by Gail Koger
Stealing Jia
Gail Koger
Copyright © November 2020 by Gail Koger
All rights reserved. This copy is intended for the original purchaser of this e-book ONLY. No part of this e-book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without prior written permission from Gail Koger. Please do not participate or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized copies.
Image/art disclaimer: Licensed material is being used for illustrative purposes only. Any person depicted in the licensed material is a model.
If you find this book on a “free” site, it’s been stolen by pirates. No, not the kind with big ass swords who yell, “I’m going to use your guts for garters, my pretty.” These internet pirates are stealing our books.
Authors and publishers are being forced to walk the financial plank. Not only do these brigands cost us hard-earned income, they contribute to ending our careers. Sales determine an author’s success and if thousands of our books are being downloaded from the pirate sites instead of legitimate sites, it can seriously impact our sales and future career.
Cover Artist: Valerie Tibbs
Published in the United States of America
This e-book is a work of fiction. While reference might be made to actual historical events, existing locations, the names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and any resemblances to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Contents
Dedication
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Books in the Coletti Warlord series
Dedication
This book is dedicated to my parents.
Prologue
According to my birth certificate my name is Jia Stanka. The report I dug up stated while trying to outrun an avalanche Viola Stanka lost control of her car and hit a tree. She died instantly. A baby girl was found unharmed in an infant seat. The avalanche also wiped out the entire village of San Martino, including every member of the Stanka clan. That seemed a bit too convenient. Even more curious was none of the people in the pictures I found had red hair and green eyes. Either way, little orphan me was sent to Saint Michael’s Home for Lost Sheep. The kids in the orphanage were neither docile nor sheep-like. It was a home for budding criminals with psychic abilities.
Mother Superior was a vindictive bitch and how she ever became a nun is a mystery to me. Some say she joined the convent when the love of her life was killed. Me? I think she ended him. What better place for a murderess to hide? Her vow of chastity was a joke. She had more men in her quarters than a street hooker. She didn’t honor her oath of poverty either. Her habit was made from the finest silk, her cross was solid gold, and she smoked the best Havana cigars Cuba could produce. Any nun who spoke up about her behavior abruptly disappeared.
Mother Superior’s brother was Salvatore Genovese, a notorious crime boss. She depended on his generosity to keep Saint Michael’s orphanage afloat and get her those little luxuries she so richly deserved. She allowed Salvatore to use the children in his criminal enterprises. At the age of six, I became a talented pickpocket. When I turned eleven, my “trainers” began teaching me how to become a cat burglar. I mean, who would suspect a kid of stealing millions of credits in jewels and fine art? Not the Polizia; and if they did get suspicious, I used my psychic talent to cloud their minds.
The night everything changed is forever etched into my mind. I had snuck into Mother Superior’s rooms to “borrow” her stilettos, but she was wearing them while she fucked her latest John. A lot of men thought doing it with a nun was hot. To me it was just gross. The guy said something about her floppy breasts and wham! She slit his throat. Bright red blood splashed over the silver bedspread. My gasp of horror drew Mother Superior’s attention.
Her eyes narrowed as she spotted my hiding place. “You little whore! I will kill you.” She jumped off the bed, tripped over the dead guy’s shoes and crashed to the floor. Between her stilettos and all the blood, it took her three tries to get to her feet.
I had found out the hard way Mother Superior was immune to my gifts. I darted around her and bolted from the room. For a nun she sure could cuss. There was only one place to hide if I didn’t want to end up as another missing kid, and I ran as fast as I could.
Saint Michael’s catacombs had been carved into volcanic rock. Ancient bones arranged in the shape of a crucifix guarded the entrance. My heart pounding in my chest, I paused at the doorway and took a deep breath. Over the years, hundreds of people had entered, never to be seen again. Sister Sarah said to keep to the left and God would lead me out. I hoped she was right. Then there were the rats. Thousands of them, scurrying about the bones, animating the dead.
Vicious cursing echoed in the night air. I grinned. Mother Superior had broken a heel on her red Manolo Blahnik stilettos. Pity. I had been lusting after those shoes for months.
An angry male voice snapped, “Killing Alfred in front of the child was a stupid mistake.”
I stiffened. Merda, Salvatore was with her. He liked young girls and the thought of him touching me, made my skin crawl.
“Jia is like a ghost. I did not know she was there until it was too late. We simply kill her and leave the body in the catacombs. No one will miss the little thief,” Mother Superior shot back.
Too true. I peeped around the wall. Salvatore loomed over his sister. The moonlight turned his face into a macabre mask. “That little thief has made me millions. Your sloppiness ends today.” In a lightning fast move, he grabbed Mother Superior’s head and twisted it. Crack! She fell to the ground.
Fear knotted my stomach. Holy Mother of God! He had killed his own sister and no matter how many credits I stole for him, Salvatore wouldn’t hesitate to do the same to me. I quickly stepped into the waiting darkness and felt my way along the wall; grimacing when my hand touched mummified remains.
