Rising Tomorrow (Roc de Chere Book 1) by Mariana Morgan (essential reading txt) 📕

stop the tears from flowing. ‘She is alive. She is alive and the sonofabitch will make sure she stays that way.’ His grip on Ingram’s hand softened, and for a second she had to fight the urge to recoil from the pure, evil hatred she saw in his eyes.

That deep-seated desire for revenge was still there when his body slumped, taken into a relaxing and pleasant, although temporary, oblivion by the nano-painkillers coursing through his bloodstream. Ingram binned the empty syringe.

***

The connection was severed one hour and thirty-seven minutes later, and they had succeeded in copying just over eight-seven point six per cent of the content. More than that, somehow, although Ingram couldn’t understand how, Tilly had managed to make sure their rummage through Wagner’s account had gone unnoticed and unrecorded. It probably wouldn’t be enough to convince Wagner he was safe, but it would create enough doubt and uncertainty to make him hesitate, which would probably buy them a few more hours of reprieve.

‘How is she?’ Ingram asked when Rivas entered the lab. She had just been contemplating whether she should call him now, before she did what she was about to do, or wait until she was done.

‘Out of the woods and in a deep nano-induced coma while the nanobots finish repairs. Physically she will be all right. I predict her shoulder will hurt for a few days, given how much is being rebuilt, and the sensation and muscle response will feel strange for a while. Her lungs have fully expanded and her ribs have entered the third stage of knitting. The rest is just cosmetic. Mentally? God only knows.’

Ingram winced. She wasn’t religious like Rivas, but right then and there she wouldn’t have minded saying a prayer or two.

Lost in thought, Rivas lowered his eyes to the table, and his eyes landed on a blue safety strip taken from a syringe. He flinched.

‘What are you doing?’ he asked suspiciously, picking up the strip to inspect it closely. A strong sedative.

I definitely should have done it before you showed up. Ingram froze, considering her options.

‘The colonel needs rest,’ she replied. She really didn’t want to pull rank, especially not after their earlier conversation, when she had made it clear that what the BCCs said was law, but Rivas would never do what really needed to be done. He was too new.

Without waiting for a reply, she slammed the syringe into Gonzalez’s arm, hitting the release button hard.

‘Are you insane?’ Rivas demanded, but he didn’t make a move to stop her.

Turning to face him, she made up her mind. She couldn’t escape her responsibilities anymore and hide behind a rank she had outgrown a long time ago.

‘No, Lieutenant,’ she replied, and the formality of her voice made Rivas twitch, straightening his spine and squaring his shoulders. ‘Just doing my job.’ He remembered that tone, and that look, from the early days, when he transferred to Gonzalez’s team less than two years after he had completed his Special Forces training. Major Toscano was not someone he ever wanted to mess with.

Her past experience had given her a no-nonsense attitude that went hand-in-hand with her extremely short fuse when it came to dealing with people who didn’t do their job properly or failed to display appropriate initiative and independent thinking. She expected full commitment, no matter the cost, and she always led by example.

Right now, making sure Gonzalez got enough rest was crucial. It was her responsibility to take the initiative.

‘Yes, ma’am! I understand,’ he replied equally formally, with just a tinge of shame that he hadn’t thought of it himself. He crushed the safety strip. ‘May I ask how long our CO decided to rest for?’ he asked, fighting to keep a straight face as Ingram gave him a broad grin.

‘I have decided our CO will be resting for approximately seven hours,’ she replied, putting just enough emphasis on the pronoun to make it clear she was both willing and happy to assume full responsibility. ‘I realise that technically it was your decision to make, but I’ve known the colonel longer and am more used to dealing with him when he gets… pissy. I know you are capable of dealing with this yourself, but the truth is I am going to need you tomorrow.’

‘Ma’am?’ Rivas’ eyebrows rose in speculation.

‘We can’t go on like this. We need more people. There are at least half a dozen trusted people at the MIS that the colonel and I personally trained just for this kind of job, and we need them here badly.’

‘The colonel won’t like burning their futures. He won’t order them here knowing that they will be committing treason by obeying his order. And we all know that they will obey his orders, regardless of his current rogue status.’

‘I know,’ Ingram replied, her voice unusually soft. ‘Which is why I will need your help.’

She put her hand on Rivas’ shoulder and squeezed reassuringly. She’d had huge reservations when Gonzalez hand-picked Rivas for their team, but after weeks of drilling him mercilessly she had found nothing to object to. Rivas wasn’t the same man who committed that dreadful mistake twelve years ago, and in the last couple of years he had become a close and trusted ally. A friend.

‘Let’s dump the colonel onto his bed, and then we can go and get some sleep too,’ she said just as softly. ‘Tilly can work all night without her brain getting all fogged up from sleep deprivation. We can’t.’

A few minutes later, after carefully instructing her comp to wake her up before the nanobots inducing Gonzalez’s sleep deactivated, Ingram collapsed onto her own bed. She really needed to be awake before the storm, in the form of a very pissed-off CO, arrived.

But fuck it, they all needed the rest.

CHAPTER 36

Roc de Chere

Lac d’Annecy

Afro-European Alliance

Tuesday 28 April 2725

DAY 9

‘How is she?’ Gonzalez asked, walking into the medical room, a steaming mug of Ingram-strength coffee in his hands. He felt more rested than he