The Russian Billionaire: A Romantic Suspense Novel
Page 18
The more I think and imagine scenarios in my head, the more convinced I become that the cabal will win. To the extent, I become paranoid about it. Sometimes I will lie awake after Konstantin is sleeping. I’ll listen to his deep even breathing, put my hand on my belly, and be afraid for the future.
Until one day I can bear it no more and I confront him while we are sitting together outside on the terrace. There is a full moon and it’s a beautiful night, but my mind is chaotic with ugly thoughts.
“What happens if they force us all to take the chip, or the injection, or whatever it is that will turn us into AI integrated cyborgs?”
He shakes his head firmly. “They won’t do that.”
“Why not? If they are as evil as you say, what’s to stop them?”
“Because Blake was once one of them, before he met Lana, and turned away from that life. So he knows how they think, how they operate, and what rules they are bound by. And they are very firmly bound by the rules of their religion.
He makes air quotes around the word religion.
“Even though it may seem to us as if transhumanism is merely an exercise in turning humanity into slaves or batteries that they can use to mine for energy, there is an unseen but very important spiritual element to all of it. Just like the Aztec’s tore out still beating hearts and sacrificed them to their serpent God, these people believe they are harvesting souls for their God. But they can only harvest willing souls. Their rules say they are allowed to trick someone into saying yes, or make them so fearful that they say yes, but they must agree to their own enslavement.”
I frown. “How can they trick us into accepting something so horrendous? Who’s going to fall for something like that?”
“The same way they tricked you into agreeing to go to war with Iraq based on a lie about WMDs. Because you allowed them to fill your with unthinking fear, and because you didn’t care enough to do your own research, you blindly believed the propaganda and gave your power to them. As long as humankind is not vigilant, they will tricked into giving their consent. Once they have that they can harvest your soul with no repercussions.”
“Okay,” I say slowly. “I get it. Like Dracula. You have to invite him in or he cannot enter your home.”
“Exactly.”
I take a deep breath. “It seems so impossible though, that governments, the media, and other international bodies that have been set up to protect humankind have been so captured by these ghouls.”
“No, it is not as impossible as you think. Thorne once told me that he’d used his AI to map all the blue-chip companies in the world. And what he found was that no matter what industry, be it oil, pharmaceutical, food, air transport, weapons, utilities, tech, or media the majority shares of those firms are held by about ten different companies. The shares of those ten companies are mostly held by five or so companies. And the shares of those five entities are mainly owned by two companies, Blackrock and Vanguard. Then he found out the really interesting nugget of info. The biggest holder of Blackrock is Vanguard. And who owns Vanguard? We will never know, because it is privately held. Do you understand now how concentrated wealth is in our world? They own everything and everyone in power is beholden to them.”
I scoot closer to him, because I feel fear in my heart for my unborn child, and I don’t want to feel that. “If they own everything, how can we possibly win?”
“They want us to think there’s no use fighting. They want us to give up in defeat, but the outcome is not set in stone. We are born with freedom in our bones, and that is our divine right. In this war against tyranny we have three things in our favor. First, we are many and they are few. Second, we do not extract from them, they extract from us, so they need us more than we need them. Third, they are secretly terrified of us, because they exist in a strict hierarchy of order and control, and we stand for freewill and freedom for all of humanity.”
Feeling slightly more reassured, I nod. “Okay. What would be the worst-case scenario? Will we end up with a two-tier society?”
He looks sad, really sad. “If humanity doesn’t come together as one and fight as one, it won’t be two classes of people anymore. We will split into species. Two entirely different species.”
He holds me tightly and gazes deep into my eyes. His eyes are full of sincerity. “But they won’t win, Raine. I know, just as I know without any doubt in my body that our child will never be anyone’s slave. Yes, they will harvest the souls of those who are not vigilant, but they won’t get us, or all the people we are slowly reaching. Day by day more and more people are joining us. It is like a flame that is being passed from one heart to another. Every heart we reach, then goes out into the world, and finds more hearts to light up. That is why they are have doubled their efforts. At a certain point, the tipping point will be reached, and it will be too late for then them to do reach their goals… and we will win.”
That is the last time I doubt Konstantin. I know now, that our strength is quiet, but vast. I remember and take heart from the fact that with all the power and money in the world, Helena didn’t beat me. I beat her.
* * *
A New Beginning
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCZVL_8D048
* * *
The promised sailing trip in the Mediterranean that Konstantin offered to take me on happens when I am nine months pregnant. We sail around the beautiful islands stopping off for long glorious lunches and romantic strolls on the beach.
It is a dreamy time. Sometimes I wake up and still half-asleep think, I’m in my little room in New York, and it was all a dream.
My baby is born on the yacht on the international seas. He belongs to no country. No one will prick the delicate skin on his tiny little heel to steal a drop of his blood so he can be put into a genetic database somewhere. I bring my son into this world to the sound of waves and water and the love I feel flowing from Konstantin’s grip on my hand. It must be my child-bearing hips, but the birth doesn’t last more than two hours and is not too difficult.
