Safe (The Shielded Series Book 1) (20 page)

“I could lie here forever with you,” he whispered into her ear.

She turned to kiss him as he slowly slid out of her. A sexy groan rumbled
from her throat, and Foster wanted to make love to her again. She turned to her
side and traced her fingers along the tattooed spirals on his neck.

“You said these meant survival, right?”

He nodded.

“Well, here’s to surviving then.”

“Oh, we’re going to do more than survive,” Foster said. “We’re going to thrive.”

One month later…

Darina hummed as she helped Estoria and Rasha in one of the many gardens
on the property. Not once had she imagined she’d be covered in dirt on purpose,
but tending vegetables had become a favorite activity of hers when she and Zeke
were with Foster in Vermont.

They divided their time between the city and the woods. Spending time
with Foster brought her so much happiness. Watching Zeke and Foster together
made that happiness grow exponentially. She’d always wished for a father for
her son, and Ghared had done a fantastic job of filling that role for many
years, but the connection Foster had made with Zeke was something more,
something special.

“Hey.” Estoria’s snapping fingers made Darina blink up at her. “Quit
daydreaming and harvest those veggies.” She grinned and arched her back. In the
past month, Foster had figured out how to stop Estoria’s continual cycle of pregnancy.
She wouldn’t give birth to another stillborn baby nor suffer repeated
conception.

Darina smoothed her hand over her own stomach and wondered what it would
be like to give birth to a child. She glanced back at the main house. Did
Foster wonder about that too? GECs were sterile, but with a brilliant man like
Foster, anything was possible.

Right?

After giving Homer an extensive petting when he’d loped over to her in
the garden, she pulled up a few carrots, adding them to her basket. Homer nosed
around the basket and she couldn’t resist giving the dorse a few to nibble. He
lowered to his belly and gave the treat his full attention.

She continued harvesting, loving the soft warmth of the earth on her
hands… well, one of them anyway. Maybe someday she’d be able to feel the dirt
on her prosthetic hand.

But she wasn’t complaining. She had no reason to. Her life was finally
perfect, and each tomorrow promised more perfection.

“Darina!”

She looked up, and Foster waved her toward the house. Just looking at him
caused a magnetic pull. She loved being near him. Dusting off her hands and the
knees of her pants, she jogged to the deck.

“What’s up?” She climbed the steps and allowed Foster to wrap her in a
hug. He smelled like soap and whatever it was he used to sterilize his lab
instruments.

“You have a call from Ghared.”

She stiffened in his arms. “Is everything okay?” Zeke and Mareea were
staying with Ghared in the city this week while the kids worked on the high
school rebuild.

“Zeke is fine. That much he assured me, but he said he had other news.”
Foster shrugged and took her hand, leading her into the house.

With Foster standing close behind her, she picked up her own tablet from
the kitchen counter and tapped it to life. Ghared’s face filled the screen. The
crease between his icy blue eyes told her the ‘other news’ was something big.

“Hey, Ghared. What’s going on?”

He swallowed and looked away for a moment. The cinderblock walls of the
Boston Police Department behind him filled the screen.

“It’s not so much news
I
have as one of Warres’s men has.” Ghared
had been working with the police and the government to handle the prisoners
they’d captured in the Vermont battle.

“What does that mean?”

“I’ll let him tell you.”

Ghared’s face was replaced with that of a dark-skinned man. His brown
eyes were wide and nervous as if he expected Mikale Warres to jump out and beat
him.

Thankfully, that wasn’t going to happen. Not ever.

“Go ahead,” Ghared said from off screen. “Tell her. Tell her what you
told me.”

The man looked her in the eye. “Deo Lazitter is alive.”

My brother? Alive?

“Not possible.” She shook her head.

“That’s what I said too.” Ghared was back on screen. “But then this guy
handed me these.”

The view got wobbly as Ghared turned his tablet. When it settled, Darina
gasped.

“Dog tags?” Foster asked.

Ghared came back on screen. “Yeah. Deo’s dog tags.”

Darina felt Foster’s hands on her shoulders, and it was a good thing he
was there. She needed something to anchor her.

