by Aja James
For the first time in her life, Ava Monroe was irrevocably and unreservedly in love.
*** *** *** ***
Ryu turned over in his mind the conversations he’d listened in on with the bug in Ava Monroe’s iPhone.
Meanwhile, his hands were on auto-pilot setting up enough C4 explosives to take down the entire biotech research building in the middle of Tokyo University, but controlled enough that none of the other facilities would be affected.
Knowing Ava’s routine, he programmed the bug to scan for key words during her working hours while recording any conversations that could be captured within a three-foot radius while he slept. Later during the night when he was awake, he would go back and listen to portions that the key word filter had flagged as potentially important.
He didn’t want to record sounds and conversations her phone picked up at night during her private time, but because she had ignored his request to return to the hotel before dark, usually working until at least 10PM, he extended the recording through midnight.
The progress the project team was making was extremely concerning. He couldn’t afford to wait any longer before taking action. He was hoping to obtain some more leads to the ultimate masterminds behind the research, but nothing concrete came up in his surveillance and investigation over the past week and a half. The only clues he had were Evergreen and the new specimen that Ava had dubbed “Genesis.”
Ryu assessed that these samples were from two separate subjects from the Dark and/ or Pure races. Alive or dead, he needed to determine where they were and who held them. As well as whether there were more.
By destroying the research center, he hoped he was delaying their progress, but he knew they would only start up again elsewhere if he didn’t discover and eliminate the head of the scheme.
He’d also heard the entire course of Ava’s “date.” He hadn’t meant to, but because the bug had flagged the conversation while they were talking about the project and was blinking red when he awoke just before dusk and looked over at his monitors, he put on his headphones and listened.
When they spoke of the terminal patients receiving transplants, Ryu suspected that those patients were actually the missing students from Todai campus. This research wasn’t about saving lives as Ava was led to believe. Only the healthiest subjects with the most “potential” would have been selected for the experiments.
Two more athletic young men in their prime had been reported strangely absent over the last few days, but Ryu had worked with campus authorities to keep the information confidential for now. He didn’t need the police to get involved and blow things up, making it more complicated for him to carry out his mission.
He did, however, immediately contact his human ally in the special investigations unit, who was currently under cover as one of the project team researchers:
Nanao Ise.
While she wasn’t an expert in either of the project’s work streams, she had been a military surgeon not so long ago and could hold her own in terms of medical knowledge.
Comparing notes, they’d both suspected for some time that one or more of the other three researchers, excluding Ava, were not only using illegal methods to procure donor samples and patients, but in league with the ultimate power source to advance experiments that could remake the world as they knew it.
Sōsuke was the prime suspect, though they still didn’t have concrete evidence. Nevertheless, Ryu sent Nanao to warn Ava. He just hoped Ava would take caution.
Right now, Sōsuke needed Ava for the research. She was the one with all the breakthrough ideas. But when he felt more comfortable continuing on his own, her life would be in imminent danger.
Ryu stopped for a moment and rested his hands on the table.
He shouldn’t care. He shouldn’t worry for Ava Monroe’s safety. Her life or death was no business of his. In fact, he could be endangering Nanao’s life by sending her to warn Ava, or at the very least risk blowing her cover. He shouldn’t be risking so much for a target. He shouldn’t be ignoring the kill order as he was intending to now:
He would see her one more time.
He would try to make sure she was nowhere near the research center when he set the explosives tomorrow tonight. Once it was over, without her knowing, he would help her stay off the radar of the vampire Queen, who had issued the kill order for the entire project team. If he needed to, he’d help her create a new identity and life, but he would only go there as a last resort.
Ava loved her research. It was her passion and her calling. She was obviously gifted in that space. Starting over without it was not something Ryu would ever want for her, but he’d do everything in his power to make sure she stayed safe and whole.
Chapter Nine
Ava was wolfing down some sashimi and sushi rolls on one of the benches surrounding Sanchiro Pond in the early evening the next day. She’d skipped lunch again and this bento box was her early supper.
They were advancing at light speed in the lab, and she didn’t want to miss a single second.
Out of more than one hundred tries with high-quality human eggs, they had only been able to successfully fertilize three. Of those, only one had survived beyond a few hours. That very one was now in its third day and would soon be transferred to a special culture to grow to the blastocyst stage, at which point they could start extracting the stem cells with a higher rate of success.
Ava hadn’t dreamt she would see so much progress so soon. This was the most exciting work she’d ever done. Most research teams took months if not years to advance only a fraction of what they had been able to accomplish in just two weeks. She knew it was partly because of the caliber of the team, the state-of-the-art facilities and the seemingly unlimited resources provided by GTI.
The rest was all luck.
More than once Ava wondered where the specimens came from—Evergreen and Genesis. Were they even human? Were they humans with distinct mutations? How old were they? If they had those incredible healing abilities through their genes, did they even age?
