“Don’t worry about the heights. Once we’re in the air, Doc will give you something to take the edge off, and I’ll be with you every second of the way.” He slid his hand into hers, coaxing her along with a slight tug. “I won’t let anything happen to you. I promise.”
“Oh God!” Her expression paled, and panic-stricken, she pulled her palm free, her fear causing her to take a step back as she swung her head back and forth. “I can’t go with you.”
“Bec—”
“No!” she cried, her voice edging toward hysteria. “Volkov will find you, and then Maya, oh God! I can’t let that happen! I can’t let them get to you. You can’t be here. You shouldn’t be here!”
“It’s fine, baby. Trust me.” The desire to hold her too great to ignore, he palmed her cheeks, his thumbs sliding back and forth over her soft skin in a soothing gesture. “No one’s going to find me. No one’s going to hurt me. I’ll explain everything when we get back to the mainland.”
“Jay,” her voice a breathless plea, she continued. “I can’t go with you. I’m sorry. I know you did all of this for me. But I can’t leave Big Diomede. It’s not safe. Not for you. Please, you need to go. Right now. Before Maya arrives, and it’s too late.”
At the mention of her twin, tears brightened the whites of her eyes, and he had to fight the urge to toss her over his shoulder and run. Forget fixing the world’s problems. The temptation to find a remote corner of the globe to hide away in held considerable appeal.
Just the two of them. Becca and Jay. Always and forever.
No Imperium Council assholes to worry about. No world-ending computer virus to stop. No murderous sister determined to destroy every little bit of happiness they managed to find. Yeah, screw that. He hadn’t spent the last two years searching for his girl just to walk away now.
Nope. Not gonna happen. Not again. Not in this lifetime.
Not in any fucking lifetime.
He trailed his fingers along her temple, brushing her hair back from her beautiful face. “You must’ve hit your head a little too hard at some point if you think I’d let you stay here without me, Bec. I’m leaving. You’re coming. And you can punch me in the face for it later.” He dropped his arms and grabbed her by the elbow. His grip loose—but firm. “Let’s go.”
“You don’t understand,” she protested, attempting and failing to yank her arm free. “I can’t go with you because I’m chipped!”
Her words sank like barbs into his flesh, and in an instant, the blood drained from his head. Fuck. No. A fear-based rage flooded his systems, and with a tidal wave of emotions coursing through his veins, he reacted fast.
His arm shot out, his hand snapped to the back of her neck, his fingers searching along the base of her skull, looking for a surgical scar as he pulled her in against the protection of his chest.
He was going to kill them all. Every single motherfucker who ever dared to lay a hand on his girl. He wouldn’t rest until they were dead at her feet. Proof they’d never hurt her again. Never touch her. Never even get close enough to see the color of her hair or smell the scent of her skin.
“It’s not a neural implant. Jay, listen to me. Jay!” The repeated use of his name not enough to pull him out of his mental spiral, Becca grabbed him by the armholes of his bulletproof vest and shook. “Jay, stop. Look at me.”
He stilled, and she lifted her hands to cup them around his clenched jaw. “I have a GPS tracker embedded along the edge of my left scapula.” She soothed her thumbs over his beard stubble, a comforting gesture meant to keep him from going off again. “I don’t have a neural implant. I swear. My mind is my own.”
Bodies pressed together, he felt her heaving breaths expand her ribs, and his lungs followed suit, the much-needed oxygen bringing his brain back online as the red haze receded from his vision.
“Let me see.”
Jay lifted his gaze over the crown of Becca’s head to find Jamie waiting to examine her to confirm her claim. If she’d been chipped, a neural device implanted into her medulla, it was game fucking over.
For all of them.
They couldn’t take her back to the lodge. Couldn’t allow her to be near the JTT. Near the women they loved. Near Halia. She’d be too big a threat. Easy to locate. Easy to manipulate.
Fuck. He’d have to take her and run. Keep running until Jamie figured out how to remove the chip without killing the host. “Okay. Check her,” he ordered, pulling his hand from her nape and placing it on her hip, unwilling and unable to let her go.
She scooped her hair into her fist, moving it out of the way before she pressed her forehead to his shoulder, the action exposing the knobby vertebrae in her slender neck.
Proof positive, she trusted him.
Even now, after all these years, she so easily put her life in his hands, and Jesus Christ, her unwavering faith stripped him bare. Left him undone.
“I’m going to feel along the base of your skull now. Is that okay, Rebecca?”
“Yes,” she replied to Jamie’s question, a small shudder rippling through her.
He waited until he got the go-ahead nod from Jay, and then he walked them through it. “A light touch on your occipital bone, here.” He smoothed his fingers along her hairline, searching through the dark strands. “A little pressure.” He pressed his thumbs into the indent at the base of her neck, shaking his head as he went. “I don’t feel anything out of the ordinary. No lumps or bumps where there shouldn’t be. No scar tissue along the craniocervical junction. You said you have a tracker?”
