The Takeover

by Teyla Branton

  “So you’re helping them?”

  The side of her mouth twitched. “What I’m doing is none of your business.”

  I bent over, putting my face close to hers. “Of course it’s my business, and I’ll tell you right now, you aren’t going anywhere but to Mexico. We aren’t letting you go, and your Emporium boyfriend isn’t here to help you now.”

  Jeane flinched, and for an instant her blue eyes lost their belligerence. “This has nothing to do with Lew.”

  “I think it does.” I drew away, glancing at the others for ideas.

  Lew Roberts, the sensing Unbounded who had been Delia’s assistant, was powerful enough to shield others with his thoughts and to control them. The slight, nasal-voiced man with the crunched, youthful features of an Unbounded whose Change had been forced was not my idea of a hot romance, but he’d been the one person Jeane seemed to feel any loyalty toward. Maybe she liked her men boyish.

  “What happened after you were rescued by the Emporium in Morocco?” Keene asked.

  “After you tried to capture us,” I added.

  Jeane tossed her head, and her silky hair swung over her shoulder. “I just didn’t want to go back to them empty-handed. My plan, if you must know, was to take Delia’s place in the Triad. Lew was going to help me. But that didn’t work out, so I left.”

  Something in my mind clicked. “To try to take her place you’d have to be a direct descendant.”

  Her smile didn’t reach her eyes. “That’s right. Oh, don’t go all family on me. Delia was a monster, and we were so far removed that her blood barely ran through my veins. But her successor hadn’t been named.”

  “Or so you thought.”

  My remark made her bristle. “So what?”

  “How close was she?”

  “She was my fifth great-grandmother.”

  Cort cleared his voice. “Ropte’s also her fifth great-grandson. Did you go to Ropte’s to kill him?”

  To seduce him and stab a knife into his heart while he slept was more like it.

  “Kill him?” Jeane’s laugh was genuinely amused. “Why would I do that? We have our differences, but he’s still my brother.”

  “Brother?” This was something I hadn’t anticipated.

  “Yes.” She waved a hand. “He’s much older, but when you have an Unbounded mother, that happens.”

  Cort and Keene exchanged a glance. They knew only too well since there were five hundred years separating them. For Jeane and Ropte, the difference would be double that. She’d only Changed three hundred years ago.

  “Siblings aren’t necessarily loyal to one another,” Keene said with a drawl. “Especially in the Emporium.” Cort nodded tightly. I couldn’t read the sorrow in his expression, but I knew it was there. Though the brothers were on the same side now, Cort had pretended for years to feed Keene and the Emporium information about the Renegades in exchange for any information he could plunder in exchange.

  Jeane clenched her fists, jumping up from the bed. “Oh, put it away,” she said when I went for my gun. “There’s three of you, and it’s not like I have any chance of getting out of here. If you must know, I went to David for help. Since he’s in the Triad now, I hoped he’d be able to do me a favor.”

  “Why don’t you sit back down and tell us everything?” I indicated the bed. “Or if you want, I can yank Ritter from his powwow with Ava and Dimitri to see if he can convince you to sit.”

  She tossed her head and pushed her breasts out in my direction. “The only thing tall, dark, and dangerous would get from me is foreplay.”

  “Sit down,” I gritted.

  “Fine. But you guys sit down too. I’m sick of you all looming over me.”

  “Okay.” I drew up one of the chairs from the small table by the window. My body met the chair with a distinct relief, and I had to bite down on the sigh that threatened to steal past my lips. Cort grabbed the second chair, while Keene settled on an edge of the bed as far away from Jeane as he could get. His expression didn’t change, but that he’d sat at all told me how much his wound still drained him.

  “When I found out David was Delia’s chosen successor, I was angry,” Jeane said, pulling her legs up to her chest. “After all, I’m the one who went through all the work to help you kill her.”

  “I want the trailer,” I said, “not the movie.”

  She sighed in exasperation, but even that sounded sexy. There was a reason she had been America’s sex symbol for a decade. “Okay, long story short, they held us prisoner after they rescued us,” she said. “But I escaped.”