“Where did you get those?”

“Warres’s guy said he got them off Deo himself. Said he’d been working
undercover in Warres’s circle with Deo.”

“Working
with
Deo? Undercover?” It was as if Ghared were no longer
speaking a language she understood. “How can this be true? Why didn’t we know?”

“I don’t know, Darina,” Ghared said, “but I’m sure as hell going to find
out.”

If you enjoyed
SAFE
,

please consider leaving a review on Amazon and
Goodreads

and recommend my books to your friends.

Thank you!

If you have a
book group, I’d love to interact with you!

Email me at
[email protected]
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PROTECTED
(Book Two)

SECURE
(Book Three)

Check
www.christinedepetrillo.weebly.com
for release dates.

Read on for a peek at
PROTECTED!

“If I ask you to tell me a million times, you’ll tell me a million
times.” Ghared Timms slammed his fist down on the aluminum table separating him
from one of Mikale Warres’s associates.

The late Mikale Warres, that is.

Thanks to the kickass woman sitting beside him, Officer Darina Lazitter,
the globe’s most wanted chemist, Mikale Warres, was dead, exterminated August
2025. With his demise, the world had been saved from Warres’s fatal plague—one
that reduced victims’ organs to ash. Darina’s mate, Doctor Foster Ashby, had
found the cure to the plague and the population was recovering, slowly but
surely. Things were turning around. With people no longer fighting the disease,
they were beginning to rebuild after the Anarch, a techhead terrorist group,
had unplugged the globe a few years ago. Power was being restored. A second
chance emerged from the rubble, and the city of Boston was as the heart of the
revival.

But everything wasn’t tied up neatly with a big, red bow just yet.

“These belonged to my best friend.” Ghared held up a set of dog tags on a
long silver chain and motioned to Darina. “To her brother. We’ve thought he was
dead all this time and when you announce he’s alive, we need every goddamn
detail you have.”

They’d been at it for a few days, trying to get all the crumbs out of
this guy. Aven Demaris swore he’d been undercover—with Deo—inside Warres’s organization
on a government-backed mission to bring Warres down from within. As
unbelievable as it sounded, how else did Aven have Deo’s dog tags? How else was
he able to describe Deo right down to the yellow-eyed wolf head tattoo on his
left arm? How else had he been able to predict Warres’s organization would name
Sasha Boisette as Warres’s successor?

And how much did that suck?

Taking down the head of the beast and capturing several of Warres’s
associates should have been enough to shut down the enemy. Curing the plague
should have been enough. So many things should have been enough, but they
weren’t. With this new chick in charge, one could only guess what nonsense
would come from the enemy now. 

Things have to get worse before they can get better.

That was something Deo would have said and right now it sounded damn
true.

“Can I have a drink?” Aven cleared his throat and Ghared saw red.

“A drink? You want a drink?” He shot to his feet causing Aven to flinch
in his seat. The slightly smaller man was handcuffed and wearing a gray prison
jumpsuit like all the other captured associates. He had been granted a private
cell, however, until the validity of his tale of undercover work could be
determined.

As of yet, the government had offered no support to Aven and with each
passing day, Ghared grew more reluctant to believe his best friend was still
alive.

But he couldn’t give up. If a shred of possibility existed that Deo
wasn’t dead, Ghared would search to the ends of the Earth to find him. For Deo,
for Darina, for himself.

“Ghared…” A wisp of warning simmered in Darina’s voice.

“I’ll get you a drink.” He closed his hand around Aven’s throat and
lifted the man off the chair, knocking it over in the process. A loud metallic
clang echoed in the cinderblock interrogation room followed by a shuffling as
Ghared dragged Aven over to the wall and pinned him against it. “I’ll get you a
drink as soon as you start making some sense. You might have trouble swallowing
that drink when I’m done with you though.”

Aven’s face grew purple as the man sputtered for oxygen. A little over
the top. Ghared hadn’t begun to tighten his grasp. Plenty of air still getting
in. No need for the theatrics.

