Bonus Content
TOO DANGEROUS TO LOVE
Dr. Scarlett Kerrigan was too smart to have a panic attack about her first day on the job. She had two PhDs. One was in neuroscience, for God’s sake.
But this wasn’t any job. Nor was it technically her first day with Project VIPER, a top-secret Department of Defense program.
For two years, she’d been working as a government contractor to develop the cybernetic technology she’d pioneered over a decade ago to meet VIPER’s groundbreaking mission.
Now that her life’s work was ready for implementation, every aspect of her job would change.
Today, in her new workspace at VIPER’s headquarters in downtown Washington, DC, and as a full-fledged Department of Defense employee, she’d begin to make history.
Or go down as the biggest failure in modern warfare.
She glanced at the box of diplomas sitting by the door to her office and prayed her God-given gifts and years of training were enough to prevent the latter from coming true. Too many people counted on her, namely the four men whose lives were in her hands.
She stared at the photos on her laptop screen of the combat-wounded veterans she’d been hired to engineer into the nation’s first generation of super soldiers.
If testosterone could ooze through pixels, she’d float away in a sea of alpha hormones.
And if looking at their photos intimidated her, especially the one of the rugged Navy SEAL with the dark, penetrating gaze, what would happen when she met them for the first time at the briefing in… three hours?
She pulled in a deep breath and leaned back in her chair. The leather creaked as the high back hit the windowless wall behind her.
A tap sounded at her door. Dr. Patience Fairbanks peeked in.
“Good morning, Dr. Kerrigan. Welcome to VIPER headquarters.” She stepped into the office and plucked something off the sleeve of her white lab coat. “Stupid dog hair follows me wherever I go. I should have never let my boys talk me into getting a German Shepherd puppy.”
Scarlett smiled at the world-renowned orthopedic surgeon she’d met several times at the quarterly “All Hands” meetings. “I bet the dog’s cute though.” She’d always wanted a pet, but the subject had been non-negotiable in her stepfather’s mansion.
“The big hair ball is adorable. My twins from Planet Distracted? Not so much this morning when they forgot to close the gate.” She brushed her palms down her vibrant pink dress.
The wrinkles smoothed along with the annoyance in her eyes.
“How do you like your new office? It’s quite the step up from your basement facility in the Pentagon, don’t you think? ”
“My office is perfect.” While the walls didn’t completely block the screech of the November wind, the inside of the newly renovated building featured revolutionary technology that rivaled a science fiction movie and state-of-the-art equipment as sleek as her silver metal desk.
The training area occupied the underground floor.
A full medical suite and the research and development laboratory encompassed the street level.
Executive offices, including hers, and a briefing room large enough to hold two dozen people took up the second.
And her computer lab across the hall?
The facility that spanned half the length of the building and housed her team of bright, eager minds exceeded her wildest, geekiest dreams. But the biggest perk? Department of Defense funds financed this project, not her stepfather Henry Richardson or his technology empire Richardson Enterprises.
Scarlett rose from her chair. “It’s great to see you again, Dr. Fairbanks.”
“Please, call me Patience. Now that we’re only a floor away, we’ll be seeing a lot of each other, so there’s no need for titles and last names.” She pulled her phone out of her coat pocket. “You’ll find many of us don’t stand on formality around here.”
“Patience it is, and please call me Scarlett.” The casual manner rolled off her tongue in a refreshing buzz after coming from an environment where credentials boosted egos.
“Excellent.” Patience bounced on her toes. Her straight, sleek ponytail, which matched the color of her chocolate-brown eyes, swished behind her. “Are you ready to meet the guys today?”
Guys?
Scarlett bit back a laugh. The Veterans Integration Placement and Experimental Recovery program, a.k.a.
Project VIPER, was created to outfit Special Forces amputees with artificial limbs and place them in federal security jobs.
Only a handful of people knew those words were the publicity icing on a complex cake with a highly classified recipe.
Once her technology was networked with the embedded weaponry in the ultralight, steellike limbs Patience had attached to their bodies, there would be nothing “mall cop” about the jobs they would do.