  “Not Lew?”

  A vertical furrow appeared between her eyebrows. “No, not Lew. We had a plan, but something went wrong. I escaped alone.”

  I suspected she’d left him behind to save herself and later regretted it. Her attachment with Lew seemed real enough from what I’d seen between them, and in the past she’d gone to great lengths for a man. In fact, one of the reasons she’d hated Delia so much was because the older woman had murdered her former Renegade lover.

  “I went to Ropte because I thought he might be able to negotiate Lew’s release,” Jeane continued. “I offered him the use of my ability if he’d help me.”

  “Did he agree?” Keene sounded doubtful, almost mocking.

  “He made me babysit that prissy wife of his.” Jeane rolled her eyes before saying as an afterthought, “At least she knows how to dress.”

  I crossed one leg over the other, noting how the dim morning light was beginning to filter through the shuttered window and leave patterns on the black material covering my leg. “So he wouldn’t help you.”

  “Oh, he’ll help me. He just needs me to do a few things.”

  “I’m guessing that might take years.” Or more. With how few sensing Unbounded there were, it was unlikely they’d allow Lew to leave the Emporium. Even if they couldn’t force him to do everything they wished, they could use him for breeding, an irony that didn’t escape me since the man once tried to impregnate me with his own genetically altered sperm.

  Jeane frowned. “Maybe not. They have another sensing Unbounded. Catrina. A horrible little thing.” She made the name sound like a curse. I was betting she was jealous.

  “Ropte’s older than both Stefan and”—Keene hesitated a half second before using his father’s name—“Tihalt. You think he’ll make a play for control of the Triad?”

  Jeane snorted delicately. “Delia was older and far more powerful than David. That didn’t help her. Tihalt has so much wealth and power that as long as he’s willing to let Stefan control the Emporium, Stefan is too powerful to be beat. No, I think my brother has different aspirations of the political kind.”

  My mind churned. “He wants to be president?”

  “David doesn’t tell me his plans,” Jeane said, “But I know for certain Stefan met with David and other politicians several times. David acts different when he’s with Stefan. Acts, being the key word. Millions of dollars have changed hands.”

  Cort nodded sharply and cleared his throat. “Makes sense. The Triad tried taking over the presidency before with a technopath, and Ropte would be far more likely to succeed. If Ropte blocks the president’s genetic testing and term limits, and convinces the rest of the Triad to back him, he could conceivably win the next election and become the most powerful man in the US, and eventually the world. Stefan and my father might trust him to do what’s best for the Emporium, and maybe he will for a time. He’ll definitely need help in removing the current presidential term limits and controlling the voting. But after that”—he lifted his shoulders—“anything could happen.”

  “Well, it’s far from over,” I said. David Ropte didn’t have the power he needed, not yet, and maybe we could make certain he didn’t succeed, regardless of the support from the Emporium. A lot would depend upon his ability and how vulnerable he was after we got rid of his henchmen.

  I opened my mouth to ask Jeane about Ropte’s ability when Ritter nearly exploded through th
e door. “Come to the sitting room,” he said. “Something’s happened!”

  For a brief second, we took in his tightly clenched jaw and the fury in his eyes, then all of us sprang to our feet and ran past him. Jeane was last, but Ritter made sure she wasn’t forgotten. He brought up the rear, and the way she hurried to catch up to me, putting space between herself and Ritter, gave me a deep satisfaction I’d never admit to.

  In the sitting room, we found Noah, Mari, and Patrick staring with disbelief at the screen. A video showed flames engulfing a section of the Capitol. After several seconds, people began running from the building. Too many, I thought, for this early in the morning. Then all at once several of the people dropped to the ground without warning. There seemed to be no pattern. One woman was shot in the back and her hands flung wide in shock. Some of those who hadn’t fallen tried to carry the others, only to be shot themselves.

