She’d meant the question to be rhetorical, but Zarina answered anyway. “Yes, it can. Jayson’s body could violently reject either drug at any time. It might be the next time he falls asleep or the first time his body goes into fight-or-flight mode. The truth is, I don’t know what’s going to happen to him. I won’t know until we get him back here and I can examine him. The sooner the better.”
From Zarina’s lips to God’s ears, Layla thought. First, they had to find out where Jayson had gone. Unfortunately, the Russian doctor didn’t know. And Dick, weasel that he was, happened to be out of the office for the next several days. His less-than-friendly secretary wasn’t much help either, but luckily Kendra had a lot of friends in the intel division and tracked down the analyst who’d been in the conference room during the mission briefing.
Layla freaked when the guy told them that Jayson and Powell were on a completely unsupported rescue operation in pro-Russian parts of Ukraine. They hadn’t even taken a satellite phone with them to call for backup if something went wrong. Was Dick trying to get them killed?
“I have to go over there and get him,” Layla said as soon as she and Kendra were in the hallway.
“First, we have to talk to John and tell him what’s going on.” Kendra glanced at her. “Jayson’s going to be okay.”
Not if she didn’t get him out of Ukraine and back here so Zarina could monitor him, Layla thought. But if anyone would know what to do in this situation, it was John. She only hoped he was in his office. She hadn’t seen him around the complex in weeks.
Thankfully, he was. To say he was shocked when they told him about Jayson was an understatement.
“Shit,” he muttered. “I knew Dick was working with Thorn, but I never guessed he’d do something this insane. He could have killed Jayson with that serum.”
“He still might,” Layla said. “Zarina has no idea how Jayson’s body is going to react to the drugs pumping through his veins. He could go into shock, flip out in a hybrid rage, or worse.”
“And if the drug doesn’t get him, the mission might,” Kendra added. “Ukraine is a powder keg just waiting to explode, and sending Jayson in with Powell is worse than sending him in alone. If Jayson doesn’t develop any shifter abilities—and Zarina has no idea if he will—he could end up getting killed over there.”
In addition to all that, Powell was a flipping asshole who hated shifters and hybrids alike. Layla couldn’t imagine him putting all that hatred aside if Jayson got into trouble. Powell would take care of himself first, and if there was one person in the DCO who was a firm believer in the organization’s stupid prime directive about never letting a shifter’s identity be compromised, it was that jackass. The man would kill Jayson just because he could.
“Even though they have a good head start, I’m confident I can find them,” Layla said.
Kendra was already nodding as she made notes on a pad she’d grabbed off John’s desk.
“No,” John said.
Her stomach dropped. “What?” she asked, sure she’d misheard him.
“I said no,” John repeated. “I’m sure you did well over in Glasgow, but you were pulling support duty, not leading a mission.”
“I took down two of the Scottish buyers without help from anyone on the team,” she protested. “I can do this.”
“You don’t have the training or experience to handle a solo operation like this,” John insisted. “Worse, you’re too close to the situation. I can’t have you going over there and making a mistake that gets you in trouble because you’re worried about Jayson. You’re not going.”
Layla’s control over her inner feline started to slip again. Before she realized it, the tips of her fangs had elongated and her claws came out. She didn’t even try to hide them. She’d never been this scared, frustrated, or angry in her life. The man she loved was in danger, and John was sitting there telling her she couldn’t go help him.
“Who are you going to send, then?” she demanded, biting back a growl.
“I’ll get a message to Clayne and Danica. They’re closer to Ukraine than any other team, so I’ll tell them to divert and go to Donetsk.”
Layla wanted to point out that it could take a while for Clayne and Danica to be able to divert from wherever they were to get to Ukraine. Who the heck knew where those two had gone in their search for Kojot after he had escaped? If the last mission had taught her anything, it was that the arms dealer was slippery—and that Clayne was obsessed with catching him. If Kojot had disappeared down a dark hole in the ground, it was likely that Clayne would go in after him, and Danica would follow.
But it would be useless to say any of that to John. He wasn’t going to let her go, no matter what she said. So she waited for him to leave for the operations center so he could get a message to Clayne and Danica, then she turned to Kendra.
“If Declan were the one in danger, would you be okay waiting around for someone else to go over there and help him?” she asked.
Kendra regarded Layla in silence for a long moment, then sighed. “John’s going to have my head for this. Go get ready. I’ll have you booked on a flight to Ukraine by the time you get to the airport.”
Chapter 5
“I could have gotten as much out of that old man in three minutes as you did in thirty just by punching him in the gut,” Powell grumbled as they walked down the rubble-filled street. “Another complete waste of time.”
Jayson ignored the DCO agent as he scanned the occasional damaged and blown-up building looking for a particular Russian Orthodox Church with a broken bell. It was where Dylan Palmer was supposedly hiding. Or rather, where someone was hiding him, if the information they’d slowly been gathering since reaching the small town of Oktyabrsky was correct. Jayson hoped he could trust the info, because he sure as hell wasn’t going to get any help from Powell when it came to finding the diplomat’s kid.
They’d landed in Kiev late last night, then taken a series of trucks and cars to get to the Donetsk region. Sitting that much had seriously tightened up Jayson’s back, but the pain was nowhere near as bad as it used to be. If the hybrid serum did nothing but give him some relief from the discomfort, he’d consider it a win.
Unfortunately, while getting into the region had been easy, finding Dylan had turned out to be a lot more difficult than Jayson had hoped. It hadn’t taken him very long to figure out this mission wasn’t going to be the quick track, bag, and drag Dick thought. First, Jayson didn’t speak more than a few words of Russian, which made talking to people difficult. And while Powell spoke the language better, Jayson didn’t exactly trust him when he translated. Second, the citizens living in this part of the country were scared to death of strangers. And third, Powell was a steaming pile of shit.