But she’d signed an air-tight contract when she agreed to come onboard that stipulated she would keep those types of questions to herself or face severe consequences, the least of which was legal action.
Those strict and befuddling contract terms had almost stopped her from joining the team. She just didn’t feel right about the secrecy. At the same time, if she were a human with extraordinary genes, potentially manifested in unusual ways, she’d want to help others if she could but also keep her identity private.
Humankind did not deal well with things they considered other—the unfamiliar, the unusual, the unexpected.
She herself knew this well.
She was the quintessential mutt, a mix of so many different ethnicities that she’d either check half the boxes on an identification form or “none of the above.” And then there was her IQ and quirkiness.
She didn’t fit into a box. No one did. Everyone was unique in different ways, but society liked to group people together. Us versus them. Majority versus minority.
Ava was in the minority of the minority.
But not for long. The reasons why companies and investors diversified their portfolio to spread risk and get higher returns could be applied to the genetic portfolio as well. The more differentiated our genes, the more likelihood we had winners in the mix, which would dominate over weaker genes and be passed down to our offspring. If we started always with the same genes, while the world changed around us, human beings would soon be left behind and face extinction.
Ava was absolutely fascinated by what kind of person or being had those incredible genes. But that was secondary to her goal of harnessing those genes for medical research to save and improve lives.
Suddenly, she looked up.
It was his scent that alerted her, even before his physical presence could make itself known. He was in his biker leather today, head to toe form-fitting black.
He looked extremely edible.
“You know,” she said without bothering with a mundane “hello,” “I made myself a promise if I ever saw you again.”
Standing two feet away, he didn’t ask what it was, his expression unreadable.
“But first I have a question for you.”
He subtly lifted an eyebrow.
“How many children do you want?”
Ryu Takamura shook his head, half bemused, half frustrated if Ava were to characterize the glint in his eyes.
“Dr. Monroe—”
“I’d say six or seven myself,” she continued as if he hadn’t spoken. “Three girls, three boys, the seventh we can save for a happy surprise.”
“Ava—”
She held up a hand. “You said we’re not doing this again. Why are you here in front of me? You’re giving me expectations every time you show up, and I intend to collect on my expectations. I told you that I don’t play games.”
She crossed her arms and stared back at him, a determined look on her face.
“I need you to go back to the hotel and promise you won’t come back to work tonight,” he said with an intensity that made her pause.
She mulled this over for a few moments and asked the obvious, “Why?”
He exhaled through his nose, and she could tell she was trying his patience. Well tough, he was trying hers too.
“Your safety depends on it,” he decided to answer at last.
She should have asked another “why”—why did her safety depend on staying at the hotel? But she asked a different question instead.
“Why do you care if I’m safe or not?”
She held her breath for his answer, but he didn’t give her satisfaction.
“Just promise me.”
“Are you coming home with me if I do as you say?” Hey, why not push her luck a little while he seemed to want something from her. You never know if you don’t ask.
“No.”
Ava tried not to let her disappointment show. Well, now she knew. The immediacy of his response hurt just a little.
“Am I going to see you again?” The question was out before Ava could stop it. Oh why did she like to torture herself!
He opened his mouth to speak, no doubt to pour ice water all over her hot hopes, but then something in his expression changed.
His eyelids dropped to half-mast and his lips tipped at one corner in that now-familiar look.
It was a mask he wore, she realized.
“If I give you what you want, will you promise to stay at the hotel tonight?”
Ava’s mouth fell open just a little, her brain heading straight for the gutter. She gathered herself enough to retort, “You don’t know what I want.”
He took a step toward her, now only one foot away.
“You can have me any way you want me,” he said in his deep, husky voice, even lower than usual, instantly conjuring writhing naked bodies in her thoughts. “As long as you want. As hard as you want. As deep as you want. I won’t stop until you tell me to.”
Ava’s eyes widened as she continued to stare at him unblinkingly. Her only movement was to shudder with pleasure and anticipation. Distantly, she was aware of the clenching of his jaw and the echo of pain in his eyes, as if saying those words had cost him dearly.
He reached out a hand and gently tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, his fingertips barely grazing her skin. Yet the sparks he ignited blazed sharp and bright, and Ava felt as if her cheek had been scalded. She reached up to touch the area just as he pulled his hand away.
“Do we have a deal?” he said in that same low voice, roughened by passion as if he were already inside of her, pulsing and hot.
Ava swallowed and tried to find her voice. What were they talking about? What was she doing here? It was really hard to concentrate when her libido was stomping her logic into the ground.
“That’s not what I want,” she finally rasped. Then cleared her throat. “I mean, that’s not all I want.”
“Go back to the hotel, Ava,” he said again as he took one step back, then another. “I will come to you there. Wait for me.”
Then he turned and walked away, his strides long and purposeful.