The beam of a flashlight played over frescos of forgotten Popes.
I ducked into a burial niche and tunneled beneath a long dead priest. His shadowy skull leered at me.
Salvatore called, “Come to me Jia and I will make your death an easy one.”
Sure he would, right after he raped me. I closed my eyes and silently prayed. Touch me, o Lord, fill me with your light and your hope. Cause I don’t want to die today. Dear God, please give me the strength to lie beneath this stinky-ass corpse. Give me the courage to face that monster. When evil darkens my world, give me light.
Salvatore’s flashlight swept over my hiding place.
Okay, forget the light. I froze as Salvatore stopped in front of my hiding place and made those horrible kissy noises. “Come bambina, no need to be afraid. I will make it good for you.”
Like I believed that.
“I can make your first time pleasurable or I can make it very painful. Come out now,” Salvatore commanded.
If I prayed hard en
ough, would God lead him into the catacombs? Maybe. But I couldn’t wait around for divine intervention. Before I could touch Salvatore’s mind a loud thunk reverberated down the passageway.
“Run little one, but I will catch you.” Salvatore moved away.
The nuns did say God worked in mysterious ways, but I never thought he’d use the rats. I took a cautious peek. The darkness swallowed Salvatore. I climbed out of the niche and ran into the night.
They found Mother Superior’s body the next day. A novice nun discovered the dead guy in her blood-soaked bed an hour later. The novice’s shrieks could have raised the dead. The ruckus brought all the sisters running. Ten minutes later, dozens of Polizia descended on the orphanage and when they located the bloody knife on Mother Superior’s corpse, they summoned the Bishop. The deaths were hushed up. The Polizia searched for Salvatore but he was never seen again.
His brother Matteo took over and nothing changed. I continued to steal and gained the nickname of La Veloce or the Flash. By the time I turned sixteen, I had saved enough money to leave the orphanage. I wanted to find out who I really was, and I was sick to death of stealing for Matteo.
Dodging Matteo’s goons, while trying to find a legitimate job, proved to be impossible. Sheer desperation drove me back to being La Veloce. I broke into Matteo’s headquarters, downloaded every document I could find on his organization and sent them to the Polizia. He’s doing life at Carcere Giudiziario, one of the worst prisons in Italy.
One of the chores at the orphanage had been helping Sister Sarah rescue injured animals. It was one job I loved. Critters were drawn to me. Why? I don’t know, but they helped ease my loneliness. With Sister Sarah’s assistance, I bought a small villa outside Rome and fulfilled her dream of running an animal sanctuary. It also allowed me to aid the street kids without drawing the Polizia’s attention. The children I gathered, became my family.
The dream of finding my clan had never wavered. In my heart, I knew my father was out there somewhere and one day I would find him. Then the Tai-Kok came and all my dreams died. The battle to survive changed me. I discovered my ability to manipulate electricity while fighting the monsters. I learned how to use it to kill. My talent to cloud minds worked on the Tai-Kok and Rodan too.
A part of me was envious of the tight knit Jones clan, the much-admired saviors of the world. What would it feel like to belong to a family like that? Pretty damn awesome. Another part of me couldn’t believe that halfwit Kaylee Jones had hooked up with a Coletti warlord. Her stunt brought Earth to the attention of Zarek, the Coletti Overlord. Once he discovered the Jones family’s unique psychic powers, and their blood’s ability to heal cellular damage, he promptly seized control of Earth.
The morons at Central Command decided an alliance with the Coletti Empire was a blessing from God himself. The Coletti warlords and their allies did do a great job of wiping the Tai-Kok from existence. But their protection came with a price. Zarek demanded we turn over all psychic women to him. Seems he needed us as breeding stock.
Big surprise, the Coletti warriors were thieves and not good ones either. They kept getting caught. Their raids started the Great Galactic War. Unfortunately for the females of the universe, chemicals used on the Coletti people in the war created a genetic anomaly and only one female baby was born for every one thousand males. The Coletti women were going the way of the dodo bird and guess who got to pay the price for their men’s stupidity? Us psychic females.
Central Command suddenly began enacting new laws. Anyone with extrasensory abilities had to report to their local military base, fill out registration paperwork, and get chipped like an animal. You faced fines and jail time if you refused.
The Coletti sent hunters to Italy to hunt down any psychic female but I evaded them easily until I crossed paths with Giovanni Dragos. Then everything changed.
Chapter One
Homeless people and street kids were vanishing at an alarming rate. I hacked into the Polizia’s computer servers and found they were as stumped as I was. Our animal sanctuary already housed twenty-two frightened children. Their stories were all the same. Some creepy dude with white hair had jumped out of a black van, shot the older teenagers with tranquilizer darts, and abducted them.
Two weeks later, the kidnapper attacked the bar where Adam, one of the orphans from Saint Michael’s, and his band were playing. This time the bad guys got sloppy and surveillance cameras caught them in the act. To my surprise, the attackers included two Polizia officers, which did explain why the investigations never went anywhere.