Not jobs. Missions.
Dangerous and deadly missions where they could just think about obliterating their enemies instead of pulling a trigger.
Uneasy, she placed her hand over the butterflies whirling in her belly like specimens in a centrifuge.
She’d created this technology to save lives, not take them, but wasn’t naive enough to think that defending the country came without a cost. Her work would be used to kill, but she had faith the Project VIPER team would treat their second chance to serve and shield with compassion and respect.
Once the team was networked with her technology and declared mission ready, she’d hold a dual role: further their combat capabilities and protect them from hackers. The latter required her to monitor them as they carried out missions in real time.
No pressure there.
Rounding her desk, she smoothed the tight chignon at the base of her neck. At least her hair wasn’t unraveling, unlike her nerves.
Patience backed into the hallway. “Come on. I want to show you the upgrades we’ve made to the MedLab suite. The briefing starts in thirty minutes, so we’ll have just enough time.”
“Thirty minutes? That’s nine a.m. The briefing doesn’t start until noon.
” She needed those three remaining hours to wrangle her agitated nerves before she met the intense-looking VIPER operatives who were complete opposites of the professors and scientists she’d associated with most of her life.
Not just North and South Pole kind of opposite.
Poles on separate planets in different solar systems kind of different.
They were warriors.
Survivors.
Heroes.
She was the weird, smart girl who couldn’t talk to the opposite sex unless they worked in her scientific bubble.
She’d been relieved when the VIPER operatives hadn’t attended any of the All Hands meetings.
They’d been recovering from surgeries, mastering the enhanced strength and flexibility built into their new limbs, and training to bring them back to fighting mode.
Instead of seeking the team out, she’d studied videos of their progress and had worked day and night to ensure her technology would meet the incredible standards already set by the rest of VIPER’s top-notch scientists.
Patience motioned for Scarlett to follow her. “Apparently the briefing was moved due to Admiral Edgar’s schedule. Happens all the time around here.”
Scarlett rolled her eyes. “Sounds familiar.” When her stepfather demanded results, he expected everyone, especially her, to rearrange their schedules to meet his orders.
She followed Patience down a brightly lit corridor, passing several silver steel doors with biometric keypads leading to specific sections of her computer lab.
Prints of battleships adorned the freshly painted white walls.
They stopped at a bank of elevators flanked by flags representing each branch of the military.
The national anthem played in Scarlett’s head as she stepped inside the elevator car.
A floor lower and a minute later, she followed Patience toward a set of double doors at the end of the hall.
“A word of advice before the briefing.” Patience stepped up to a retinal scanner and dipped her head. “Don’t let the guys hear you refer to their artificial limbs as prostheses.”
Scarlett waited until the laser verified Patience’s identity and stepped up for her own scan. “Why not?”
“They like to call their new extremities their ‘steel.’”
“There is some truth to that.” This morning, she’d watched classified footage of the team testing their “steel” on brick walls. Strong didn’t begin to describe what VIPER’s materials scientist had created.
“The guys also throw the word ‘super’ around a lot, like super arm. Super leg. Super limb.”
“Superpower?”
Patience winked. “You’re catching on quick.”
The double doors opened. An antiseptic smell, like that of any other medical facility, wafted out.
Patience strode into the MedLab hallway.
Scarlett’s eyes quickly adjusted to the dimmer lights illuminating their path down the short corridor.
The clicking of her heels on the tile sounded like a pretty jingle compared to the thumping inside her chest.
They’re just men.
Men who’d make jokes she didn’t understand. Ask her questions she couldn’t answer. God, she hadn’t even met them yet, and she already felt like the awkward kid on the playground again.
Scarlett followed Patience around a corner into a longer hallway with exam rooms on one side and rest and recovery suites on the other. “Last time I was here this part of the building was still under construction. Is everything complete now?”
“Yes, including the surgical area on the other side of the floor. Did you hear that the retired trauma surgeon from the Navy we’ve been wooing has accepted the position we offered? Dr. Langley will be arriving next week.”