by Tina Folsom
As soon as she’d unlocked the door, she slipped into the dark lab. Only when she let the door snap in behind her, did she reach for the light switch, flipping it. The room was instantly bathed in the harsh tones of fluorescent light.
She took a step farther into the room and glanced around. Her gaze fell onto her work bench where her laptop lay—the lid was open. She was sure she’d closed it before leaving earlier that night.
With an odd sense of foreboding in her gut, she approached the bench and looked at the monitor. On a black screen the curser flashed ominously. All it said was ‘c:/’.
Her heart sank.
“Oh God, no!” she whispered to herself, knowing all too well what the flashing curser meant. But she didn’t want to believe it.
She hit the enter key, but all the computer did was spit out another ‘c:/’. And another. Sliding onto her chair, her fingers flew over the keyboard, entering all commands she was familiar with to try to reboot the system. Nothing worked.
It confirmed her suspicion: somebody had tried to access the data on her encrypted laptop, and the security system on it had initiate the self-destruct sequence and wiped the hard drive clean. Not a single byte of data was left on it.
She couldn’t help but suspect that this incident was connected to the events earlier in the evening: the car, which had nearly swiped her, her burning apartment, the kidnapping. Somebody was trying to get at her research. There was no other explanation for it.
Had Aiden been sent by a rival pharmaceutical company to steal her data? Was that what this was all about?
She had to have certainty about it. Shooting up from her chair, she ran toward her office. If somebody had tinkered with her safe, then she would know for sure that this was what they were after, whoever they were.
“Demons, my ass,” she mumbled. “More like industry spies!”
Leila threw the door to her office open and turned to her left, where her safe was built into the wall. She stopped in her tracks. The door to the safe was wide open.
She took a tentative step toward it. It didn’t look as if anybody had broken the locking device or used explosives, no, the safe had simply been opened. And the only other person who could do that was Patten, her boss.
Why?
Had he been paid off by somebody to steal her data for another company? She shook her head, trying to shake off the disappointment that rose inside her. Her hand reached toward the safe as she took another step. Her foot stepped on something, making her move back instinctively.
She lowered her gaze and stared at the floor.
At her feet, a thumb lay in a small pool of blood, discarded like a useless tool.
Her mouth opened for a scream, but it never left her throat, as a hand clamped over her lips to prevent her from giving voice to her panic.
THIRTEEN
Aiden held his palm over Leila’s mouth, making sure she wouldn’t scream. His other arm snaked around her waist, pulling her tightly against him.
It hadn’t been hard to find her. She’d really had only two options: her apartment and her lab. Sure, she could have gone to any hotel, but knowing what he knew about her life, what he’d read in her file, he guessed she would choose a familiar place, somewhere where she felt safe. He’d figured she’d choose the lab for obvious reasons. One being that her apartment was uninhabitable right now, the other that she deemed her office to be safe from intruders. It wasn’t.
He’d had no problem sneaking past the security guard. In his cloaked state, he was invisible to the unsuspecting man.
Aiden moved his mouth to Leila’s ear, a strand of her hair brushing his cheek in the process. “Quiet, Leila.”
He felt her body jolt at the realization that it was he who was keeping her captive once more. A muffled word he didn’t catch bounced against his palm. Her warm breath nearly torched him, sending a hot flame into his groin.
“That’s right, it’s me. It was very stupid of you to run away. Didn’t I tell you I’d protect you?” He felt himself getting angry again. “Will you remain quiet if I take my hand off your mouth now?”
She moved her head up and down in agreement.
Slowly he lifted his hand and turned her toward him in the same instance. Her lips instantly parted, her throat tightening. Clearly, she wasn’t going to comply with his wishes. There was only one thing he could do now.
With a low curse, he yanked her flush against him and slid his lips over hers, capturing her mouth in a searing kiss, one he’d been craving all night.
Shit, this wasn’t how this was supposed to play out. All he should do was to collect her insolent ass and haul her back to a safe place, watching her like a hawk. And what was he doing, idiot that he was? Kissing her!
And it was no ordinary kiss. He devoured her mouth, plundered her delicious cavern, tangled with her reluctant tongue until a sound—part sob part sigh—escaped her. Still, he didn’t stop. On the contrary, the little sound she’d made spurred him on even further, made him thread his fingers through her hair to hold her tighter to him. All the while her fists beat against his shoulders in a futile attempt to get him to stop.
Sliding his other hand to the sweet curve of her ass and palming it, he pressed her against his growing erection. He wanted to punish her for escaping him. Maybe this would teach her to listen to him. Because a charge who didn’t listen to her bodyguard was as good as dead. And that was a prospect he didn’t relish. At the thought of Leila been hurt, or worse, dead, an icy-cold hand clamped around his heart, squeezing the life out of him. He’d only once before felt like that: when Julia had died. He couldn’t allow this to happen again. He had to find a way so Leila would trust him.
What if they'd met under other circumstances? Would she mold her sinful body to his, press her soft curves into his hard muscles with abandon as if they were lovers? The thought ricocheted in his mind. Could he ever make her understand him to the point where such a thing was possible?