“So far, you haven’t given us anything concrete besides the dog tags.”
Ghared increased the pressure slightly and Aven’s eyes bugged. “You’ve given
your word too, which is shit to me. The only thing I know for sure about you is
that you were counted among Warres’s associates during the battle at Foster’s
Vermont place. That doesn’t put you on my list of Top Ten People I Trust,
asshole.”

Aven slapped at Ghared’s hand, trying to get free. His attempts were no
more troublesome than a mosquito’s attack.

“Ghared, you should let him go.” Darina uttered the words, but she never
looked up from her tablet. Her attempt to be the “good cop” would have had him
laughing. If he were in the laughing mood.

He was not.

“I’m done playing nice, Darina. This guy doesn’t have anything more for
us.” He used his icy blue gaze to send a physical ripple of fear through Aven.
That was kind of fun. “I say we end him.”

Aven released a strangled whimper, his gaze darting to Darina in a silent
plea for help.

“End him. Doesn’t matter to me. I’ve got the cell space to hold him
indefinitely, but ending him is much more efficient.” She gave Aven a bored
once-over with her hazel eyes, then returned her focus to her tablet. God, she
was good. Ghared almost believed she didn’t give a dorse’s ass if Aven told
them something of value or not.

He knew, however, Darina had not slept since he’d called her to say Deo
might be alive. He saw it in the dark circles around her beautiful eyes. He’d
heard it from Foster who was concerned. He’d also heard it from Darina’s son,
Zeke, and his own niece, Mareea. Everyone was worried about Darina and what it
meant if Deo was, in fact, alive. He tried not to get his hopes up, but that
was a hard thing to do.

To have Deo back…

Well, shit, that’d be like having a wish granted.

Letting out a growl, Ghared pulled Aven forward a bit so they were eye-to-eye.
“I’d love to make this your last day, but maybe there’s something you forgot to
tell us. Something important. Something that makes you indispensible.”

Aven nodded as much as he could with Ghared still gripping his throat.

“Let him go,” Darina said.

Ghared released him and Aven slid to the floor, panting like a dog who’d
run twenty miles. Uphill. On a humid, summer day.

Darina slid her own chair back and stood. She walked around the table to
join Ghared on the other side and folded her arms across her chest as she
glared down at Aven still on all fours and sucking in air.

She reached down and pulled Aven up by his hair. The man let out a
screech and Ghared found it harder and harder to believe the guy was capable of
undercover work or of being partnered with Deo.

Grow a set, dude.

“Why is it the government hasn’t backed your tale, Aven?” Darina pushed
him into the chair Ghared had righted. “Why is there absolutely no record of
this undercover mission?”

Aven rubbed his cuffed hands over his neck, and Ghared wished he’d been
able to crush the jackass’s windpipe. All this interrogating wasted valuable
time. Time he could be out there… somewhere… finding Deo.

“I already told you.” Aven’s voice was scratchy, strained. “I don’t have
the clearance to discuss the details with you. The mission is highly classified.
Only a handful of people know about it.”

“And most of that handful is unreachable, right?” Darina sat again and
pressed two fingers to her temple. This was wearing her down.

Maybe I shouldn’t have gotten her involved.

When this shitbag first mentioned Deo, Ghared had toyed with not saying
anything to Darina until he had more information, but that felt too much like
lying. He tried hard not to lie to Darina, the person who had become his best
friend in Deo’s absence. They’d been surviving in the hellhole the world had
become by having each other’s backs, and if he wanted help finding Deo, Darina
was it.

As he studied her now, though, he reconsidered. “Maybe you should take a
break, Darina.”

She glared at him with those sharp green-gold eyes and he put his hands
up in surrender. Right. Darina was no more willing to take a break than he was.

“Maybe we should shift our focus,” she said to Ghared.

“To what?” He sat beside her again, but his gaze never left Aven. How he
wished he could inject the dude with something that would have him blubbering
all his secrets. Maybe Foster could whip up a special serum or some shit that
could do just that. The guy was a genius after all.

Darina clasped her hands in front of her on the table and leaned forward.
Aven’s gaze dipped down to the tops of her breasts showing at the neck of her
fitted T-shirt, and Ghared nearly jumped the table to rip the guy’s eyes out.

