Gypsy Read online

  When Gypsy got to the main room, he noticed the wall of men staring into the semicircle. Dino March was tied to a chair in the center... the man was screaming and swearing his head off.

  Gunner and Patriot were the closest to him and Gunner growled at him, “Shut the fuck up. You demanded medical care, you’re getting medical care.”

  “Where the fuck did he get his medical license? A fucking cracker jack box?” Dino yelled as Patriot dug into his wound to get the bullet out. “Can’t you give me something for the pain?”

  Patriot didn’t even look at him as he replied, “Yeah I could, but I just don’t want to. You shot an unarmed woman twice in three days. Why should I give you anything but basic care?”

  “You motherfucker.” Dino swore as the other man dug deeper into his flesh.

  “What a fucking baby. I got the bullet.” Patriot shook his head as he dropped the piece of lead into a dish. Then he reached down, grabbed a bottle of whiskey and poured a good sum of the liquid over the wound.

  Dino screamed bloody murder.

  Patriot began cleaning the blood from his wound. It was probably a good thing he was tied down to the chair when he passed out due to the extreme pain the whiskey had left him in.

  Gunner looked over at Patriot and asked, “Why the whiskey? You’ve never used it before on a wound.”

  “He deserved it,” Patriot told him softly. “Don’t worry, it won’t hurt him, it just causes one hell of a burning sensation. The whiskey will kill the germs but it is downright sinful to use it on anyone.” Patriot then put a large bandage on the wound left by the bullet’s entrance. When he finished, Dino was still out for the count.

  They moved him out of the way, so they could clean up the blood on the floor. They didn’t want the women to have to see it again.

  About the time they finished cleaning everything up Dino was coming around again. “Fucking hell,” he grumbled as he shook his head to clear it. “What the fuck did you people do to me?” He looked down at his leg and saw the fresh bandage.

  “You asked for medical care and I gave it to you.” Patriot raised a brow at him.

  “Why did you come back here?” Gunner demanded.

  Dino turned his glare to him. “What the hell do you think I came back for? I had to finish the contract on the girl.” Shaking his head, he muttered under his breath, “Are you that fucking stupid?”

  Gunner stepped forward and smacked him upside the head. “Watch what you say motherfucker. You’re the stupid one here. Look at you. Caught and down. Now, tell us why you are back here being so fucking stupid.”

  Dino shook his head from the smacking and grunted. “I don’t get paid until I finish a job, not with these bastards.” He explained. “All I had to do was kill the old man, get his research and any samples he had then burn the house with his body in it. But the girl showed up and I had to cover my tracks. The men I work for wanted her dead too.”

  “Well, you missed out then, because the girl is still alive and she delivered her samples to the US Marshals,” Gunner told him. “She handed over the samples and the true formulas to both the biologic and the antidote.”

  “She had the samples on her this whole time?” Dino frowned. “Well fuck, that ain’t going to make the men I work for happy.”

  “Tell us about the men you work for,” Pappy demanded.

  “Why should I do that?” Dino wanted to know. “You can’t touch them anyway. They are so beyond the laws, you can’t even see them.”

  “Do you know the names John Reed, Harry Brown and Owen Evers?” Shay finally asked him.

  “Who are those guys?” Dino tried to act nonchalant at hearing the names as he denied knowing them.

  Everyone in the room knew he was lying.

  “How many of them are there?” Pappy asked.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Dino insisted as sweat began beading on his forehead. His belly was rolling and his leg throbbing. “I need something for the pain.”

  “Not until you give us their names.” Gunner growled.

  “I can’t give you their names, they’ll kill me!” Dino exclaimed.

  “Do you have any idea what is going to happen over the next three days?” Patriot asked no one in particular. He shrugged as if he didn’t really care but kept speaking as if someone might listen to him, “Unless he gets an antibiotic shot the wound could fester. I mean I think I cleaned it well enough, but whiskey just isn’t the same as alcohol. It's just not as refined, I guess. Anyway, if his wound festers, an infection could set in and cause a raging fever that could go so high he would become delirious. He’ll lose his leg first. Then if sepsis sets in...” He shrugged again. “Anyway, when the fever starts, the pus will flow and he’ll be a nasty mess if we leave him on his own. The tissue around the wound will start dying and it will turn black while spreading all over his body.”

