Lover Enraptured: Thieves of Aurion, Book 2 (31 page)

“Nah, you pay me better. Plus I don’t relish getting my ass blown off in their holy war. Assuming they’re whacked enough to attempt staging their coup after injecting themselves with Casper’s wonder juice.”

Casper’s wonder juice?
Coup?
What the hell were they talking about?

A look of warning snapped across Kiantu’s face. “You’ll keep that thought to yourself. I don’t need you fucking up this transaction with your goddamn loud mouth.”

“But surely you don’t think the formula actually
works
?”

“I don’t have to think it does, they do. It could be unicorn piss for all I care. I siphoned too much damn money into Casper’s research to let it all shit down the toilet. I
will
recoup it, whatever means necessary.”

Oh my gods.
This vile, backstabbing man had been Casper’s boss. Avily lay perfectly still, hoping her silence would be taken for indifference to their conversation. Her next thought brought ice to her veins. The fact that they spoke so freely in front of her in the first place hinted at the precarious nature of her future. Maybe they already assumed her a marked dead woman, therefore they were unconcerned with what she discovered. A sobering thought.

Someone knocked on the door, putting an end to the men’s conversation and any prayer of Avily overhearing further relevant tidbits.

The burly man strode to the window and pinched the blinds open. A lecherous grin stretched his fleshy lips. “Well if it isn’t Rodale’s bitch herself.”

“Let her in. And remember, keep your fucking trap shut.”

“Yes, boss.” He swung the door open and stepped aside, making room for the short blonde woman who entered.

Avily stared at the female’s profile, her heart sinking. “Leena.”

Her sister turned toward her, a dazzling smile lighting her face. “Hey, baby sis. Glad you’ve decided to join us.”

Chapter Twenty-Seven

A bright light shone in Jerrick’s face, snapping him to with a groggy start. For a moment he was transported to that hellish night he’d been kidnapped. The next instant that hell shifted into the worst of nightmares when he recalled the sickening sight of Avi getting struck by a volt of electricity and toppling into an unconscious heap.

He splayed his hand in front of his face, ineffectually attempting to block out the light. “I’ll fucking kill you if you’ve hurt her.”

“That’s a fine thing to say to me.” The light snapped off, revealing the image of Francesca standing above it. “Especially since it’s my floor you’re lying on. Quite uninvited, I might add.”

She stepped around him. Jerrick’s attention darted to the man leaning against the elevator door. Smug amusement playing at his mouth, Thane nodded in greeting. “Looks like you’re a little lost, sub
Bill
.”

An irate noise came from deeper in the penthouse, promptly followed by the reappearance of Francesca. She stormed to Jerrick’s side and pinned him with a glacial glare. “What have you done with Casper’s things?”

“
I
didn’t do anything.” He decided it wise not to mention he’d been the one to originally break into the lab. “Lex Tarker took off with everything, right after he shot me and Avi.”
Gods, Avi.
Queasiness pitching in his gut, he struggled to push himself from the carpet. His head and stomach rebelled, but he ignored both as he staggered to his feet.

“Avi?” Francesca frowned.

He steadied himself with a hand braced upon the wall. “Mistress Scarlett. I think Lex grabbed her. I’ve got to go after him.” He had no fucking idea where to even begin looking for her. But if there was one thing he knew, he wouldn’t stop searching until he had her safe in his arms.

Concern ripe in her gaze, Francesca wrung her hands. “What is all this talk of being shot? And who is this Lex? I have no members under that name.”

Jerrick gave her an in-depth description of Tarker. By the time he was finished, something must have resonated with Francesca because her eyes widened and she drew a deep breath. “Except for the eyeglasses, that could be Stephan Kiantu.”

“
Kiantu?
” Jerrick lurched away from the wall.

“Yes, Casper’s employer. He stopped by earlier to extend his condolences and—” Francesca swallowed, her face going white as a sheet. “Dear gods. He stole the formula.”

