by Dana Lyons
Every cell of her body vibrated with the thrill of coming together, the meeting of mind and body as Lazar intended. Quinn was one of her pack and she his alpha, but the connection between them was universal with the equality of love and commitment. The beginnings of her orgasm stirred and she sucked in her breath.
The dance moved a little faster. His breath was like a bellows in her ear, fueling her excitement. Slick and wet, they collided. One of his bandages rolled up and revealed the underlying stitches to scrape along her ribs.
The first wave of ecstasy burst in her belly, followed by another and another. As she rode the last strokes of her passion, Quinn’s body stiffened and he held her tighter. With breath ragged and rasping in each other’s ears, they went still. He held her like he’d never let her go. She responded in kind. You belong with us, now.
He didn’t answer and she felt doubt rising in his mind.
“You doubt the pack?”
No.
He doubted himself, and no words she could say would convince him otherwise. He’d have to understand his worth on his own.
4
After the door to Quinn’s room closed, Rhys helped Simon put together the extensive paperwork Jarvis sent over. They separated them into three stacks. Kingston. Ivanov. Lazar.
He eyed the files with mounting apprehension. Quinn’s debilitating emotion and destructive behavior told a tale Rhys wasn’t sure he wanted to read, much less view the photos. On the other hand, Ivanov inspired a bad taste in his mouth just from saying the name. That left Lazar, a trigger that flipped his adrenaline switch. He hesitated.
“Which one do you want to start with?” Simon asked with a grimace. “I always wondered about the scars on Quinn. From what I’ve seen, he should be dead.” He picked up Quinn’s file.
Rhys jacked one eyebrow. The emotions they experienced this morning came from someone very alive.
Someone praying to die.
He took the Ivanov file.
* * *
When Quinn drifted back to sleep, Dreya relaxed, knowing his body needed down time to heal. Gideon Smith told them rapid healing would be one of their new traits.
Would emotional healing be on that list?
She exited Quinn’s room and saw it was mid-afternoon. She was disheveled and smelled of sex. Quinn’s now cemented in the pack. A quick glance at Rhys, and he nodded.
She peered at Simon. He also gave a nod of approval, but she detected a thread of sadness. She slipped into her room and showered. Her body felt strong, but her mind still reeled from this morning’s turmoil. She had to get herself and her team ready for the Ivanov case before it consumed them, as she knew it would.
“And Lazar,” she whispered. “Don’t forget Lazar.”
What could he possibly be doing with a sociopath like Ivanov?
She dressed and returned to the main room. On the low coffee table, an array of photos spread out of plantations, factories, shiny-front brothels, and sweltering mining operations.
Simon sat on one of the couches and stared out the broken French doors with a file gripped in his hand. She read anger and protective urges against a background of deep sadness. For Quinn’s loss, she wondered, or his own? “Simon?”
He jumped like a surprised cat, realized it was her, and gave a chagrinned glance. “I could never be a cop.”
She read regret in his mind and wondered what drove him. “You’re a sheriff, and a good one; you were just deep in thought. Care to share?” She pointed to his hand as it maintained a rigid grip on the file.
“Oh, this.” He released his hold and smoothed out the file where he’d crimped it. “This is the medical file on Quinn’s team. There are two standard professional hits, and then the woman. What Ivanov did.” He shook his head. “If it were me, I don’t know if I could live with it.”
Experiencing another pack member’s pain came with the package. His micro-reads showed he felt Quinn’s pain deeply; a bloom of sympathy surrounded him. She said, “He’s going to need your help.”
“Oh, I’m not so sure about that; I read his file. He’s a Black-Ops Rambo-dude. And he will, no doubt, want to kill Ivanov. Hell, I would.” He glanced about before whispering, “Those old scars on Quinn, by all accounting, he shouldn’t be alive.”
He rose and brushed off his pants as though divesting himself of the horror. “After you look at this file, hide it. He doesn’t need to see these photos. When he wakes, he’ll need to eat, so I ordered pizza. Should be here soon; I need some fresh air.”
He walked out the broken doors, shrouded in sadness. Like Quinn, he was hiding pain—another box she had yet to crack open. His file sat in her desk at work, but she refused to look at it, preferring to hear the story from him.
Rhys came over and sat beside her. She nodded to Simon’s retreating form. “Work with him, will you?”
“We suddenly have our hands full, don’t we?” He held the Ivanov file. “These are ugly. So totally void of humanity, to call Ivanov a sociopath is generous.”
“I don’t want to look at it. What did he do?”
“Sent Quinn video of his team being assassinated. When Quinn texted Anika to stop her from answering a call, it was his text that triggered her phone to explode. In trying to save her, he killed her.”
Dreya closed her eyes and tensed her shoulders, holding on to sanity while unspeakable evil entered her world. I’ve seen the images in his mind; I don't need to read it.
He took the file into his bedroom and returned empty handed.
“Do we have any orders yet?” she asked. “Has Jarvis called?”
“No, and it’s getting late.”
The front door opened, and Simon entered carrying a stack of pizza boxes. “He’s going to need carbs when he wakes up, which should be soon.” He took the boxes into the kitchen.
