Lethal Game Read online

  Lethal Game

  By Julie Rowe

  Biological Response Team

  Book two of Biological Response Team

  As the nation’s youngest virologist and hematologist, Captain Sophia Perry has always been one step ahead of her peers. But there’s one thing she can’t beat—cancer. She wants to make a difference in the time she has left, so when she’s sent to investigate a breakout at a Syrian refugee camp, she goes, saying nothing of her diagnosis. But saving the masses isn’t easy when the man tasked to protect her is so irresistible.

  Communications Sergeant Connor Button is back on active duty after a deadly explosion, but he doesn’t feel whole again until he meets Sophia. Assigned to keep her safe, he’s prepared to die for her, but for the first time in months he truly wants to live—if only she wasn’t so determined to put them both in danger.

  With a secret to keep and nothing to lose, Sophia is determined to find the source of the breakout at any cost. Violent attacks on the camp convince her that someone wants her to pay dearly. But as Sophia’s health deteriorates, Connor must find a way to help her defeat her enemies before her body defeats her

  84,000 words

  Dear Reader,

  If you’re in North America, you’re heading in to that time of year when you grab a cup of hot apple cider, bundle up with a warm, fuzzy blanket and grab your phone or e-reader to snuggle down with a good book on your couch. This October, we have a few books that will make you want to do this every day. Go ahead and tell your day-job boss that you have a note from the editor excusing your absence.

  Don’t you just love Lauren Dane’s books and her feisty heroines? We do, too, and we’re excited for the next Goddess with a Blade paranormal romance installment, At Blade’s Edge. Rowan Summerwaite sneaks into London so she can begin to unravel just who and what is behind the rot within Hunter Corp. It’s not so much that someone ordered her assassination—people try to kill her all the time—but it’s the risks faced by those she cares for and the growing instability of relations between humans and Vampires that make her so angry.

  Joining Lauren on her release day is HelenKay Dimon and her next contemporary romance. Those who read Chain of Command (and if you didn’t, why not?) have been clamoring for this story. We fell in love with Jason and Molly as secondary characters and you’re going to adore following along with their love story in Line of Fire. Former special ops marine Jason McAdams spent most of his adult life running from trouble and fighting his attraction to his best friend’s baby sister, Molly Cain, but when she makes it clear she’s tired of games and ready to move on, he has to decide if he can break the curse that has left his personal life in shambles and free them both from the secrets that have kept them apart.

  There have been more than a few emails in our inbox telling us to hurry up and release Skip Trace, after readers consumed Chaos Station and Lonely Shore by Kelly Jensen and Jenn Burke. Now Zander is finally healthy and ready to track down his super soldier teammates, and he’s counting on his lover Felix to be at his side. But Felix, overwhelmed by the events that led them to this point, isn’t sure what he wants—or if he even deserves a chance at happiness with Zed. Pick up this male/male romance today!

  Alyssa Cole’s characters are getting Mixed Signals in her newest stand-alone postapocalyptic romance. Maggie Seong survived the apocalypse, but going off to college—and being torn between her lost love and the man she’s spent years pining for—might just be harder.

  Craving a great romantic suspense to get your heart pounding and nerves racing during these cool fall nights? A dying woman, desperate to live, and a solider, desperate to die, join forces to stop a madman before he can unleash a devastating biological weapon in Julie Rowe’s Lethal Game, book two in her Biological Response Team series. And once you’ve devoured this one, go back and pick up Deadly Strain.

  We welcome Jonathan Watkins to the Carina Press publishing team with his fantastic, previously self-published mystery series. Kicking things off in Motor City Shakedown, unexpected danger and unlikely romance converge on rookie criminal lawyer Issabella Bright when she partners with the reckless and charming Darren Fletcher to unravel an insidious Detroit conspiracy of drugs, lies and murder in book one of the Bright & Fletcher mysteries. Look for the next book, Dying in Detroit, coming next month, with books three and four to release in January and February 2016.

  Coming in November: Three debut authors bring us their fantastic new novels, Josh Lanyon’s new adult male/male romance is finally available and Piper J. Drake busts out her new pen name and her new romantic suspense series. If you love Maya Banks, you’ll want to pick up this series for sure!

  In the meantime, I hope you enjoy the fantastic lineup of books this month and that your boss doesn’t give you too hard of a time for missing work. No one should get in trouble for reading when they should be working!

  Happy reading!

  Angela James

  Editorial Director, Carina Press

  Dedication

  To my daughters, Koryn and Megan, because they’re awesome.