  A young woman with long brown hair appeared on the screen as the video started over. “This is the footage caught by a tourist just a few minutes ago,” she said, her voice unnaturally animated. “We’re playing it for you without the sound because the screaming is simply too terrifying. From what we can tell, a bomb went off inside the Capitol. As lawmakers, already hard at work even at six in the morning, hurried desperately for the exits, snipers opened fire on them.” She paused and took a long breath. “We have no idea who is responsible or how many have been injured. It is also unknown if this terrorist attack comes from overseas or from fellow Americans. There are numerous snipers, apparently. Everything within a mile of the Capitol is in complete chaos. Miraculously, some people managed to help others to safety, even though they themselves were shot numerous times.”

  A male newscaster appeared, his gray-sprinkled hair looking too smooth for the wreckage going on in the video. “We’ve had confirmation that some of our nation’s representatives have been hit,” he said. “There are at least two fatalities and as many as ten. Our reporter is now on the scene, and in a moment we’ll see if he has anything new to report. Providing he can get close enough without placing himself in danger.”

  “It’s just awful to think that something like this can happen,” said the brunette.

  “Unthinkable,” her male counterpart agreed.

  Ritter hit the mute. “What they don’t know yet,” he said, “but Stella has confirmed, is that there were two other attacks outside different safe houses at the same time. Safe houses where the Secret Service were keeping two of the senators whose families we saved last night.”

  “No!” I said, already guessing what had happened. No wonder Ritter was so angry.

  He nodded. “Both men are dead, as are the two who went to the Capitol building after their meeting with the president. We saved their families, but the men have all been murdered.”

  Mari groaned and jumped up from the couch, pacing with her hands clenched tightly at her sides. “All four senators? Dead?” Shock rolled off her as she forgot to block her thoughts. I braced myself against it, already reeling enough with the news. That poor little boy I’d held in my arms last night no longer had a father. Mrs. George, who’d fought her captors so forcefully that they’d broken her arm, had survived only to lose her husband.

  All because of the Emporium.

  “Several Secret Servicemen guarding them were also killed,” Ritter continued, “but the shots centered around those senators. The bombs inside the Capitol Building—there were two—were placed to affect the offices of all four so they’d be forced to evacuate. Of course, two men weren’t there, but we can assume all four have been under surveillance by the Emporium since their families were taken. Stella is sure they were the targets.”

  Noah took out her phone. “Some members of my cell were there, protecting the senators. I need to check on them.” She walked away, putting the phone to her ear. I knew her agony. The last time something like this had happened, the New York cell had lost too many good people.

  “My father is safe,” Patrick said quietly when Noah was gone, “but his vote is not. The men we believe will be appointed to take these senators’ places aren’t likely to trust us to protect them. They’ll vote with Ropte.”

  “This is anarchy,” Cort declared.

  “Exactly.” Patrick laid his head back on the couch. If anything, he looked paler than when Cort had been stitching him up.

  From the corner of my eye, I saw Jeane slither to the door, her gait so careful that she seemed nearly motionless. Before I could move, Ritter was there, his hand gripping her upper arm. She flinched.

  “No need to be rough,” she purred. Her voice lowered slightly, as if she were speaking only for Ritter to hear. “Unless that’s the way you like it. It can be quite enjoyable that way.”

  He shoved her in the direction of the couch. “If you don’t want to end up as a rotting mass of flesh locked in another dungeon, you’d better sit down and shut up.”

  Jeane flounced to the couch, tossing her dark hair in that incessant way of hers. “I’m willing to help,” she said, sitting and pulling a bare foot up under her. “I only want to free Lew from the Emporium. When you look at it that way, we’re actually on the same side. Though I’m not sure how wise that is, seeing as it looks like you are definitely going to lose.” Her sultry laugh mocked us all.

  “I said shut up!” Ritter glared at her. “I’m not asking again.” Jeane folded her arms and looked away from him. I was ready to send her back to Ropte, but we couldn’t do that, not now or ever.

  Noah returned, a shimmer of relief in her eyes. “We’ve got two down. They’re at a hospital now and were pronounced dead, but they’ll be healing fast. Tenika wants me to go claim their bodies.”