  Dino gulped and stared at Patriot as his face paled.

  Gunner lifted a brow and crossed his arms over his huge chest. “Do go on, Doc.” Amusement danced in his eyes.

  Patriot nodded. “Well, then the strep infection reaches his heart and his lungs. So, he’ll start coughing up blood and finding it hard to breathe, the sac around his heart will fill with his own bodily fluids until there’s no more room for the heart to beat properly. But by that time, his lungs will be so full of fluid they can’t take in enough air for him to breathe properly either. I wonder which will kill him first, his heart not being able to beat or his lungs not being able to take in enough air?” Shaking his head, he said all of this, so casually, “But since I got my degree from Mister Cracker Jack, what the fuck do I know?” Patriot gathered his stuff and headed down the hall toward the Infirmary.

  “You can’t leave me to die like that!” Dino yelled. “You took an oath not to do any harm.”

  Patriot turned to glare at him. “I'm a field medic. The only oath I ever took was in the marines, to help the fallen and injured. Anything else I could have done for you, I won’t do, because you shot an unarmed woman. Maybe I just don’t want to save your life when her life means so much more to us.”

  “If I tell you what I know... will you help me?” Dino finally asked.

  “If we find out what you told us is bullshit you’ll spend the rest of your time on this earth living out what he just explained,” Gunner assured the man.

  “I’m a dead man either way,” Dino claimed. “Why shouldn’t I tell you what you want to know? I’m not protecting those bastards anymore.”

  So, he told them everything he knew. He gave them six names, three more than they had before.

  Rigger got to work, hunting down the names and Dewey got the list of names to Trudy.

  Gunner wouldn’t let him get the shot he needed until they could verify some of the information he gave them.

  Dino was sweating freely when the information they sought started coming back in.

  Gunner finally allowed the shot.

  Patriot then seemed to really enjoy sticking him with the needle.

  Gunner turned and ordered his men to take him to a cell.

  When Dino was gone, Shay and Pappy as well as Gunner and Boone began going over the reports they were getting from Trudy.

  “I’ll forward this information to Peter and he can verify it on his end. My god,” Shay shook his head. “These guys have made billions on this shit and have contacts all over the world.”

  “Can you imagine what would have happened had they gotten their hands on that red tide biologic?” Pappy whispered. “They would have unleashed a plague that couldn’t be stopped.”

  “But Michael worked on the antidote,” Shay commented.

  “For freshwater, not salt water,” Pappy informed him. “If they had put that shit in any ocean fed lakes, it would have adjusted to its new environment and mutated then nothing would have stopped it. I read some of the notes Michael left and he was worried about that very thing happening.”

  “Then we really don’t know a
nything do we?” Shay asked. “They only gave him a sample of that shit. How do we know they don’t already have a warehouse full of it? How do we know they haven’t already sold it to our enemies?”

  “We don’t,” came a voice from the hallway. “That’s what drove my father to find an antidote to both varieties.” Inez came into the room. She picked up her dad’s notebook and thumbed her way to the back. She found the entry she was looking for then handed it back to Pappy. “This is as far as he got to the saltwater variety. He was almost done with that, so it can be finished by someone else.”

  Gypsy came up behind her and pulled her into his arms. “Let’s get you something to eat.” He pulled her away from the four men.

  Shay watched her leave.

  Pappy gave the book to Gunner and said, “We need a copy of this before we hand it off to anyone else. We have to save his research, so it doesn’t just disappear. If these men could get one scientist to work on it, they can get more than one to do it.”

  “But Michael was the best in his field,” Shay told them. “His work is legendary in the medical research field. Others can do good work but Michael went the extra mile. So if anyone could find, it he did.”