When the midwife leaves the room, we gaze in wonder at the new life, we have created. I remember then what Konstantin once told me. The cabal are afraid of mothers. They always have been. It has always been their terrible fear that it is the pure love of mothers that will eventually defeat them. Gazing at my newborn son wrinkled, red face, I know now, why they fear mothers. And they are right too. We will their undoing.
“He’s so beautiful,” I whisper.
“Yes, he is, but should he be so red?”
I laugh. “You try getting pushed out of someone's birth canal and see how red you get.”
He looks sheepish. “He’s actually perfect.”
“He is. Look at his toes. How totally perfect they are. Like two rows of corn.”
At that moment our little baby opens his eyes and looks at us both, his eyes are slightly unfocused, but still so sharp for a newborn.
“I can tell he’s going to be as smart as his dad,” I say with satisfaction.
“We’re gonna win this war, my boy,” Konstantin tells him. “We’re gonna win. No matter what it takes, you will have a good life as a human being.”
“I love you so much,” I whisper looking at Konstantin.
He meets my gaze, and his eyes are shining with love. “I love you too, Raine Tsarnov. I love you more than you can ever imagine.”
* * *
And it’s Never Going To Be Over for them…
* * *
Want to read more of:
* * *
Blake & Lana’s romance:
The Billionaire Banker
* * *
Thorne Blackborne’s story:
Blackmailed By The Beast
* * *
Rocca and Autumn:
The Other Side Of Midnight
Sample Chapters
THE BILLIONAIRE BANKER
* * *
Chapter 1
Blake Law Barrington
* * *
I drop a cube
of sugar into the creamy face of my espresso, stir it, and glance at my platinum Greubel Forsey Tourbillion, acquired at Christie’s Important Watches auction last autumn for a cool half a million dollars.
Eight minutes past eight.
I have a party to go to tonight, but I’m giving it a miss. It’s been a long day, I am tired, I have to be in New York early tomorrow morning, and it will be one of those incomprehensibly dreary affairs. I take a sip—superb coffee—and return the tiny cup to its white rim.
Summoning a waiter for the check, I sense the activity level in the room take a sudden hike. Automatically, I lift my eyes to where all the other eyes, mostly male and devouring, have veered to. Of course. A girl. In a cheap, orange dress and lap dancer’s six-inch high plastic platforms.
You’re looking for love in all the wrong places, honey.
A waiter in a burgundy waistcoat bearing the bill has silently materialized at my side. Not taking my eyes off the girl—despite the impossible shoes she has a good walk, sexy—I order myself a whiskey. The waiter slinks away after a right-away-sir nod, and I lean back into the plush chair to watch the show.
It is one of those swanky restaurants where there are transparent black voile curtains hung between the tables and discreet fans to tease and agitate the gauzy material. Three curtains away she stands, minus the shoes, perhaps five feet five or six inches tall. She has the same body type as Lady Gaga, girlishly narrow with fine delicate limbs. Her skin is the color of thick cream. Beautiful mouth. My eyes travel from the waist-length curtain of jet-black hair to the swelling curve of her breasts and hips, and down her shapely legs.
Very nice, but…
At twenty-nine, I am already jaded. Though I watch her with the same speculation of all the other men in the room she is a toy that no longer holds any real excitement for me. I do not need to meet her to know her. I have had hundreds like her—hot, greedy pussies and cold, cold hearts. It is always the same. Each one hiding talons of steely ambition that hook into my flesh minutes after they rise like resurrected phoenixes from a night in my bed. Safe to say I have realized the error of my ways.
Still….
Something about her has aroused my attention.
She comes further into the room and even the billowing layers of curtains cannot conceal her great beauty or youth. Certainly, she is far too young for her dining companion who has just barged in with all the grace of a retired rugby player. I recognize his swollen head instantly. Rupert Lothian. An over-privileged, nerve gratingly colossal ass. He is one of the bank’s high profile private customers. The bank never does business with anyone they do not check out first and his report was sickening.
Curious. What could someone so fresh-faced and beautiful be doing with one so noted for ugly games? And they are ugly games that Lothian plays.
I watch three waiters head off towards them and the fluid, elegantly choreographed dance they perform to seat and hand them their menus. Now I have her only in profile. She has put the menu on the table and is sitting ramrod-straight with her hands tightly clasped in her lap. She crosses and uncrosses her legs nervously.
Unbidden, an image pops into my head. It is as alive and wicked as only an image can be. Those long, fine legs entangled in silky sheets. I stare helplessly as she pulls away the sheets, turns that fabulous mouth into a red O, and deliberately opens her legs to expose her sex to me. I see it clearly. A juicy, swollen fruit that my tongue wants to explore! I sit forward abruptly.
Fuck.
I thought I had passed the season of fantasizing about having sex with strangers. I reach for my whiskey and shoot it. From the corner of my eyes I see a waiter discreetly whisper something to Lothian. He rises with all the pomposity he can muster and leaves with the waiter.
