Invidious Betrayal (47 page)

A fog lifted from Aria’s head. It took several minutes to realize what she had been doing before her mind had fuzzed over. She hadn’t yet opened her eyes when everything that had happened came to her with a force that had her sitting up before she’d figured out where she was. Her head quickly hit something and she grunted, her hands went to her head, and she fell back. She then realized that it was completely dark and she was in a small space.

Brandon had put her in a car trunk?
A trunk
!
He put me in a trunk;
she thought just as she felt around, then located a set of keys close beside her.

She pushed the trunk release and it popped open. It took her another few minutes to climb out of the trunk and make out where she was, but it was remedied when she saw the unmanned security station a few feet away. Looking around, she saw a door, but knew she wouldn’t be able to open it without a key card. She was in the HowlTech underground parking lot; mere feet separated her from the safety of the world.

Aria ran for the parking garage entrance as fast as she could. It was dark out and the business district was empty as she whipped around the building and down the street, avoiding a lamp post and a metal garbage can. When she got to the front of the HowlTech building, she slowed, but climbed the wide stone steps to get to the main doors.

Out of breath and her chest heaving, Aria cursed when she pulled at the thick glass door and it didn’t open. The building was made of a dark-tinted glass that made it impossible for her to see inside, so she had no idea what was happening. Aria pulled at the handle a few more times, banged her fist against the glass, and kicked the impossibly thick door before sinking to the cold ground.

Ian.

“I need to get in that building,” she said. Her voice trembled, but she wouldn’t give up. Her gaze went to the door handle again. This time she noticed the security scanner. “Keys!” she screamed, as she got to her feet. It had never dawned on her that she had the key card on the keys she’d dropped. She made for the parking garage, moving slower, but still too fast for a visibly pregnant and recently ill woman. The keys were on the ground next to the car’s rear tire.

Picking them up, Aria paused to grab her stomach because a sharp pain streaked up her side due to the angle she’d bent. She took a few deep breaths. When she felt safe enough to move, she took off for the main door again.

Out of breath, but determined, Aria swiped the key card as she leaned on the door handle. When the light on the door lit up green, she sighed and pushed the heavy glass open. What she saw ripped the much needed breath from her lungs and the rest of the fading strength from her body; she fell back against the door.

Several men were motionless, spread throughout the lobby. Wait... One of them leaning against a crumbling wall was moving, but very slowly. A few feet away, Ian stood over something that didn’t look quite human; it looked much worse than what he had faced on the security monitor.

Aria squinted as she peered and tried to figure out what— “Oh God.” She covered her mouth in an effort to keep down the vomit that had bubbled up her throat. The thing lying at Ian’s feet was Jasper, and he looked like a bloody twisted version of the Toxic Avenger.

Aria moved forward, toward Ian, but the man who she’d seen moving against the wall called to her, causing her to stop.

“No”—Brandon raised his arm, motioning—“don’t go near them.” His voice was low, almost too low to hear. Aria could see then that he was badly hurt.

Aria wanted to help Brandon. She also wanted to go to Ian, but the warning in Brandon’s weak voice and her take on the situation told her that doing so wasn’t a good idea. “Ian,” she called out. But he didn’t look at her. He didn’t even raise his head to acknowledge that he’d heard her.

She didn’t want to panic. She didn’t want to think of him being lost to her, to them.
Our baby needs a father.
He’d promised her that he would not let her get hurt.
Do you know that losing you would kill me
, she thought. Her mind went blank as she simply gazed at Ian and absently rubbed her hand over her belly.

Then Ian moved. He’d moved so fast that she hardly saw when he bent over Jasper, but she saw the promise of death in his eyes before she heard the crack of Jasper’s neck. Ian stood, still standing over Jasper; he spread his fingers. A gun that was lying several feet away slid across the floor and into Ian’s waiting hand. The fact that he hadn’t even looked at the gun as it came to him was unnerving.

Aria knew Ian was going to pull the trigger, but her body still jerked as all three shots rang out. One shot in the chest, two to the head. Ian didn’t lower the gun. Instead he continued to point it at Jasper’s head as if the man was going to move, even after those perfectly centered kill shots.

Ian watched the body until Aria began to worry that maybe Jasper wasn’t dead yet, despite what Ian had done to him. Then, to her relief Ian finally made a move. He didn’t look at her or at Brandon, who was still lying on the floor in obvious pain. She watched Ian as he tossed the gun away, turned toward the elevators and said, “You’re safe now. There’s something else I need to do. Help Brandon.” Then he entered an elevator.

What the hell
?

Aria saw that Brandon had watched Ian as well. But Brandon shook his head when she took a step forward to follow the man she loved. As she fought with her desire to follow him, Ian’s back was the last she saw of him before the elevator door closed. So she walked over to Brandon and began checking out his injuries as she worried for Ian.

Ian stepped inside the elevator, waited for the doors to closed, and then pushed the button to stop the elevator. He slid to the floor, placed his elbows on his knees and his hand on his head, and took some time to just breathe. It was done. They’d survived but…but he felt unhinged. He couldn’t let Aria see him like this. It took a couple minutes of breathing easy for Ian to get to his feet and hit the buttons that would take him to the lower levels.

