The Boss Assignment (Rogue Protectors Book 3) by Victoria Paige (red scrolls of magic txt) 📗

“Our bioterrorism medical examiners cut open your guy,” Martinez paused, and he could hear the hiss of a breath. “What the fuck, Andrade. His organs looked like they’ve been liquefied. Our men are spooked.”

“We need tissue samples. I’ll have Charly call your team with what she needs.”

“What—”

“No time to argue, Martinez.”

“You want me to transport that shit?”

Antonio thought about it. “Charly will give instructions. You’re the only person I trust right now to bring it to me.” If Renata wasn’t directly involved, he would have asked her. She was aware of biosafety protocols. He hated that he didn’t fully trust her at the moment.

Innocent until proven guilty.

“Shit. I’m going to run into Renata,” Martinez muttered.

“Suck it up, bróder.”

After his talk with Luis, he retrieved Charly’s laptop from his office safe and returned to the basement. Nico wanted a go at hacking into it. Antonio would have let him if his efforts to convince Charly to work for him failed. Yes, he was willing to go that far, though the doctor would probably never forgive him and curse him to hell and back.

The second he walked into their work area, he lowered the laptop and planted both hands on the table, leaning in. “Martinez will be bringing in some tissue samples from Pierre’s autopsy.” He repeated the state of his internal organs.

“Crap. He’d been in organ failure,” Charly muttered. “There was no physical evidence. The lighting also wasn’t ideal, but I’m not making excuses.”

Antonio walked over to the lab and punched a couple of buttons, activating the negative air pressure inside the chamber and running it through a couple of self-checks.

He walked back over to her. “I’m not going to force you to do this if you’re not ready.”

Her eyes flared. “Have you ever met a virologist who’d turn down meeting a virus?”

“You’re right,” he muttered. “You’re a crazy bunch of people.”

“Hey, that’s not very flattering, but thanks.”

Dios, her face was lit up with excitement, her crystal blue eyes almost translucent making the dark ring around her irises more prominent. It would be easy for a man to lose himself in those eyes. Antonio gave a shake of his head as if to snap himself out of a trance. “Let’s find you a good fit for the biosafety suit. I’ll be your backup.”

“Antonio, I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Luis said. “You run a billion-dollar empire—”

“And that could go up in flames if a bioweapon originated from our labs.”

“I can figure that out too,” Charly said. “I have the virus sequences on my laptop and I can compare them to what’s in your database. What do you want me to do first?”

“Safety. First.” Antonio said. “I want you oriented with all the equipment.” He grabbed her hand and started walking back to the lab. “The samples will be delivered by Martinez. I’ve instructed him to go around the villa to the receiving area. There’s a dunk tank there that will decontaminate it.”

They went to the antechamber and he opened a locker full of biosafety gear. He turned to Charly, and she glanced up at him. His breath caught at the determination on her face and the message it imparted.

They were on the same side.

He held out a mustard-colored protective suit. “Here. Put this on.”

Antonio Andrade was a tyrant.

But Charly couldn’t fault him with this particular show of his tyranny. They spent three hours going through the safety measures in the lab, and instead of getting annoyed, it only reinforced what she thought of him—he took his responsibilities seriously. He wouldn’t put his personnel in any danger that he wasn’t willing to take on himself.

The samples Martinez brought moved from the biohazard van directly into the dunk tank filled with disinfectant, and then straight into the lab. So the exterior of all packages were clean.

It didn’t take her long to find the Ebola virus in the tissue sample, but it definitely bore a resemblance to the original weaponized version.

Antonio had strict rules of only working six hours in the lab and always working in pairs just like what she was used to at the CDC.

When she emerged from her final shower—the personal shower, she spied Antonio coming out of the one opposite hers. He was wearing matching sweatpants and jacket that were more luxurious and a better fit than the jumpsuit she was wearing. Guess he’d already stocked up his locker with his clothes. She was also aware that she was naked underneath her clothes, and for the first time wondered if Antonio was a boxers or tighty-whities kind of guy. Charly needed to remember to stock her assigned locker with her underwear and own clothes for next time.

“I feel like a dry, bristle brush has scrubbed me clean,” she said.

“The water is hot, I agree,” he winced. “I’ll have an engineer look at it.”

“Yes, boiling isn’t exactly a good temperature,” she laughed. And the temperature was set with no way to make it colder.

“I’m sorry, Dr. Bennett.” He grinned and waved his arm out with a flourish. “After you?”

They met with Nico and Martinez in the bullpen. Luis was somewhere in the mansion keeping Renata entertained. The woman had just arrived and was demanding to know where everyone was.

Charly immediately unlocked her laptop. Nico had plugged her into their network and after a few instructions to find where she parked her data of the samples on their server, she ran the data through the Vira-Genesys software her MIT buddy had her beta testing.

“Is your friend interested in selling this?” Antonio inquired behind her.

“I don’t think he’s willing to part with this bad boy,” Charly said. “He’s seeking to patent his software. Let me read in the different virus sequences we have so far.”

She shared her display on the widescreen in front of them. Four images of different Ebola virus strands were presented.

“Starting from the left, Z-91 that was in the glass pearls sent to LA, second is the version sequenced at the CDC that mutated inside Ortega,