  Contents

  Epigraph

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  Also by Julie Rowe

  About the Author

  About Deadly Strain

  About The Gulf Coast Rescue series

  About the Tough Justice series

  Writing for Carina

  Security is mostly a superstition

  ~ Helen Keller

  Chapter One

  It had taken him three airplanes and over twenty-six hours to travel more than seven thousand miles, and now he was going to have to kill someone.

  Ten feet from his room in the Navy hotel at the American Naval base in Bahrain.

  All Special Forces Communications Sergeant Connor Button wanted was to find a bed and crash for a few hours.

  What he did not need was witnessing some idiot striking out with a hot blonde and not taking it well.

  She’d just removed his hand from her waist.

  The man put it on her shoulder and tried to bring her closer. “Aw, come on, sweetheart.”

  She slid away, her voice clear across the short distance. “No.”

  Okay, dude, time to retreat. Only, the guy didn’t. He grabbed her by the back of the neck, hard enough to make her gasp
in pain, and leaned down, his mouth aimed for hers.

  She slapped the moron, but he didn’t get that hint either, just grabbed her hand and twisted it behind her back.

  Con had to make himself stand still for a second. One second, so he could throttle back the instinct to beat the stupid fuck to death.

  Fine. His jaw flexed. He wouldn’t kill the asshole, but he could hurt him real bad.

  Con dropped his duffel on the floor and stomped toward the woman and the moron whose arm he was about to break.

  Into several pieces.

  Small ones.

  The stomping got the moron’s attention. He glanced up, saw Con coming and his eyes went wide. He let go of the woman so fast she wobbled off balance and fell to the floor. Con stopped to help her while the moron ran like a track star down the hall and around a corner.

  Good call, asshole.

  Con bent down and offered his hand to the woman. “Are you okay?”

  Her head jerked up and she stared at him with eyes that didn’t miss a thing. She scooted away, leaving his hand hanging in the air, then stood. Her shoulders went back and her chin rose.

  He almost smiled. She was so not interested in another man getting all up in her business. He’d make sure she was all right, then he’d back off.

  “Ma’am, did he hurt you?”

  “I’m fine,” she said, retreating a step.

  Blue-green eyes stood out in a face framed by white-blond hair hanging in a sheet down to the middle of her back. She was also stacked, though she wasn’t showing it off. She was following military clothing requirements, wearing long pants and a collared shirt one size too big, buttoned up to her neck. An asshole had just tried to sexually assault her, but Con would bet a year’s pay that had he not come along, the moron would have had his hands full with a pissed-off female trying to smash his balls into paste.

  He glanced down.

  Her mouth was pressed into a thin angry line, but her hands were shaking.

  For the first time in months something other than anger or despair slammed into him.

  He knew just how she felt. Hyped up on adrenaline and looking for a target.

  It surprised him so much he opened his mouth to make some inane comment or other to show her he was no threat, but she raised a hand to stop him.

  She spoke a quick, firm “Thank you.” And then she was gone, inside the room closest to her. The click of the lock being engaged echoed down the hall.

  He blinked at the empty hallway. He wasn’t sure she was okay, but those shaking hands and that locked door sent a pretty clear signal that she didn’t want another man anywhere near her.

  Sometimes other people just made things worse.

  He sighed, strode back to his bag, checked his room number again and discovered he was next door to the blonde.

  At least he wouldn’t have to go far if Moron came back.

  * * *

  So much for getting some sleep. He’d lain awake, alert for any noise that might indicate a problem in the room next door, but it had been church-quiet. He got up at 0700 base time, then went in search of his new commanding officer, Colonel Maximillian. The man had an interesting reputation, but he trusted what his buddy, Jacob “Sharp” Foster, a former Special Forces soldier, had to say about him. Everyone else said the colonel was one bullet shy of a magazine. Sharp had warned him that the colonel wasn’t exactly regular army, but he gave a shit about his people, and that was number one for Con. If your CO had your six, at least you didn’t have to take your attention off what was coming at you.

  The colonel had a fancy lab that didn’t exist on the base, according to official records. Officially, the lab that did exist on paper was rated for level two containment. Good enough to run the sort of tests any big city hospital conducted. In reality, the lab was capable of level four containment testing. The stuff you needed to wear a bio-suit for and breathe your own oxygen supply.

  Con had to pass through two internal checkpoints to gain entry to the nondescript building that was his destination. Colonel Maximillian’s office was the first one inside the prefab rectangle that housed the lab and offices. A soldier who didn’t look a day over sixteen sat typing on a computer facing the entrance to the building.

  The kid’s gaze darted over Con’s uniform, then he stood and saluted. “Private Eugene Walsh.”

  “Sergeant Connor Button, Special Forces.”

