Chapter Eighteen
Natalie was alive.
After talking to the people who’d owned the Santa Barbara house had proved to be a dead end, Damien had been forced to wait, wondering if it was all true. Until he could see her with his own eyes, he wouldn’t be able to believe it.
Waiting for another call to come in concerning her on the tapped phone had been agonizing. And even when it had come, the information hadn’t quite made sense. But it had gotten him the information he needed: something was happening in Riverton and it concerned Natalie.
He’d had to keep a very low profile since this tiny little town had been crawling with Omega agents for the last day and a half. He’d seen Brandon and Andrea Han, not to mention SWAT team members Lillian Muir and Ashton Fitzgerald. All people he’d battled in the past.
It would’ve been so easy to take them out one by one. But that would’ve cost him his chance to see Natalie. To see if it was really Natalie they were so convinced was alive.
He had no doubts now.
He could feel rage crashing through his system. It was all he could do to remain behind the large video camera in the high school auditorium, careful to keep his face hidden, rather than run up onto the stage, grab her and escape.
Natalie was alive.
Not only that, she was fully aware of who she was and what she was doing. Which meant only one thing: she had deliberately run from him six years ago. Deceived him.
Defied him.
His fingers clenched around the edge of the camera until he felt pieces of plastic break off in his hands. He forced himself to breathe in and out deeply, to get his rage under control.
There would be plenty of time to correct Natalie’s behavior. To punish her. To teach her that her conduct was unacceptable.
He looked at her tucked up against the man who was speaking. This Warren Thompson fellow who seemed to have the press eating out of his hand. Was he a member of Omega Sector? Damien didn’t know, had never seen him or heard his name, although he’d spent extensive time studying the organization.
It didn’t matter. He would have to die, of course. He dared to touch the perfect Natalie? The man must die.
Sadly, it was probably time for Natalie to die, as well. If she was willing to deceive Damien in this way, to throw away their perfect marriage, then she obviously was broken beyond repair.
Maybe with enough correction, enough punishment, she could be fixed. Probably not, but he wouldn’t know until he tried.
Omega Sector once again was putting themselves between Damien and what belonged to him. And Natalie did belong to him whether she wanted to accept it or not.
No matter. Omega would soon be so busy trying to clean up the mess he’d made with his handy-dandy biological canisters that Natalie would be the last of their worries.
Couldn’t she feel it? The pull between them? The connection even from across the room? Not once did she even look up, so he had to assume she’d lost touch with what had been so special between them.
It was a shame Natalie would have to die, but it couldn’t be helped. As a matter of fact, his lovely wife had just helped him make the decision about where to release the biological contaminants.
His perfect wife was gone. He would punish her, then bury her.
And this time when she died, she would truly be dead.