Aiden released her, albeit reluctantly.
Leila glared at him, gasping for air. Her lips looked thoroughly kissed. Her eyes darted past him toward the door that he blocked, thoughts of escape so clearly etched in her face as if he were reading her mind.
“How dare you? How did you get in here?” Her clipped tone underscored her anger, and the way she wiped her lips with the back of her hand was so deliberate he knew the gesture was meant to tell him that his physical attention wasn't wanted.
“The way I always do, through the walls.”
“The security guard will have seen you on the cameras. He will have alerted the police already.”
“He didn't see me.”
She took a slow step back and bumped against the open safe door behind her. His eyes were instantly drawn to the dark interior. He motioned his head toward it. “What happened here?”
“Why don't you tell me?” she spat. “You opened the safe. You did this!”
He took an instinctive step in her direction, making her shrink back. “And when would I have done that, Leila? I was with you all night. You had an almost half hour head start on me. So tell me, how I could have broken into your lab when I arrived after you.”
Her forehead furrowed as she pulled her lower lip between her teeth, chewing on it. And darn it, if that wasn't a gesture that made him want to pull her back into his embrace and assure her that everything was all right.
“Why should I believe you?”
Again her eyes darted past him. If she was still hoping for the police or the security guard to arrive, he’d have to sorely disappoint her.
“Because you’re an intelligent woman.” Maybe if he appealed to her intellect, he would get somewhere. “If you look at it logically, you’ll see that it’s impossible. I was with you the entire time until you went to take a shower in the motel.” He scoffed. “Well, I guess I fell for that old trick. Nevertheless, do you really think I would have left you alone at the motel while I believed you were in the shower?” He locked eyes with her.
For a few seconds she stared at him, then she finally shook her head.
“Then who did this, if not you?” She pointed to the floor.
Aiden followed her outstretched finger and saw what she was looking at. On the floor in front of the safe lay a human thumb, a tiny pool of blood around it. He shot her a confused look. “What the fuck?”
Tears brimmed in her eyes now. She still pointed at the bloody human thumb, her voice trembling as she answered, “The only way to open the safe is with a thumb print, either mine ...” Her voice broke.
Instinctively his eyes searched her hands even though he knew what he’d find: flawless, perfect fingers.
“Whose thumb?” he urged.
She swallowed hard. “Mr. Patton’s. My boss. He’s the only other person who could have opened ...” A solitary tear rolled down her cheek. “Tell me you didn’t do this. Tell me I’m not in the clutches of a madman,” she begged through the sobs that now started.
He lifted her head with his thumb and forefinger. “I didn’t do this. You have to believe me.”
He fought against the urge to pull her into his embrace. There was no time for that now. He glanced past her into the safe. “The safe is empty. What do you normally keep in it?”
Leila hesitated, chewing on her lip once more. “A backup drive of my research data.”
A curse left his lips. “The Alzheimer’s drug?”
Her head shot up, her eyes widening. “How do you—?”
She sidestepped him, trying to get to her desk, clearly in order to bring distance between them.
“It doesn’t matter. Was it the Alzheimer’s drug?”
Her eyes looked at the door, hope that rescue was on its way fading in them. Reluctantly, she nodded.
“Fuck!” He ran a shaky hand through his hair. He’d been too late. “Now the demons have it. Please tell me the data alone won’t help them recreate the drug.” If it was all they needed, then he’d failed again.
“The demons?”
Was she finally starting to believe him? He hoped so.
“Why do they want my research? Why?”
He saw the horror in her eyes. “They need it to cement their power over humans. It’ll help them gain the upper hand. The drug you’ve been working on will help them influence humans and pull them to their side.”
“Oh God.” Then she stared back at the safe. “It wasn’t in there,” she murmured so softly he almost didn’t hear her. She sounded confused.
Maybe the entire night had been too much for her. After all, she was a human, and there was only so much they could take before they cracked. He should make allowances for that.
He gestured toward the open safe. “Well of course not, it’s empty, they took it. The demons took it.”
Leila shook her head. “It wasn’t in there. The disk.”
He focused his attention back on her words. “What do you mean?”
“A couple of days ago, I took it out and erased it.”
Could he trust his ears? “You what?”
Her ocean blue eyes looked up at him, wide, beautiful, still glistening with tears. “I destroyed the backup drive. I had a strange feeling ... I just felt it wasn’t safe there. So I took it and erased the data.”
“Where is the original data?” If this was only the backup, there had to be another drive. Had they gotten to that one instead when they’d realized that the safe was empty? If it was still here somewhere, there was only one thing to do now that the demons had gotten brazen enough to attack outright.
“We’ll have to destroy it.”
***
Leila’s heart stopped beating for a moment. “Destroy?”
She shook her head in disbelief. He couldn’t mean that. She’d devoted years of her life to this and couldn’t simply wipe out her work as if it had never existed.
When she’d seen genuine shock in his eyes the moment she’d told him that a backup drive with her data was kept in the safe, she’d realized that he wasn’t the one who’d broken it open. But the revelation that he wanted to destroy her data didn’t make the situation any better.