I transfer my attention to the girl again. She has collapsed backwards into the chair. Her shoulders sag and her relief is obvious. She stares moodily at the tablecloth, fiddles with her purse and frowns. Then, she seems to visibly force herself away from whatever thoughts troubled her, and lets her glance wander idly around the room until her truly spectacular eyes—I have never seen anything like them before—collide with my unwavering stare. And through the gently shifting black gauze my breath is suddenly punched out of my body, and I am seized by an unthinking, irresistible call to hunt. To possess.
To own her.
* * *
Chapter 2
Lana Bloom
It can have been only seconds, but it seems like ages that I am held locked and hypnotized by the stranger’s insolent eyes. When I recall it later I will remember how startlingly white his shirt had been against his tanned throat, and swear that even the air between us had shimmered. Strange too how all the background sounds of cutlery, voices and laughter had faded into nothing. It was as if I had wandered into a strange and compelling universe where there was no one else but me and that devilishly handsome man.
But in this universe I am prey.
The powerful spell is broken when he raises his glass in an ironic salute. Hurriedly, I tear my gaze away, but my thin façade of poise is completely shattered. Hot blood is rushing up into my neck and cheeks; and my heart is racing like a mad thing.
What the hell just happened?
I can still feel his gaze like a burning tingle on my skin. To hide, I bend my head and let my hair fall forward. But the desire to dare another look is so immense it shocks me. I have never experienced such an instant and physical attraction before.
With broad shoulders, a deep tan, smoldering eyes, a strong jaw, and straight-out-of-bed, vogue-cool, catwalk hair that flops onto his forehead, he looks like one of those totally hot and brooding Abercrombie and Fitch models, only more savage and fierce.
Devastatingly more.
But I am not here to flirt with drop dead gorgeous strangers, or to find a man for myself. I press my fingers against my flaming cheeks, and force myself to calm down. All my concentration must go into getting Rupert to agree to my proposal. He is my last hope.
My only hope.
Nothing could ever be more important than my reason for being there with such a man as him. I look miserably towards the tall doors where he has gone. This cold, pillared place of opulence is where rich people come to eat. A waiter wearing white gloves comes through the doors bearing a covered tray. I feel out of my depth. The orange dress is itchy and prickly and I long to scratch several places on my body. Then there are the butterflies flapping dementedly inside my stomach.
Don’t ruin this, I tell myself angrily. You’ve come this far. Nervously, to regain my composure, I press my lips together and firmly push the sarcastically curving mouth out of my mind. I must concentrate on the horrible task ahead. But those insolent eyes, they will not go. So I bring to mind my mother’s thin, sad face, and suddenly the stranger’s eyes are magically gone. I straighten my back. Prepare myself.
I will not fail.
Rupert, having met whomever he had gone to meet, is weaving his way back to me and when our eyes touch I flash him a brilliant smile. I will not fail. He smiles back triumphantly, and coming around to my side drops me a quick kiss, before slumping heavily into his seat. I have to stop myself from reaching up to wipe my mouth.
I stare at him. He seems transformed. Expansive, almost jolly.
‘That’s one deal that came in the nick of time. As if the heavens have decided that I deserve you.’ The way he says it almost makes me flinch with horror.
‘Lucky me,’ I say softly, flirtatiously, surprising myself. I tell myself I am playing a part. One that I can vanish into and emerge from unscathed, but I know it is not true. There will be repercussions and consequences.
He smiles nastily. He knows I do not fancy him, but that is part of the thrill. Taking what does not want to be taken.
‘Well then,’ he says. ‘Don’t be coy, let’s hear it. How much are you going to cost me?’
I take a deep breath. A bull this large can only be taken by the horns. ‘Fifty thousand pounds.’
We are both startled out of our conversation by a deep, curt voice.
‘Rupert.’
‘Mr. Barrington,’ Rupert gasps, and literally flies to his feet. ‘What an unexpected pleasure,’ he croons obsequiously. I drop my head with searing shame. It is the stranger. He has heard me sell myself.
‘I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure of your companion’s acquaintance,’ he says. His voice is an intriguing combination of velvet and husk.
‘Blake Law Barrington, Lana Bloom, Lana Bloom, Blake Law Barrington.’
I look up then, a long way up—he is definitely over six feet, maybe six two or three—to meet his stormy-gray stare. I search them for disgust, but they are carefully veiled, impenetrable pits of mystery. Perhaps, he has not heard me sell myself, after all. I begin to tremble. My body knows something I do not. He is dangerous to me in a way I cannot yet conceive.
‘Hello, Lana.’
‘Hi,’ I reply. My voice sounds tiny. Like a child that has been told to greet an adult.
He puts his hand out, and after a perceptible hesitation, I put mine into it. His hand is large and warm, and his clasp firm and safe, but I snatch mine away as if burnt. He breaks his gaze briefly to glance at Rupert.
‘There is a party tonight at Lord Jakie’s,’ he says before those darkly fringed eyes return to me again. Inscrutable as ever. ‘Would you like to come as my guests?’ It is as if he is addressing only me. It sends delicious shivers up and down my spine. Confused, by the unfamiliar sensations I tear my eyes away from him and look at Rupert.