Who’s that?” Mac asked.

“He’s on the board at the museum in Chicago. He was my contact, hired my firm to test the new security team they’d hired. If you look at the chart here, he’s also on the Board of Directors for Delor Pharmaceuticals.”

“So there’s your connection,” Pax said.

She nodded. “He knew night security was lax at the museum. He thought he was doing the right thing by making sure it was tight. The last thing he wanted was to have that artifact, aka the virus, stolen.”

“Which is exactly what happened when Mac lifted it,”

Grange said.

“They had to know that could happen, that someone would eventually figure out where the virus might be,” Mac said.

“And Richardson couldn’t afford to have anyone not affiliated with the museum covering security. It would arouse suspicion.”

“Which meant he had to keep Belanfield outside,” Mac said. “Which I’d bet is exactly where he was. He was the one who shot at us that night,” he said to Lily.

“Of course,” Lily said. “Belanfield saw you break in and take the virus. It was his job as outside man to insure no one took it.”

“And when we disappeared with it, both Richardson and Delor were all over Belanfield’s ass, leading Belanfield to climb all over ours in a big way,” Mac said.

“Well, aren’t you two popular,” Spence teased.

Mac laughed. “Not in a way we wanted to be.”

“Okay, so now we have the players figured out,” Lily said. “What next? I assume we can’t just call in the cops with this information?”

“Not exactly,” Grange said. “We don’t have proof, just supposition. But Delor’s corporate headquarters are here in Dallas. Which means we need to set a trap, and we need to do this ourselves, under the radar, as always.”

“My favorite part,” Diaz said with a grin.

“Okay, this is easy,” AJ said. “Bargain with the virus.”

“How?” Mac asked.

“Contact Richardson directly. Tell him you have the virus and you’re willing to deal for money.”

“Do you think he’d buy that?” Lily asked.

AJ shrugged. “I don’t see why not. Dirty guys like that think anyone can be bought for the right price. I see it all the time.”

“He’s right,” Grange said.

“But who’s going to contact him?” Rick asked.

“I will,” Lily said.

“I don’t think so.”

She looked at Mac. “Why not?”

“Too dangerous.”

She rolled her eyes. “Are we going to do this again?”

“Lily. This isn’t small chips. This is major.”

“I realize that. But I’m the logical choice. I already know him. Richardson hired me. Belanfield knows I hopped on the back of your bike after you took the virus.”

“She’s right,” Grange said. “She is the logical choice as contact person.”

Mac stood and brushed his fingers through his hair. “I don’t like this.”

“I know you don’t, but it makes sense. I contact Richardson, tell him I’ve nabbed the virus away from you and I’m willing to sell it to him. You know he’ll fall over himself to get it back. Then all we have to do is wait and see what he does with it.”

“Right,” Spence said. “And we’ll be there, ready to protect Lily as well as track Richardson.”

“Exactly,” Grange said.

“I know. It does make sense. And of course we’ll expect him to take the bait, buy the virus and run it right over to Delor Pharmaceuticals,” Mac said.

Lily nodded, excitement making the blood rush through her veins. She could hardly sit still. “And then we somehow figure out how to call in the authorities once we have Richardson tied firmly into Delor, with the stolen virus on the premises.”

“I’ll take care of that part,” Grange said.

“But we don’t want to give him the actual virus,” Lily said. “Right?”

“No, we’ll mix up a fake batch,” Pax said. “I’ll take care of that.”

“Weird science in action,” Spence said, rolling his eyes.

“Try not to blow up the lab this time.”

“That wasn’t my fault,” Pax said.

“There’s a story I want to hear someday,” Lily said.

“All right.” Grange stepped to the front of the classroom. “We need to get our assignments in order and set up a timeline. First thing we need to do is have Lily make a call and see if Richardson will take the bait.”

Lily nodded and looked up Richardson’s cell phone number, the one he’d given her when he’d hired her firm to test security. She moved over to the secure line and made the call, with Grange listening in. Richardson answered on the second ring.