  “Yes, sir. Colonel Maximillian is expecting you.” Walsh extended his hand in the direction of the first office. “Go right in.”

  Con gave him a nod, then walked into the office.

  He saluted the salt-and-pepper-haired man, who stood and saluted back. “Sir, Sergeant Button reporting for duty.”

  “Welcome, Sergeant.” The colonel came around his desk and offered his hand.

  Con shook it once, twice, then released a hand that hadn’t tested him beyond what would be considered polite.

  “Take a seat,” the colonel said, gesturing at one of the chairs facing his desk. “I’d like to go over your assignment and answer any questions you might have.”

  “Thank you, sir.” Con sat and adopted a neutral body posture, back straight and hands resting lightly on his thighs. It was harder than it should have been.

  The last time he’d been in the Middle East he’d been deployed with his unit, attempting to ascertain the military strength of two groups of extremists in Northern Iraq and Syria. Both groups had threatened multiple American and allied targets, as well as calling for sympathetic citizens to carry out terrorist acts inside their own countries.

  The last time he’d been in the Middle East, he’d been the only survivor of an IED that took out their vehicle. Fortune had smiled on him that day. He’d been thrown clear.

  More and more often, he wished he hadn’t been so lucky.

  Colonel Maximillian continued to stare at him and seemed content to not say anything for several moments.

  Con waited with the patience of a man who’d waited days for just the right moment to take a shot at his target.

  Finally, the colonel asked, “How much do you know about your mission here?”

  “Probably not enough.”

  Maximillian’s face didn’t change. “Sharp said you were smart. Are you, Sergeant Button?”

  “That would depend on your definition of smart.”

  “Observant, creative, organized, able to see unusual relationships between people and information.”

  “Sir, you’re looking for Sherlock Holmes. He’s a fictional character.”

  A brief smile crossed the colonel’s face. “How would you describe yourself?”

  “Flexible, determined, fuck the box.”

  Colonel Maximillian’s forehead lowered over his eyes. “Were you aware General Stone had some reluctance in assigning you to this mission?”

  “Not directly, but it doesn’t surprise me.”

  “Oh?”

  How many conversations like this had he had recently? Five, six? “Sir, I received injuries in an attack that killed all the men in the armored vehicle with me. I’d be surprised if he wasn’t hesitant.” No officer wanted to have a suicidal or homicidal soldier on a mission. Survivor’s guilt could lead to either one. Or both.

  “Do you consider yourself fit for duty?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Why?”

  Goddamned why-questions. Why judged, weighed and measured what was in a man’s head. What was in his head was not pretty, and not to be shared.

  “Sir, I signed on to serve my country. My service isn’t done.”

  Maximillian tilted his head to one side. “That is one of the best non-answers I’ve ever heard.”

  Fuck it. Con leaned forward and said in a less civilized tone, “I got thrown off the horse. I
need to get back on and finish my ride.”

  “And if you don’t?”

  Con’s throat closed up. “That thought can’t be in my head.”

  The colonel’s face lost its sharp inquisitiveness for a moment, replaced by a surprising level of comprehension. A second later it was gone and he was flipping through pages on his desk. “You’ve had some problems with your temper since you returned to duty.”

  “I’m working on that.” Anger was easy. Acting on it was even easier.

  The officer considered Con for a couple more seconds, then nodded briskly. “My Biological Response Team is tracking a very dangerous man who’s created his own extremely deadly strain of anthrax. We managed to prevent an attack on a base in Afghanistan, but not before nearly one hundred people died of the infection. We think he’s not done. We think he’ll continue to strike at high-quality American or allied targets, and we don’t know where he is or where he will attack next.”

  Con straightened. Hunting down a homicidal nutcase wasn’t the sort of duty he’d taken on before, but it sounded dangerous. Good.

  Holy fuck he was messed up.

  Maximillian continued. “We were successful in preventing the last attack because we had one of our infectious disease specialists embedded with an A-team training members of the Afghan military. General Stone agrees with me—until this man is found, we need more cooperation between my team and army Special Forces. I asked for specific men to work with my people. Men who are not only well trained and smart, but also creative and who can take a step back and support his teammate or take charge of a situation if that’s what’s needed. Jacob Foster says you’re that kind of man. Are you?”

  It might be nice to have a specific enemy, with a face and a name, rather than a faceless one who could be anybody. The need to kill, to avenge his dead, was a relentless voice in the back of his head. This mission could get him the opportunity to give himself that, and maybe a measure of peace.

  “Sir.” He paused, trying hard not to come on too strong. If he lost this chance, he might not get another. “I’m a team player. That means I’ll play whatever role is needed by the team.”