  “Is that why you hated him?” Boone asked.

  Shay looked over at the other man. “No, it was because he took my sister out of the life she was born to.”

  “She loved him, you fool!” Inez shouted. “That’s why she stayed, he never took her from anything. We had more money than we knew what to do with. She had more than her family could offer. We had each other and they had me. We didn’t live in poverty. My dad provided her with everything she ever wanted. You and your parents never came to visit, but maybe if you ever had, you would have known that. We had enough and that was all we needed.”

  Shay just stared at her in shock. He looked sorry, as he let out a heavy sigh. “Our parents won’t ever ask for forgiveness, as they never thought they did anything wrong. But someday, I will be asking you for just that. Not today, as you have been through so much, it would be impossible for you to give a fuck really. I can see that it will take time for me to heal this rift between you and I. But I will try dammed hard.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Gypsy sat across from Inez and ignored Shay as much as he could. He was pissed at the other man but he did notice that his woman was getting better. Maybe she was just getting used to the fact her uncle was an ass. He hoped not because she deserved so much more than she was getting from him.

  When the chair next to him was pulled out Pappy sat down and pushed the book toward Inez.

  She took a bite of her food and looked down at the book, then she gazed up at Pappy.

  Pappy waited a moment then had to ask, “Can you tell us what this says?”

  Inez nodded at the page in her father’s book that had been written in a code only they knew. She wiped her mouth and looked down at the page. She frowned at the words her father had written there. She cleared her throat then began transcribing the page,

  “To whoever reads these words and can understand them:

  The biologic red tide I was given was not supersized here in the United States. I found some components in the compound that tell me that much. It is also flawed but I doubt the men who hired me know enough about the thing to know this. This biologic will be feared because it will kill whoever it touches. This will be another Ginger, it won’t care about your status or race or whether you’re a man, woman or child. It will kill you regardless.

  But there is a way to render it harmless. Other than the antidote. The antidote should only be used after the biologic has been exposed to water and air. The moment it is exposed to air and water the biologic will begin mutating. That’s the way this thing is set up. That’s what you have to stop at all costs. At the moment it is being stored in a warehouse in Virginia. I know this because I analyzed some samples of the dirt encrusted in the tires of the vehicle that brought it to me. The man I dealt with was a man who called himself John Reed but I’m sure that wasn’t his real name. I’ve seen him in the papers and I know he’s as dirty as the men he deals with.

  He thinks he can control this biologic but he can’t. This is bigger than he is and all his money won’t save him if he gets near it. Please tell Shay to stop him by any and all means. He may hate me and mine but this is bigger than the hate he feels toward us. This would be a disaster in the making. I hope you can make him see that.”

  Inez closed the book and pushed it over to Pappy but wouldn’t look beyond him to her uncle.

  “Why would your dad write that message in code?” Pappy asked.

  “Because he couldn’t be sure I would reach my goal,” Inez explained. “He knew I would try but he needed to be certain his work was safe from those that would use it against the people.”

  “Does he mention how to neutralize the biologic?” Gunner wanted to know.

  Inez reached for the book again, and turned the last page. There was a formula written there and when she read it, she frowned. Then she looked up at Pappy and Gunner and pushed the book back to them. “There is the formula you need to neutralize it before it's released.”

  “Ummm boss,” Rigger called out. “I just went through the box again, and found this.” He held up a small sat card. It appeared to be a phone card.

  Can you plug it in and see what’s on it?” Gunner asked.

  Rigger plugged it in to his computer and it brought up a load of pictures. Pictures of the men involved with this biologic.

  They were telescopic pictures and when one came up Inez gasped. “That’s John Reed.”

  “As well as Harry Brown, Kale Lawson, George Wilks, Adam Hyde and Walter Dawson,” Shay identified the rest of the elite group. “Those are the names we’re looking into.”

  Inez looked back at Pappy. “He never told me he found them.”

  “He didn’t want to put you in danger baby,” Gypsy told her.

