Invidious Betrayal (40 page)

“You can’t kill her, my friend. You have to bring them back alive. Safe. Whole.” Vincent spoke every word slow and clear. Jasper knew the man would be excited about this, but he never imagined his friend would get so elementary. Shit, he wasn’t an idiot.

“Don’t be an asshole, asshole. I would never hurt an innocent child. Not when… Fuck. Fuck you for even thinking it!” Jasper shouted. He took several breaths as Vincent told him to calm down. “Can this…will you be able to fix us?”

“Honestly, Jas, I don’t know. Ian is different. I…I really don’t know, but I’m going to do my best to solve that piece of the puzzle,” Vincent said. Jasper heard some papers shuffling. “I need her weight, height, and a bit more information. Call me immediately when you have it.”

Jasper smiled. He wasn’t a genius like his friend or the kid, but he didn’t have shit for brains, either. “Got it already, doc.” He began reading off the information from the copy he’d made of Aria’s file.

“Be gentle. Be gentle,” were the words Vincent said before Jasper hung up.

Jasper snorted. Like he didn’t understand the gravity of the situation or was some idiot who was all thumbs. Out of the three soldiers he’d handpicked, Vincent, all those primate test monkeys and the homeless bums they had used then dispose of, Ian was the only Syn-serum recipient able to reproduce.

Of course he was going to be gentle. To Jasper this girl Aria was goddamn Mother Mary and the baby…the baby inside her was the second coming. Aria was the key.

Jasper wasn’t a geneticist but he knew that Aria was the only woman other than Ian’s mother, to be successfully impregnated and carry a Syn-serum fetus. The fact that she was able to do it naturally rather than have a fertilized egg inserted inside her womb was a fucking miracle. If she was some kind of genetic match up for Syn-serum sperm cells, then she would have to be kept safe.

God, I’d almost killed her
. He shook his head at the thought of such a treasure—an opportunity—being lost because of his and Vincent’s need to destroy whatever disturbed the balance in their lives. They needed this girl. She was their Eve. She was the bearer of life, a new beginning.

For the first time in years, Jasper allowed himself to think of fatherhood as an option. Aria was younger than the women he normally liked, but by law she was a woman at eighteen. He remembered when he’d seen her at the rest stop for the first time, thinking how beautiful she was, and that her ID, though a nice likeness, didn’t do her justice. With all he knew now, Jasper couldn’t deny wanting her, wanting his seed to grow inside her.

Of course he would respect her, maybe even one day grow to care for her. If he was capable, he was sure he would grow to love her. He would want to feel the mother of his children underneath him, feel her soft body against his; because there wasn’t a chance in hell he would allow them to produce a kid of his in a goddamn test tube. She was gorgeous and he wasn’t hard on the eyes, so he knew their kids would be perfect warriors. And if her mother was just like her, even better, Jasper had no qualms about killing the husband to get what he wanted and he wanted, a namesake, a child.

T
HERE WAS SOMETHING IAN WAS
missing, and he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. And every time he tried to go over everything Marroe had told him, his mind kept clawing its way back to thoughts of Aria. Since the day he’d first touched her, it seemed he hadn’t been able to have a single thought that didn’t involve her. Her well-being, simply touching her, a desired passionate kiss, her beneath him, his thoughts of her were all-consuming, and it was clearly affecting his ability to process what was going on around him.

Glancing at his phone, Ian sighed then looked back to the road. He hadn’t been apart from Aria this long since the day she’d left him in his friend’s condo. He wanted to call the hospital from the plane but he didn’t. She was weak and needed her rest. He’d even convinced Dr. Cartwright to write a do not disturb order for Aria. The order meant that after visiting hours no one, not even the nurses would go into her room unless Aria hit her call button.

How did patients sleep in hospitals with nurses waking them every four hour for a vitals check
?

Because he was unable to speak to Aria, Ian took comfort in the words she last spoke to him. “We’re holding on…for you, Ian.” Her words still whispered in his head several hours later.

Ian took a quick look at the case Marroe had supplied him with. The contents inside was a special concoction Ian called Syn-GenA that Marrow designed in his small home lab especially for Aria. He had over two dozen vials worth because there was no data on how long the drug would last in her system. He was pretty certain the older versions of the Syn formula would sustain her but he wasn’t certain how long. Marrow was convinced that because the baby had all three serums in its DNA, the earlier serums would be ineffective.

“What about Aria?” Ian had asked Marroe. The look on Marroe’s face hadn’t been encouraging.