Jerrick’s gaze sharpened on her. “You know what his research is?”

“Yes.” She blinked. “How in the world do
you
know what it is?”

“I don’t, technically. But I was blackmailed into stealing it.” His murderous thoughts trekked to the night in question. Lex—no,
Stephan
—had been playing him all along. What a laugh riot that must have been for the man. Acting the victim when he was in on the scheme the entire time. Jerrick longed to break every bone in the fucker’s body just for making him endure those countless rambles about his phony relatives. Then he’d break them all over again for injuring Avi.

Francesca still looked bemused. “Then you’re not really a sub? And Mistress Scarlett…?”

He shook his head. “Please don’t hold it against Avi. She genuinely likes you, and I gave her little choice with helping me on this job.” The miserable mass in his stomach doubled. He’d given in to the blackmail to protect her, and she’d ended up hurt anyway, and in possibly more danger than ever. He had to find her, whatever it took. “Tell me everything you know about Stephan Kiantu. Where I might find him.”

“I’m afraid I don’t know much. According to Casper, the man rarely was in the office. I don’t even know where he lives.”

Bloody fuck.
Desperation clawing at him like a wounded beast, Jerrick hit the call button on the elevator. He’d drive to the ends of Aurion and search every hellhole until he smoked out his quarry if that’s what it took to tuck Avi safely in his arms.

Thane stepped in front of the elevator, blocking the doors. Well beyond his patience and temper, Jerrick pulled back his lips in a warning snarl. “I advise getting out of my way.”

“I’ve a good idea where Kiantu is.”

Jerrick gave Thane a dubious stare. “What? Did you appraise the man’s antiques?”

The corner of Thane’s mouth curved upward. “No, I was hired to steal his company’s formula.”

Jerrick tried to corral his patience while he and Thane rode the elevator down to Rapture’s main level. He had a million questions to ask the man, but he was thwarted by Thane’s one-sided conversation with whoever was on the other end of his com’s sync link. The second Thane disconnected, Jerrick speared him with a fierce look. “What the fuck is going on?”

Rather than immediately answer, Thane dashed through the entrance of the club. Left with little recourse but to follow, Jerrick tailed the man like a shadow. He pulled up short when he spotted a hover jet waiting on the other side of the gate, blocking the vehicles on Primus. He gaped at Thane. “Our ride?”

“Beats fighting traffic.”

He’d get no argument there. Jerrick sprinted past the gate and barreled up the aircraft’s ramp. A moment later he and Thane were buckled into the passenger pit, and the jet took off with a roar. The rumbling engines provided a noisy soundtrack to the pilot’s communication with transit control. Tuning it out, Jerrick squinted at Thane. “What kind of thief gets picked up in a hover jet?”

“One with good connections.” Thane pulled out his com again and punched something onto the screen. “Most of my work involves corporate espionage. My employers pay me well, and the perks are plentiful.”

“Corporate espionage? How the hell did you get tangled up in this theft then?”

“A rival of Kiantu Laboratories hired me.”

“They wanted you to steal the formula out from under Kiantu, or essentially
me
,” Jerrick proposed with a shake of his head.

“More or less. Only my—and my employers—purpose is on a slightly different tangent than Kiantu’s. They’re not looking to duplicate the formula, but instead develop a vaccine to it.”

Fingers of ice skipped down Jerrick’s spine. “What is this formula?”

“A potential weapon. Casper was doing research into a rare abnormality found in a tiny segment of humans. Basically they have a gene that allows them to produce hybrid magical offspring if they mate with a fae. While digging into that, he uncovered the genetic code in those hybrids and found a way to synthesize it. That’s what the formula is.”

“Hybrid humans?”

“With superhuman strength that reaches beyond anything we’ve seen. Before Casper’s death, he created a trial batch that Kiantu forced him to inject into a test patient. The results were startling, but also unfortunate for the patient. The gene eventually attacked the person’s internal system, shutting everything down. Casper saw the inherent danger in the formula and refused to supply it to Kiantu.”

