Under Fire (Love Over Duty #1)(8)

Bracing herself, Louisa left the lab and walked across the hallway to where research for a cure for Alzheimer's, as well as medicine to delay its onset, happened. VNP Laboratories, under Vasilii's leadership, was focused on brain disorders, though for reasons quite different from her own. Unlike cancer, which had a fifty-percent or more ten-year survival rate and a series of treatment options, nobody had found a way to stop neurological disease. So medication to manage symptoms was the only option. To Vasilii, this research was about profits and balance sheets; to her it was life or death. She looked left and right along the corridor. The only people in sight were heading to the stairwell to take them to the second level. With a sigh of relief, she crossed to the other lab and knocked on the window to get the attention of Aiden, one of the few people she could talk to. He understood her drive and had become a wonderful mentor who respected her social boundaries.

They met in the air shower at the entrance to the lab. "What's up, Louisa?"

"I'm sure this is probably Ivan's doing, but I had some samples in the refrigerator since Friday, and one of them isn't there today. I wondered if you or any of your guys had been in the lab to borrow something and maybe moved them around."

"Certainly wasn't me, but give me a sec and I'll go ask."

Aiden stepped back into the lab, and she saw most of her colleagues shake their heads. "Sorry," Aiden said when he returned. "Nobody's been over there. Like you said, it's probably just Ivan."

Louisa felt her stomach drop. "Cool," she said, way more casually than she actually felt. "Sorry for bothering you guys." She hurried back to her laboratory. This time, though, she didn't feel the same sense of safety there. She was certain someone had removed the sample from her lab. Her head was filled with nefarious reasons why it could have happened. Which wasn't like her. She was usually rational. Well, unless she allowed the little voice inside her head to remind her that she could just be being paranoid. 

Like her father had been.

* * *

The Beach Boys had had it right. In all of his travels, he'd never seen anything quite like California girls. Andie, the girl in the green dress, had been more than willing to wait for him to finish his job, but instead, he'd gone home alone, thoughts filled with a quirky brunette in tulle. Toward the end of the night, he'd looked for her, wondering if he should make sure she got out okay. He'd wandered to the table she'd been seated at, and found no sign of her barring three origami elephants made from what looked like pages of her speech, one of which now sat on his kitchen table.

Six stepped out of his truck and cricked his neck from left to right. One thing guaranteed to shift thoughts of Louisa North from his mind was a long run along the Los Peñasquitos Canyon trail with its waterfall, volcanic rock, and forest of majestic California oaks that he'd sorely missed while he'd been deployed. He secured his earbuds, and set The Boss to play. Couldn't beat a bit of Springsteen to get you through time-trial running. He locked his truck and set off along the trail. All in all, retirement was looking like a good choice. He still had the camaraderie he'd loved about the military, even if they all came from different places. Most of the day had been spent getting to know his new brothers in arms. Gareth, a proud Welshman who'd served fourteen years in the Special Air Service, also known as the SAS, was the joker of the bunch but was also as fit as anyone he'd ever met. Gaz was a third-generation SAS member whose father had been involved in the Iranian Embassy siege in the early eighties, and Gaz had shown them the crazy-ass footage on YouTube. Then there was Joel Budd, call sign Buddha, graduate of TOPGUN and qualified civilian pilot for just about every type of aircraft that existed. His was a great hire that would enable them to rent their own private equipment to get them in and out of more remote places. Turned out the guy really knew his shit when it came to combat too. Cabe had put them through their paces earlier, and they'd nailed it.

Stepping up his pace, Six began to sweat. His mom had always said he'd been born with too much energy. Most of his school reports had said the same thing. He didn't know what to do with it all when he was young. College had been less about his future and more about celebrating his present, and there'd been no shortage of sorority girls willing to join the line for a piece of him. He had no idea what he would've ended up doing after that if Brock hadn't died the way he did the year before they graduated.

Becoming a Navy SEAL had been Brock's dream, and for all of them, signing up after his funeral had felt like the right thing to do. Mac, who'd blamed himself, and still did, for Brock's death, had been the most passionate and driven to do it.