A hand on his forearm stopped him. “Easy.” Darina sat back, aware of what
she’d showcased to Aven. Was that part of her interrogation strategy? If so,
Ghared didn’t like it. Darina was like a sister to him, and no one but Foster
was allowed to look at her as if he needed her to breathe. Ghared wasn’t even
sure he was okay with Foster looking at her like that, but he didn’t get to
have a say on that. He did want Darina to be happy.

Bringing Deo back would make her happy.
It’d make him damn happy
too.

“Tell us about Sasha Boisette,” Darina said.

Aven stretched out his neck, his dramatic performance as the victim
nearly wrapping up. He rested his cuffed hands in his lap and looked at the
ceiling. At first, Ghared didn’t think the guy was going to answer, and he was
more than prepared to beat a response out of him. He was itching to pound on
something. Aven would make a great
something.

“I guess you’d call her Warres’s adopted step-sister. His mother took
Sasha in when her own parents abandoned her. No one knows what happened to
them, but Laurette Warres took pity on the girl and raised her with Mikale.”
Aven swallowed loudly and let out a cough as if his throat was sandpaper dry.

When neither Darina nor Ghared made a move to get him that requested
drink, Aven continued. “Sasha is beautiful. Like unreal beautiful. Some of us
suspected she was a GEC, but Mikale swore she was not a genetically engineered
castoff.”

“Like we should believe anything that asshole said,” Ghared muttered.

“I agree,” Aven said, “but GECs have a least one flaw. That was why they
got cast off and were deemed unfit for military duty, but Sasha… well, there
isn’t anything flawed about her.” His cheeks reddened. “She’s as perfect as
they come.”

Darina shot a quick look to Ghared before asking, “Were you intimate with
Sasha Boisette, Aven?”

The man let out a breath in one long rush. “No, ma’am. I was undercover
in a government-supported mission, as I’ve stated repeatedly, with your
brother, Deo Lazitter, and had no time for sexual activities.”

“Not because you didn’t want to have sex with Boisette though.” Ghared
found it more and more unbelievable Deo would be partnered with this dick.

“You can judge, but I’ll bet one look at her would have you going hard
too, man.”

“Doubtful.” Ghared had searched for Sasha on his underground online
channels but found nothing. She didn’t exist to the world until word had gotten
out she was Warres’s successor. Regardless of how beautiful she might be,
Ghared liked to think he was more in control of his hormones than this average
human sitting across from him.

Aven smirked. “You think you’re better than me?”

Ghared shook his head. “I
know
I’m better than you.”

“You gave up looking for your best friend.” Aven pointed to Darina. “Her
brother. You were told he was dead and you took that as truth. Meanwhile, Deo
has been alive. I’d like to say alive and well, but that’s most probably not
the case.”

Darina gripped the edge of the table and leaned forward again. “What does
that mean?”

“Deo’s cover had been compromised just before Warres made the trip to
find Ashby. Warres found out Deo was working for the government and hauled him
out of the rooms we shared at headquarters.”

“Where did they take him?” Darina asked.

“A place called the Pit. It’s their version of a prison.”

Ghared’s well of hope was running dry. Quickly. “How do you know he’s
still alive then?”

“Because if I know anything, it’s that Deo Lazitter is one tough
bastard.”

“Finally, something we can agree on.” Ghared leaned back and folded his
arms across his chest for a moment. Then he took Darina’s tablet and opened a
sketch program. “Now show me the layout of Warres’s headquarters and don’t
leave anything out.” He slid the tablet toward Aven.

“What are you planning?” Aven asked.

“None of your damn business. Now draw.” He arrowed his index finger to
the tablet.

Aven got busy sketching, and Ghared felt Darina’s eyes on him.

“What?” He didn’t mean to bark at her, but his patience was nearly gone.

“You’re thinking of going in there.” She motioned to what Aven was
drawing. “I don’t know if Boston PD will approve of that, Ghared.”

“I’m not a cop, sweetheart. I don’t need Boston PD approval. I just need
a way in and a plan.” He hoped to have both in the next five minutes.