Marroe had answered as he prepared the vials. “I don’t know. It was unclear what caused your mother to bleed out the day of your birth. The Syn-Beta was given to her because you were thriving in utero, but her body was withering away. The serum gave you what you needed, so that you didn’t siphon everything from your mother’s body. Ian,” Dr. Marroe had said, “the Syn-Beta could have aided in her death or it may have been unrelated. Your mother was the only female to carry a child so we have only her records and no other data. What’s clear is that the serum was able to sustain her during the pregnancy. My belief is that this new serum will do the same for Aria.”

Dr. Marroe wasn’t sure Aria would benefit from it, but they both believed that if she was capable of carrying his child that maybe if given a dose of the serum she would survive it. Neither knew if she would become dependent but it would offer a chance.

Ian planned to learn all he could about the medical side of pregnancy and fetuses’ before this was over. Once the baby was born, Dr. Marroe believed that there was no reason to give the baby any doses of the serum because the child will most likely function on its own. And since the baby is part Ian, its little body and DNA will acclimate without any further assistance or injections since Ian had been introduced to all three serums and had them in his DNA already. But to be safe, Dr. Marroe had included samples of all of them.

Ian let what Marroe had told him sink in as he drove away from the airfield and turned onto the road leading to the main highway that would take him to Aria. The hospital staff may give him a hard time being as it was early morning and few hours until visiting hours but Ian needed to see her. Seeing Aria would clear his mind and once he gave her the first injection, he could relax a bit.

The bells of his third burner/throw-away cell phone chimed as Ian merged onto the highway. Without taking his eyes off the virtually deserted road, Ian picked the phone up and placed it to his ear. When he heard the caller clearing his throat on the other end, Ian slammed his foot on the brake. The car jerked as the wheels skidded to a stop. Burnt rubber and the smell of smoke surrounded the vehicle and floated into the vents. The section of steering wheel he gripped crushed under his strength.

“If you hurt her, I Will Kill You.” Ian pried his fingers from the steering wheel and ran his hand over his head. His inner voice screamed with rage and his vision hazed over with flecks of red. He should have never left her alone.

Ian heard the casing of his cell phone begin to crack under the pressure of his hand as he did his best to relax.

“Calm down, son,” Vincent said. When Ian didn’t respond he softly spoke, “I know you care for her. Plus, I would never physically hurt my own blood.”

“She’s not your
own
,” Ian gritted out. His pulse was doing overtime and it beat in his ears like a drum.

“She carries your child. That makes her my own, so she’s safe.” Vincent’s tone was professional as always. “I promise you,” he added.

Ian had no other choice but to trust his uncle for now. Plus he’d never known Vincent to break a promise. Still, Ian didn’t like that the very man that wanted his Aria dead, had her right now.

“The Morel’s?” Ian demanded. If Vincent… He couldn’t even imagine it.

“They don’t even know she’s gone.” Vincent told him.

Thank God
, he thought, relieved that they were safe. Ian thought of what he had to do to get Aria back. He could call the police and hope that his uncle didn’t have the entire force in his pockets. He just needed to know where Vincent was holding her. Ian pressed the gas and as he drove, he thought of where his uncle could be.

“Stop thinking of ways to find me and listen. I am not hiding her from you. I can help her.”

Ian laughed bitterly. “Like you helped me?” Damn…he didn’t mean that. He couldn’t let his uncle know that he knew about the experiments and that Marroe was alive or that the old man had helped him. He carefully said the next words as a way to lead his uncle to think he was fishing. “Tell me, did my parents know you were using me as a guinea pig, or did you make an executive decision and decide on your own that your brother’s son was the perfect lab rat?”

Vincent didn’t respond at first. “We’re at HowlTech,” Vincent solemnly said. “Come home, Ian.”

It was uncharacteristic of the men in his life to show any emotion other than anger or disappointment, so the emotion in Vincent’s words and the respect he was raised to have for him almost moved Ian, urging him to apologize for the accusation, but he didn’t. He couldn’t forget that the man on the other end had injected his mother when she was pregnant, with a life-altering serum. And Vincent had continued to inject him with the serum as a child. The drugs could have killed the both of them, and might have been responsible for his mother’s death.

Vincent wasn’t sorry. He had an agenda, and Ian needed to know what that was.

“Please,” Ian begged, “don’t inject her with anything.”

His uncle sighed. “I have to save the child, Ian.”

“Don’t you fucking touch her!” Ian yelled. He was so angry the windows of the car he drove cracked, but Ian didn’t stop driving. After a moment of silence, his shoulders slumped, his breathing shaky. “Please, Uncle Vincent. If you ever cared about me, please don’t inject her with anything.”

“It’ll be nice to see you home again, Ian. I had no idea how much you meant to me until…” Vincent lowered his voice and was barely audible. “I’ll see you soon.”