She watched him go in a lust-crazed haze. When she could see no more of him, Ava promptly melted into a puddle on her bench.
How she wished she could believe him. But as naïve as she often was when it came to interactions between men and women, she was no dummy.
*** *** *** ***
Ryu had no intention of seeing Ava again.
She was an anathema to his self-control. And in his line of work, having that weakness, any weakness, was a death sentence.
But he was willing to lie through his teeth and promise her the moon if she would just stay out of danger tonight. He wished he could send Nanao to babysit her, but the agent had gone radio silent since the night before, directly after she visited Ava to warn her.
In fact, she hadn’t even shown up at work today.
He didn’t have time to worry about her; she could take care of herself. It was Ava who was most at risk. If they’d already advanced to the blastocyst stage, he had to destroy the lab and everything in it before they could extract the stem cells. He’d waited too long already. They should never have gotten this far. They now had enough information to proceed without Ava. She was one hundred percent dispensable.
Ryu needed to finish this before they made a move on her.
Stealthily, blending into the darkness like the Ninja he was trained to be, he soundlessly made his way to the roof of the biotech building. There he would wait, crouched in the shadows unlit by the crescent moon. The charges were set for midnight, and before they went off, he would infiltrate the labs where Evergreen, Genesis and the embryo were stored. Once he had them in his possession, he would execute any of the project team members who were still there; hunt them down later if not.
And with this mission accomplished, he would move on to the next one. There were still the fight clubs to investigate, Inanna’s father to find, and his personal vendetta to fulfill.
None of which involved Ava Monroe.
*** *** *** ***
Ava had intended to stay in her hotel, she really did. Not because she actually thought Ryu Takamura would come over later and rock her world.
Although, a girl could hope.
She had worked nonstop for the entire duration of her visit thus far except one dinner out with Sōsuke, and of course her drunken sleepover the night of the storm. She’d worked through the past weekend and now it was Friday night again.
Not that she had any plans beyond waiting and wishing for the fulfillment of an empty promise by a particularly frustrating and mysterious male, but she did want to give herself a much-deserved break.
The hotel was full of posters and brochures for a cherry blossom festival at Edo Castle that would begin bright and early on Saturday morning. She didn’t want to miss it because of another all-nighter. They had made enough progress by now that she didn’t feel the same urgency to race to the finish line, just excitement and anticipation.
But for the life of her she couldn’t find her phone. It was a few minutes past eleven and her mother was probably getting worried again with her not calling.
She must have left it at the lab along with her laptop brief. She’d left campus directly after seeing Ryu. She’d had her wallet, her lab card and hotel key and it didn’t occur to her to gather her bulky things before heading out.
Ava paced her room while she chewed on her thumbnail, a bad habit her mother had always deplored.
The lab was just a ten-minute stroll from her hotel, eight if she walked fast. She’d be back within half an hour. She could still call mom before she went to bed and she’d have all her things for the weekend. Or she could wait until tomorrow morning, but she’d have to rush over at the crack of dawn if she wanted to make good time for the cherry blossom festival.
And what if she had trouble getting into the building? Weekend security was different than wee
kdays. It might have been after eleven on a Friday night, but security didn’t switch out until midnight.
Besides, was she really staying in her room because he told her to? Without giving her any reasons? Like he was going to hold up his end of the “deal” if she held up hers? She’d ignored his instruction to stay in her hotel room after dark for the entire time she’d been in the city. And surprise, surprise, nothing bad had ever happened. Why should tonight be any different?
Making up her mind, Ava shrugged on a light jacket and headed back out. She smiled to herself in irony. Maybe if she disobeyed his instructions again, he would have more reason to reappear in front of her. Why break the pattern?
Not knowing his number or anything else about Ryu Takamura, it wasn’t as if she had better options to get an audience with him.
It wasn’t very dark on the way from her hotel to Todai, the streets well-lit by lamps and passing cars, the crescent moon casting the skies in a faint bluish glow.
She made it to the Biotech Center in record time, half running to get there because she felt guilty for having gone against Ryu’s request despite not having agreed to it.
She muttered to herself over her own contradictions as she entered the research wing, waving at the solemn but unfailingly polite security guard as she passed.
Within minutes she was beside her cubicle and packing up her things in her hobo bag.
But as she turned to leave, she almost jumped out of her skin to find Shinji Abarai standing in her way. In his surgical scrubs.
“You shouldn’t be here,” he said tonelessly, as if in a trance, his usual impatient antagonism and reclusiveness when dealing with her oddly missing.
“I just came to get my things,” Ava said neutrally.
Why did he care that she was in the lab after hours? She regularly stayed late working with Sōsuke, and once in a while ran into members of the transplant sub team who also tended to slave away at their research at all odd hours.
He tilted his head slightly, regarding her with unblinking eyes.