They began preparing plates and napkins at the table, so she returned to Quinn’s room. She slipped in, walking softly. When she reached his side, he took her wrist. He pulled her in under the covers.
She nestled into him, relaxing as his arms wrapped around her. His breath tickled her neck. “Did you get some rest? How do you feel? Better?”
“Remember what Smith told us about reduced healing and recovery times?” he asked.
“Yeah, I was thinking the same thing.”
“Well, I think we’re going to find out just how brief the healing time is.”
“Hungry?”
“As a wolf.”
Pleased to see his humor alive and functioning, she smiled. “Come on. Simon has pizza.” She drew him out of bed and peered at the row of stitches that had lost its bandage in their love making. “Those stitches need to come out already.” She wrinkled her forehead. “Wow, Simon needs to see this.”
They entered the kitchen; the smell of hot pizza set her stomach rumbling. Simon jumped up from the table. “Got plenty for you in the oven.”
Quinn took a seat. Rhys opened a beer and asked Simon, “Can he have a beer?” He passed the bottle to Quinn with a wink.
Simon answered with a chuckle. “Like I’m big enough to stop him if he wants it.” He brought over several slices of pizza and set them on plates in front of Quinn and Dreya. “How do you feel?” he asked Quinn.
Quinn growled and chowed down on the pizza. Dreya laughed. “His stitches need to come out already. Any information beyond that will have to wait until he gets full.”
They ate their pizza and bided their time until Quinn was ready, or at least finished eating. He finally polished off the last piece of crust and took a long draw on his beer bottle, emptying it.
A silence brimming with anticipation and dread settled over them. Quinn wiped his mouth and cleared his throat. “Do we have orders from Jarvis yet?”
“No,” she offered. “I expect him to call soon.”
He exhaled deeply and pondered his fingertips for a long stretch. She thought he’d decided not to speak but he pushed his plate back. “If you’ve read the file on my operation w
ith Ivanov, you understand how devious he is, how meticulously he plans, how long range he operates.” He paused with twisted lips before adding, “And what a totally cold-blooded sociopath he is.”
* * *
Outside Paris
Anthony Lazar gazed about the room, nodding here and there to individuals with private worth equal to the GDP of many nations. Politicians, business moguls, ancient family scions, oil producers, along with the occasional criminal in sheep’s clothing chatted about their high-stakes games and ventures.
The wealthy, an unchanging abomination of nature.
He blew a snort of disgust from behind his champagne glass. His formula for remodeling the human race, Nobility, awaited delivery to the masses. To implement his plan, he needed a dispersal program on a world-wide scale. For that he required contacts and opportunity . . . meaning the wealthy.
But the closer he got to the filthy rich, the less enamored he grew. He thought his political cronies from the US were vile, but on the continent, the unredeemable flourished to astonishing levels.
The oldest families were the perfect example of breeding within a limited gene pool, where the inheritance of behavior such as greed was predictable. By their very nature, the wealthy were in contradiction to Galton’s hypothesis that the further one went from eminence, the less eminence was found.
He shook his head at the evidence of his point: within those considered eminent by their wealth there existed no eminence to measure.
Perhaps it’s better to start at the bottom and work up. What if I start with raw material?
He strolled around, listening to their chatter. As the token genius invited to these events, it amused him greatly to hear them brag about what they spent their money on, especially when it came to their boasts of philanthropy.
Ha! They know nothing about true philanthropy.
Altering a man’s circumstances was shallow and temporary at best. Instead, change the genetic makeup into a more noble nature, thereby altering the man and the animal within, effecting permanent change.
A true fix. Now, that’s philanthropy.
For amusement at these functions, he’d evaluate those among the crowd for anyone he’d consider fixing. Based on what he’d seen so far, most were unsuitable for his newly defined work-from-the-bottom-up guideline.
Searching for raw material, he progressed from room to room, stopping to exchange pleasantries, for he was a guest, even though he considered these people a subspecies. But, a nibble here, a drink there, and he continued his mission from the comfort of a settee.
His thoughts drifted to Dreya and her team. What level of advancement had they attained? How far had she developed her telepathy? How were they surviving given their unique circumstances? Had they mated and solidified the pack?
My children, how are you?
They were, to date, his best subjects. While their exposure to a corrupted version of Nobility was Gideon Smith’s attempt at murder, they had survived, and he still considered them his creations. When the time came, they’d present a clear validation for Nobility.
“Lazar? Dr. Anthony Lazar?”
A Slavic voice jolted him to attention. A young man, handsome but for his cold eyes and a facial tattoo, extended a hand in greeting. Behind him stood a fellow no one would want to run into in a dark ally.
Lazar’s curiosity rose. In a roomful of overbred eminence, before him stood two subjects as far from eminence as they came.
Raw material.
“Yes. I’m Dr. Lazar. You are?”
“Ivanov. Sasha Ivanov,” the voice rumbled.
While they shook hands, an assessment went both ways. He looked at Ivanov as a test subject; Ivanov tested him, his eye focused and piercing, the stance intimidating. Lazar smiled. “What can I do for you, Mr. Ivanov?”