“Which got him killed,” Jerrick filled in flatly.

“Precisely.”

“Why would Winston create something so destructive in the first place?” It didn’t click with the man Francesca had loved and adored. A gentle submissive creating a ticking time bomb? No, the pieces definitely didn’t add up.

“He didn’t know what he was developing until it was too late.” Thane sat back in his seat. Crossing one knee over the other, he studied Jerrick. “He did it for Francesca. She was one of his original case studies.”

Jerrick’s eyebrows winged upward. “A hybrid?”

“One who felt like a freak because of her mixed blood and mutated genes. Apparently her father was a ne’er do well who impregnated her mother and left her to raise Francesca on her own.”

Shit. No wonder the woman wasn’t fond of faes. Talk about baggage. Mixed-breed magic and a deadbeat dad. “I still don’t understand how a synthetic gene would benefit her.”

“He originally planned to inject himself.”

To make himself like her, so she wouldn’t feel like a freak.
Romantic and incredibly insane.
Casper, you were one crazy lovesick bastard.
“Your intel is remarkable.” He tried to conceal the grudging envy in his tone but failed miserably.

“Casper had a confidant in the club. Another submissive. My employers were able to glean a good deal of their information from him, including the fact that Kiantu had been putting the squeeze on Winston because Stephan had a buyer for the formula—a militia leader with too much excess cash and a band of followers willing to stage his holy war.”

“Kiantu planned to sell off the formula even though he knew it wouldn’t work?”

“The man’s a greedy bastard.”

Agreed.
“You mentioned your employers are looking to devise a vaccine. To what purpose? If these militia people want to inject themselves and kill their own moronic selves off, let ’em.”

“If they were only planning to infect themselves, absolutely. But the massive amount of formula Rodale is after suggests he has a bigger picture in mind.”

Jerrick returned Thane’s steady gaze. “He plans to infect the entire human population.
Bloody fuck.
” The chilling possibility churned his stomach.

“If not all, a great deal of it. There are men working from the inside to safeguard that from happening, but the vaccine is a backup plan.”

“To hell with that. Take the fucking asshole out. Or better yet, both of them. Rodale
and
Kiantu.”

“Trust me, it’s going to come down to that. We needed to locate the formula first and ascertain it wouldn’t fall into the wrong hands. Problem is, you can squash a cockroach like Rodale and Kiantu, but before you wipe their carcasses from your shoe, a thousand more of their ilk show up to take their place.”

Living the seedy life of a thief, Jerrick was all too familiar with that reality. Looking at Thane, he found it difficult to believe they existed in the same universe though. Thane was too glossy. Too polished and clean. He said as much to the man, earning Thane’s chuckle.

“It’s amazing what a good suit will disguise,” Thane said with a wink.

Certainly fooled me.
“While I was running surveillance on you, you were tailing me. Through Avi.” Damn, the man was good.

“I arranged to have her purse stolen after news traveled through the grapevine that you might be the thief Kiantu intended to target.”

He gaped at Thane. “She never mentioned that.” And here she gave him a hard time for omitting information.

“Not surprised. What ex-thief would want to admit to having their own property lifted?”

None he knew. “What I don’t understand is why you didn’t nab the formula if you already had an in with Francesca.”

“For a woman who runs a sex club, she’s obnoxiously decorous. I didn’t nail an invitation up into the penthouse until today.”

“I’m surprised your smarmy accent didn’t win her over.”

Thane’s smile turned cocky. “Usually it has ladies falling at my feet.”

Jerrick narrowed his eyes, his thoughts pinned on one particular lady Thane had tried to work his magic on. “You kissed Avi. Don’t tell me that was part of your bloody cover.”

Thane’s grin was rueful. “I profess to having a weakness for pretty blondes.”

“I owe you a debt for helping me find Avi. But don’t think for one moment I’ll hesitate at breaking your kneecaps if your mouth gets anywhere near her again.”