“You don’t understand. This is my research. I’m going to cure Alzheimer’s.”
And she would get her parents back. They would have a chance to recover enough of their faculties to remember that they loved her and each other.
Aiden gripped her shoulders tightly. His chocolate brown eyes bored into her. “I understand. But this is more important.”
More important than curing a killer disease? “No!” She shook off his hands and stepped back. He couldn’t be serious. Instinctively, her hand shot up, wanting to touch her pendant. She forced it back down to her side, hoping not to have drawn attention to it. Protecting the last copy of her research data was vital now, because not only did the demons want it—she believed that much now—Aiden wanted to destroy it.
“If this drug is brought to market, it will open the minds of humans and make them more susceptible to the influence of demons. It’ll be child’s play for them to infiltrate their minds, play with them, manipulate them. Don’t you see? Your drug will cause this. We can’t allow this to happen.”
Leila shivered at the determination in his voice. He wouldn’t listen to her arguments. There was only one thing she could do: lie.
She nodded, pretending that she agreed with his reasoning. She’d given up hope that Max would come to rescue her. “The only other copy is on my encrypted laptop.” She pointed to the door. “In the lab.”
Aiden turned, and she followed him.
“Where?” he asked.
She passed him and went to her bench where only minutes earlier she’d confirmed that her laptop had been wiped clean. All she needed now were some acting skills to convince him that the last set of research data was destroyed too. Maybe then he would leave her alone, thinking there was nothing else the demons could take. And she would get her life back.
“Oh no!” she cried out, hoping she sounded convincing.
She let herself fall into the chair and stared at the monitor where the ominous ‘c:/’ still pulsed in silence.
“What’s wrong?”
She looked up at him, forcing tears to her eyes. “They tried to hack into my laptop.”
“Shit!” he cursed. “Did they get in?”
Shaking her head, she continued her charade. “No, but they activated the self-destruct feature.”
“What do you mean?” he asked, looking over her shoulder, hovering far too closely.
“I had a security program on my laptop. If anybody tried to access my data and there were more than two failed login attempts, the program would initiate, wiping the entire hard drive clean.”
“You mean there’s no data left on the computer?”
She shook her head. “None.” Feeling that she should show despair about the loss of her research, she turned her face away and let out a sob. It’s wasn’t too hard to produce. The thought of the bloody thumb on the floor in her office gave her reason enough to cry her eyes out. It struck her out of nowhere: the pain her boss must have suffered.
“Oh, God! Patten. I must find him. He needs a doctor. Oh, God, those bastards!”
She jumped up and almost bumped into Aiden, who instantly steadied her with a hand on her hip.
“Where’s his office?”
“On the eighth floor.”
“Let’s go,” he ordered.
As they rushed to the door and opened it, a loud alarm sounded from the hallway. Strobe lights flashed.
Aiden tossed her a questioning look.
“They’re locking down the building.” And she could guess what that meant.
FOURTEEN
Aiden by her side, Leila raced toward the elevator, hitting the call button impatiently.
“Come on, come on,” she coaxed it, shifting from one leg to the other, her concern for her own safety overshadowed by worries for her boss. She might have had a disagreement with him the last time they’d met, but t
hat didn’t mean she didn’t care about his wellbeing. And she couldn’t help but think that part of this was her fault.
Aiden grabbed her elbow, making her look at him. The grim expression on his face confirmed that he had the same suspicion as she and feared the worst. It didn’t exactly calm her nerves.
A ping announced the arrival of the elevator. As soon as the doors opened, she squeezed inside quickly and hit the button for the eighth floor.
They didn’t speak while the elevator ascended. Instead, Leila fixed her gaze on the display panel that showed their movement from floor to floor. It felt like it moved at a snail’s pace. The local bus could have gotten them there faster.
“We should have taken the stairs,” she muttered.
Then she felt Aiden’s hand on her arm, squeezing it in reassurance. She glanced at him and noticed a flicker of compassion in them. It disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. Maybe she had simply seen what she wanted to see, even though she guessed the hard man next to her had no capacity for such emotion. Hell, he’d coldly demanded that she destroy her own research without as much as flinching. If somebody could do that, knowing he would deprive thousands if not millions of people of a cure for a devastating disease, what else was he capable of?
Leila let out a sigh of relief when the doors finally opened on the executive floor. She rushed out, heading for Patten’s office. As she approached, she found the door wide open.
She stormed in, Aiden on her heels.
The room was lit, the fluorescent lights illuminating the space, the small lamp that normally stood on Patten’s desk lay broken on the ground in front of it—next to Patten’s body.
A choked cry tried to leave her throat but didn’t quite make it. Her breath deserted her. But her feet carried her closer, almost as if some perverted part of her wanted to gorge itself on the sight. She needed to know how he’d died.
Leila stared at the lifeless form at her feet. Blood oozed from his neck, having soaked his shirt and tie. The wound looked straight and almost ... perfect, as if the murderer knew what he was doing. Her gaze drifted to Patten’s hands. And there, as if she needed a confirmation, one thumb was missing, cut from his right hand.