When the elevator opened, he expected eerie silence, but he was mildly surprised to hear the sound of heartbeats and softened footsteps as the residual misty swirls of a smoke bomb faded.

People who weren’t here minutes ago were now in the building
.

Just as Ian turned to get back to Aria, more smoke filled the hall, making his lungs and eyes burn. Visibility through the smoke should have been poor, but he could see men filling the hall, dressed in black combat gear and sleek masks. Red laser lines beamed out all around him until a half dozen focused on his chest. A man yelled for him to get on the floor with his arms spread, but Ian decided that wasn’t going to happen.

Ian breathed deeply, realizing that this would never be over. He was aware that Carlos and a group of others had been Vincent’s and Jasper’s puppets, but how many more were there and had any taken the serum? How many more would Ian have to face? He readied himself to defend himself, to attack, to take more life.

Before this all began, he would have never imagined killing someone. Now…now he had no difficulty ending a life if it meant keeping Aria safe.

“Stand down,” a commanding voice called from behind the armed men.

The voice was familiar, but at this point, Ian was so tired that he could be hearing his brother’s voice subconsciously. Even when Richard rushed out from behind the men who were lowering their weapons, Ian didn’t—couldn’t—believe it was really his brother who was coming toward him. He remained in a ready stance.

Wait, why are they lowering their weapons
?

“Thank God you’re all right,” Richard said. He embraced Ian and held on longer than he usually would. One of the men said something about doing a perimeter check while three others pulled his uncle’s office door open and went inside.

It is him
.
Richard is here
, and as relieved as Ian was that he didn’t have to fight his way out of this place again, he didn’t understand why or how his brother was here at HowlTech.

“Aria,” Ian said, his desire to see her rushing to the forefront and he pushed his brother away, “I have to make sure she’s safe.”

Richard grabbed his shoulders and gave him a shake. “If you’re talking about the beautiful woman in the lobby, she’s fine. We have a medical team looking her and Brandon over.”

Ian let out a sigh of relief.

A call for medical came through on an earpiece of one of the men nearby. Thanks to his sensitive hearing, Ian heard the call. It seemed that Vincent may not be dead after all and Ian didn’t know how he felt about that.

“Why are you here?” Ian asked Richard, trying to ignore the sounds he heard coming from Vincent’s office.

“When we couldn’t reach you, we thought nothing of it at first. Father figured you were busy with your new position here. After trying to get a hold of you here several times with no luck, Father and I decided to cut our trip short and come home. But Elaina convinced us that you were fine and that Vincent was watching over you. Eventually we both grew suspicious when she continued to discourage us from trying to contact you. Father finally confronted her and with a little persuasion she told us that she had been instructed not to let any calls from you to get through to either one of us and to keep us away. We arrived a few hours ago. If it wasn’t for Brandon calling me, saying that all hell had broken loose—”

“Brandon called you?” Ian frowned.

“Yeah, about an hour ago,” Richard said, looking around. “Father makes it his business to know all of our friends, even the ones we don’t want him to know about.”

“Clear the way.” EMTs came running by with a gurney and some medical bags. Ian followed them into the office, unable to stay away. He looked around in dismay. The once lavish place was in shambles. Furniture was broken; books and papers littered the floor, and Vincent was sprawled out, unconscious and lying in his own blood on the plush white carpet. Ian could feel Richard behind him, watching just as he watched, as the medical team took vitals and inserted tubes then placed Vincent on the stretcher.

“What happened here?” Richard asked.

Ian just stared. Of course Richard didn’t know what had happened and Ian didn’t know what to tell him. Honesty wasn’t an option right now with so many people around. The thought of information about Vincent’s experiments getting out and Ian and his child spending their lives as lab rats—or worse, hunted—was unacceptable. The prospect of jail wasn’t any better, but at least if he admitted sole responsibility for what happened here, Aria could raise their child in peace.

“I—” Ian began, but was interrupted.

“We found the security room. There are surveillance videos, sir. Tech also hacked into a second feed from another location that was accessed from here,” a voice said over the communicating devices they used.

At the same time, the EMTs wheeled Vincent by them. Even though the man he called uncle had done inexcusable things to him, and to his family, Ian couldn’t help feeling an ache in his chest as he watched Vincent being rolled by him and into the elevators.

Richard pressed his ear comm. “Secure everything,” Richard said, “clean sweep the entire building.” The man responded with a “Yes, sir,” then his brother looked over to him. “Come on, Ian”—he patted him on the shoulder—“let them work. Your young woman informed me that she won’t be transported to the hospital without you.”

“I should explain what happened,” Ian said, as Richard led him to the elevators.

Richard moved his eyes over Ian as if checking him over for hidden injuries. When their gazes met, he smiled in relief. “Later. Right now I need to get you and your friends in the lobby to the hospital.” Richard pressed the button for the lobby and, aside from the elevator music, they rode in silence.

Every so often Ian’s brother glanced over at him or patted him on the back.

A way to confirm that I’m alive
, Ian figured. When the elevator doors opened, Aria stood in the lobby, in front of the elevator as if she had been waiting to get on. Just like Richard had done, she looked Ian over, checking for injuries. When she was satisfied there were no new holes or scars, a smile lit her beautiful face, but there were also tears in her eyes.