  She nodded then looked up at her uncle finally. “Despite what you may think of my father, he was trying to do the right thing. He trusted that this information would reach you. I guess now this is your fight. I’d ask you not to let him down but that might be too much to ask.”

  “Despite what you think about me.” Shay stared at her as he spoke, “I don’t want this biologic out there anymore than you do. I will do whatever has to be done to find it and get it off the streets. And I will get those men and put them in jail for the rest of their miserable lives. They will pay for their treasonous acts.”

  Inez nodded, turning to Gypsy, he wrapped his arms around her. She cried in his arms.

  Gypsy gathered her up and carried her down the hall to their bedroom. He shut the door behind them and carried her over to the bed. He laid her down.

  She looked him in the eyes and whispered, “I just want this to be over. I’m so glad you are here for me. I was just so lonely all these months. There were times when I almost gave up. I want to be with you. I-I know that maybe you don’t want a girl who’s so messed up, but I just wanted to tell you how I feel.”

  Gypsy sighed. “I haven’t been close to a woman for a long time. But you are not messed up. You’ve been through hell. I do want you. I in fact, have claimed you. I’m not sure if you understand what that means. But I will show you that you aren’t alone anymore. I don’t want you to think at all. Just feel.” He raised her shirt and pulled it over her head, taking special care not to disturb her bandages. Then he undid her bra and pulled it off, releasing her generous breasts. Reaching down, he pulled off her jeans and underwear. Once she was laying there in all her beautiful feminine glory, his eyes feasted upon her.

  Quickly, he stripped off his own clothes and when he joined her on the bed, she wrapped her arms around his neck and refused to let him go. He crushed her lips under his, taking every breath as if it were their last. His hands roamed along her body and he squeezed her breasts caressing the nipples until they were hard little nubbins. He finally broke the kiss only to spread tiny kiss
es down her jaw and neck. He bit and nipped her skin while she groaned and arched her back.

  Needy for all he had to give, Inez pushed her chest into his. She loved the feeling of his warm satiny skin on hers. He lowered his mouth to her breasts to gently take nips on her nipples then laved them with his tongue. The pain was small but it reminded her he was in control. He then suckled her breast into his mouth and she moaned as she felt his pull.

  His hand dropped down to her core and he found her soaked. Now it was his turn to groan and he thrust two fingers deep into her core. Inez opened her legs a bit wider and his thrusts got deeper and harder. He wanted her to explode in his arms and then he would make sure she did it all over again.

  His cock was hard and almost weeping as he pushed his fingers deep inside her. Then he began to thumb her clit and it wasn’t long before she did just that. She arched her back and cried out his name.

  He moved over her and slammed his cock deep into her. They both were relieved and he slammed into her again and again. It didn’t take long before they were both on the edge of the abyss again and this time, they soared together. At the last minute, Gypsy covered her lips with his own as he thrust his tongue into her mouth, thus muffling her screams of passion as well as his own.

  As she tightened around him, Gypsy felt his cock explode inside her. His hot cum painted her walls and he knew he’d never come so hard before. She drained him and left him weak as he tried to move off her, he found her legs wrapped around his waist.

  She wouldn’t let him move for a moment then he tapped her ass and she groaned as she unlocked her ankles and released him. As he slid off the top of her and snuggled down to her good side, he kissed and nibbled on her shoulder.

  She groaned and he paused, “Did I hurt you?” he worried.

  “God no, you didn’t hurt me,” she stated breathlessly. “All I could feel was you, you taking possession of me. All I could smell, all I could taste, all I wanted was you.” She gently leaned over and kissed him. ‘Thank you.”

  Gypsy reached out and placed his hands on either side of her face. “Don’t ever thank me for loving you. When you need me, all you have to do is ask. You belong to me woman, that means all of you belongs to me, not just the good parts but the bad parts, the sad parts, the joyful parts too. If you need me all you have to do is reach out because I’ll be the one sleeping in your bed.”