“You are the genetics man?”
“Some would say,” he replied. He nodded when Ivanov motioned to the empty seat.
Ivanov sat and glanced side to side before lowering his voice. “I hear you created special creatures for certain interests. Can you tell me about these creatures?”
“Sorry, I’m bound by an NDA. But that NDA doesn’t cover what you’re interested in. So tell me, what can I do for you?”
The man’s bright blue eyes were hard, proclaiming a devil-may-care nonchalance. Lazar was instantly intrigued. What misadventures would create such a veneer? He held his breath in anticipation, withholding his smile.
“I understand you can make, uh, beneficial changes in people. I have employees interested in acquiring such changes,” Ivanov said.
His demeanor had shifted and now proclaimed his innocence, but the eye revealed another story. Lazar leaned in and lowered his voice. “What beneficial changes are you or rather they, interested in?” He didn’t bat a lash; neither did Ivanov.
Ivanov shrugged with perpetual charm. “Some want increased strength and durability with a lack of aggression. Others could befit from increased libido. Some would produce multiple organs for harvesting. The possibilities are as endless as your genius, wouldn’t you say, doctor?”
Lazar matched his smile to Ivanov’s grin. Cold, calculating, evaluating. “I’d need a complex laboratory, certain equipment, and several months.”
Ivanov snapped his fingers. His man produced a cell phone which he passed to Lazar. “I’ll be in touch.” He stood and brushed off his pants. “They allow me in here because I can buy half this room with my pocket change, but they don’t adore me. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
Ivanov walked out, parting the sea of guests like the staff of Moses. The sea returned in his wake, obscuring his exit from view.
Lazar’s smile broadened. He pulled his phone out and put in a search for Sasha Ivanov. An extensive list of entries came up, including a bio listing on Wikipedia. As he read, he alternately frowned and grinned with approval. Ivanov’s wealth was undisputed, although unclear. And, no surprise, he was linked to the criminal underworld and various unsavory business practices.
“Hmmm. Wouldn’t that be a challenge,” he murmured. While his personal goal was to fix the human race on a broad scale, to fix just one sociopath intrigued him even more.
A billionaire sociopath incapable of empathy or remorse. A perfect subject to display the most radical change. From the bottom to the top.
“I think we have a winner. Now all I have to do is get a little of his DNA.”
* * *
Outside the grand party, Ivanov climbed into the rear seat of a white Mercedes while Stepan took the driver’s seat. As they exited onto the street from the long estate driveway, Ivanov asked, “How is the laboratory?”
“Everything is on site. The power is up and they are working to put together the lab and housing.”
“Good.” Lazar was not what he expected. Even though he’d seen photos, he thought they were taken in the early years of the man’s medical career. He wasn’t only young, but appeared no older in any photos. For a man with a reputation in genetics, his appearance was extremely intriguing.
He caught Stepan’s eye in the rear-view mirror. “You have video surveillance in place on the doctor’s family and known associates?”
“I have a full team on his parent’s home outside New York City. His known associates are half of the U.S. Congress, but I’ll pair a phone to his cell when you see him tomorrow so we can monitor his calls.”
“Excellent.” Ivanov ran a hand through his hair and smiled with seductive allure. The movement was one of several remnants from his days with Nikolay, that and a prime piece of wisdom.
Know your lovers, business associates, and enemies before they know you.
5
The next day, Lazar waited for Ivanov with a rising level of excitement. Not since Draco Station had he been this thrilled about a new concept.
The Ivanov challenge would provide the perfect counter to his mass inoculation program. If he could alter the entire species, or just as easily a single individual, Nobility would be the next step in
advanced human development. “I can set a new precedence over Galton’s eminence theory. Hell, I can rewrite the behavior genetics bible.”
But don’t underestimate Ivanov.
Ivanov’s choice for the pick-up place was not a wasted move. By instructing him to meet at high noon in the empty parking lot of a popular nightclub surrounded by several security cameras, he effectively announced their collaboration to the world.
Little does he know this suits my plans.
A white, Mercedes-Benz S-Class pulled into the lot; Ivanov got out and made a show of greeting Lazar for the cameras.
“Dr. Lazar. Thank you for meeting me.” Ivanov pumped Lazar’s hand with enthusiasm. “I apologize for the public nature of our meeting, but I’ve learned openness and transparency are beneficial to business.”
It was a chess move, an obvious display in a public venue meant to declare Ivanov’s invincible status. But while Ivanov’s move played right into Lazar’s plans, he wondered who Ivanov was playing for.
There was something more to Ivanov’s behavior. He was a complex entity; the successful transformation of him had Nobel Prize stamped all over it. Lazar smiled at the camera, anticipating the challenge, or perhaps, the battle to come between him and Ivanov.
“Shall we find a nice table and eat while we talk?” Ivanov indicated the car. The driver opened a rear door and Ivanov got in; Lazar joined him in the back seat. They left the city and headed south.
After driving a half hour, the car pulled into an estate surrounded by a brick wall topped with spiked bars. Once through the gate manned by two guards with a hungry looking Rottweiler, they passed manicured gardens up to a great double front door.