Dirty Love by Lacey Savage Page B

have—"
    "We took your phase teleportation device away for a reason. You couldn't have gone back."
    Anger surged in Connor's chest. He'd never felt as impotent in his entire life as he had in the past seven months. Not knowing what was happening to Isy raked at his soul, until he couldn't sleep, couldn't eat. It took effort just to tear himself away from the surveillance screens, which were fixed on the building that housed a secret branch of the Medical Board. A building they'd only discovered six weeks earlier.
    "I should have stolen the motherfucking device.” He rammed a finger into Bobby's chest, then fought the urge to step back from the reek of old sweat and cheap cologne that assaulted his nostrils. “And you know what kills me? That I let you convince me she wasn't in there."
    Bobby lifted a shoulder in a half shrug. A shimmer of anxiety showed on his ruddy features, and a fine sheen of perspiration glistened on his forehead. “You know the rules, Con."
    "Fuck the goddamned rules!” He spun and pointed to the screen, which had been paused on Isy's beautiful face. “Look at her! Look!"
    His heartbeat hammered his chest. His pulse thrummed in his ears and pressed against his eardrums, wild and incoherent. He couldn't stop looking at the image showing a mere shadow of the woman he loved. She looked nothing like the vibrant, gorgeous Isy he'd made love to all those months ago. The skeletal figure who'd rolled onto the busted concrete when pushed out by a gruff orderly could have been anyone.
    But she wasn't. She was his, damn it, and he was going to bring her back to him if he had to bulldoze his way through the entire PTI agency to do it.
    Bobby cleared his throat. At the unnaturally loud sound, Connor realized the rest of the room had gone quiet. The eight other agents sat deathly still, and all eyes were focused on Connor and his boss.
    He fought the urge to growl at all of them and bare his teeth.
    Instead, he loomed over Bobby, leaning in so the other man had to take a step back. “You're going to give me the phase teleportation device. I'm going to get Isabel, and I'm going to bring her here. If you have a problem with that, report me to the fucking president, because I'm going to get this woman if I have to pummel you into the ground to do it."
    The color drained from Bobby's face. Something in Connor's eyes must have told him he meant every word, because the man turned and headed for the doors. Connor followed him out.
    They walked down a gleaming marble corridor, past a series of laboratories framed in floor-to-ceiling glass, and turned left at the end of the hall. At the elevators, Bobby shoved his hands in his pockets. He wouldn't meet Connor's eyes.
    "It wasn't my decision, you know. Pulling you out."
    Raging fury simmered just below the boiling point, but beating the man's face bloody wouldn't solve anything now. “I don't care."
    Bobby lifted his hands, palms up, in a gesture of surrender. “Look, what were we supposed to do? You know the first rule of PTI."
    "Yeah. Don't get caught.” He practically spat the words through gritted teeth.
    Bobby nodded. “Your orders were to blend in and observe. Trevor was supposed to analyze DNA samples and report back here so we could all make a decision on the next necessary steps. You failed when you decided to make a simple mission personal."
    Connor scrubbed a hand over his face. Four years. He'd spent four years in that forsaken phase. Watching Isabel from afar, loving her from a distance, had been his only salvation. If he hadn't had her, he thought he might have gone mad living in a society that had lost touch with the base elements and emotions that had made them human in the first place.
    Personal? Of course it was fucking personal. She was so much more than a mission. She was everything.
    And he'd abandoned her. Not on purpose, but what difference did intent make when it meant she'd had to suffer because of it?
    He and Trevor had been literally yanked