After hours of trying, I finally managed to link mentally with Adam. A jolt of raw fear shook me as I stared into the face of a T-Rex. Holy Mary Mother of God! The Rodan were behind the kidnappings. The monster injected a blue liquid into Adam’s neck. A guttural scream tore from Adam and our link broke. In my heart, I knew he still lived, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t reconnect with him. If I didn’t find him soon, the Rodan would eat him.
Borrowing the Polizia’s facial recognition software, I quickly found out our white-haired suspect was one Giovanni Dragos. He had an extensive criminal history for everything from theft to assault with a deadly weapon. Giovanni also had a master’s degree in biochemistry and his highly unethical research in genetic engineering had the Polizia hunting him too. Dread slithered down my spine. Was he using the homeless people and street kids in his experiments or feeding them to the Rodan or both?
Giovanni Dragos resembled an evil scientist with his wild, white hair, thick bushy eyebrows, and pale blue eyes. The man was a ghost. I couldn’t locate where he worked or lived. The only thing I did find was his online dating profile.
His profile picture was unique to say the least. His shark-like smile didn’t reach his eyes and he wore enough gold jewelry to double as one of those old rap singers. To impress the ladies, he posed in front of a microscope with tissue cultures littering the desk. For that little touch of class, he had pinned a blood-red rose on the lapel of his white lab coat. According to his bio, he was a passionate lover who enjoyed dancing the Tango. Giovanni even posted a vid of himself at a local dance competition. The man had two left feet and his partner was limping badly when she left the dance floor.
The only chance I had of getting close to Giovanni was going on a date with the ass. My profile included a vid of me in a slinky black dress, doing a very sexy Tango. Ten minutes after I posted it, Giovanni contacted me. He wanted to take me to dinner at La Antica, a secluded restaurant famous for its romantic atmosphere. Donning my little black dress and red Manolo Blahnik stilettos, I went to meet the creep.
To my horror, La Antica was inside the ancient catacombs of San Pancrazio. Dinner with the dead wasn’t romantic. It was a health hazard full of microbial bacteria and I wouldn’t even mention the diseases the rats carried. The musky scent of the ancient remains made me queasy. A skeletal priest in a hooded brown robe stood guard at the entrance. In his boney hands was a large cross. Behind the priest hundreds of mummified bodies lined the walls. All those grinning skulls gave me the willies. It was as if they knew something I didn’t.
I frowned as I stepped into the restaurant. The only light came from the numerous candles decorating the tables. The darkness and the access to the catacombs was a little too handy. Was Giovanni planning another kidnapping? If so, he had picked the wrong girl to mess with.
Like a wraith, Giovanni appeared out of the darkness. His white silk suit could double as a lab coat. “My darling, I am so glad you came.” With a bow, he handed me a single red rose.
“How could I resist someone who loves to Tango as much as I do.” I took the rose gingerly. A funny chemical smell emanated from the flower. “Thank you. It’s beautiful.”
“It’s a simple gift from my garden. The unique fragrance stimulates the senses. Take a deep breath and you will see what I mean,” Giovanni said, watching me carefully.
The chemicals tickled my nose. Ker-choo! Ker-choo! Ker-choo! Ker-choo!
Giovanni recoiled in disgust as I sneezed repeatedly in his face.
“Oh dear, I’m so sorry. I’m allergic to flowers.”
His wiped his face off and gritted, “It matters not.”
“Truly?” I snagged the red silk hankie from his lapel pocket and blew my nose vigorously. The expression on his face when I handed it back to him was priceless.
Giovanni dropped the offending hankie on a passing waiter’s tray.
I stuffed the stinky rose into his lapel pocket. “Much better.”
A muscle twitching in his cheek, Giovanni escorted me to a table with a dozen flickering candles. He practically shoved me into a chair.
I gave him a charming smile and swallowed down the urge to vomit. The rose wasn’t the only thing that stunk. Giovanni reeked of formaldehyde with a touch of Old Spice.
“What is your blood type?” Giovanni demanded without an ounce of charm and took his seat.
My fingers closed around the butter knife. Holy Mother! The possibility of me having to fight my way out had just skyrocketed. “My blood type?”
“Yes.”
“I’ve been on a lot of dates, but no one has ever wanted to know my blood type,” I hedged.
Giovanni’s wormy eyebrows drew together in a fierce frown. “Answer me.”
“Type O,” I responded timidly. Where he was going with this line of questioning?
“Excellent. Excellent.” Giovanni snapped his fingers at the waiter. “The wine. Now.”
The waiter hurried over with a bottle and two elegant wine glasses. “It’s been chilled to the proper temperature, signore.”
“I brought this from my own wine cellar. It has a nice fruity flavor.”
Yeah, to hide the drugs he had put in it. I placed a hand over my wine glass. “The medication I take prevents me from drinking alcohol. I’ll just have water.”
Giovanni stared at me for a long moment, then bared in teeth in the semblance of a smile. “No matter. I’ve ordered oysters for dinner.” He leered at me. “They will increase our sexual pleasure.”