  “I’ll go with you,” I said. I was anxious for a fight, or lacking that, something else to do.

  She shook her head. “You look about ready to drop. I have the documentation, and the Emporium doesn’t know they’re there. I’ll be perfectly safe with a new disguise.” Her eyes swung to Patrick. “I think you should all stay here and get a little rest. You’ve been up all night, and who knows what Ava will want you to do next.”

  I wanted to point out that she’d also been up all night, but just that fast, all the night’s work and my session with Jeane felt like a weight pressing down on my entire body. I’d pushed myself to my limits, and hearing about the senators and imagining their families’ agony when they finally heard the news made it that much worse.

  “I’ll go as backup,” Cort said to Noah. “I couldn’t sleep after watching that. But Noah’s right about the rest of you getting some rest. Make sure to increase your absorption rate too.”

  “What about me?” Jeane asked.

  Noah look at her coldly. “Oh, I have a place you can wait safe and sound.”

  Jeane scowled. “I don’t know what it will take for you to trust me again.”

  “Jeane,” I said, “we never trusted you.”

  With Jeane locked up, Ritter and I left the wounded Keene and Patrick to Mari’s care and retired to our room, where I flopped on the bed fully dressed. Ritter lay next to me, his taut body meeting mine along my entire side. His expression was grim.

  After five minutes, I sighed. “There’s no way I’m going to sleep. My mind won’t shut down. We have to think of a way to stop all these murders. Because you know they won’t end here.”

  Ritter didn’t respond for several breaths and then, “The only thing I think we can do is attack their strongholds with everything we’ve got and with everything the president can give us.”

  I studied the crown molding that decorated the ceiling around the chandelier. “It’ll take him too long to get approval, at least with the numbers we need, especially with Ropte and the others blocking him. Even if we manage to derail their movement enough to make a difference, it would be suicide.”

  Everything I’d been planning was falling apart. I’d thought, once things were settled, about taking time off with Ritter. To explore what was between us. Maybe start that f
amily he wanted so desperately to replace all that he’d lost. All we’d lost.

  He rose up on one elbow, looking down on me, his eyes holes of darkness. “I know.” He brought his hand to stroke my cheek, trailing his fingers over my skin. “Once, it wouldn’t have made a difference to me. I’d have everyone already gathered at their doors. I’d be at the front, determined to kill enough of the Emporium to make a difference—to stop this madness. But my mind can’t seem to work out a successful scenario, and I don’t want . . .” His voice roughened. “I can’t lose you.”

  I reached up and grabbed his hand, squeezing it tightly. I hadn’t been at this war anywhere near as long as he had but long enough that my family had been severely affected. I wanted it to be over. I wanted to have a future with this man who stole my breath and made me lose myself in his touch.

  Releasing my hold on his hand, I brought my fingers to his face. I traced the slight drop at the corner of his left eye, a genetic fluke that his Unbounded genes wouldn’t be programmed to fix. I pushed up through his hair, parted on the left side, and followed the strands to where the ends hung down to skim a mole on his right cheek. He pushed into my hand, closing his eyes briefly until my fingers rested on his cheek. He’d shaved before the op, but already a thick layer of beard shadowed his face, almost long enough to be soft.

  “We could go away,” I said when his eyes opened.

  Leave, I meant. Abandon the fight and hide out for as long as we could. Let others continue the battle without us until they simply couldn’t fight anymore.

  He gave me the slightest smile. “Is that what you want?”

  His black eyes said he’d give me anything, but choosing safety would ultimately result in his self-loathing. He was a protector, a man who didn’t give up, a man who’d spent centuries fighting for mortals who hadn’t known he existed, a true guardian of humanity. Taking him away before the battle was won would be changing who he was. He might be willing to give up that calling for me, but I wouldn’t let him. I loved who he was now.

  I let my fingers glide along his bottom lip. “We’re staying.” There were still my brothers and niece and nephew. We had to find a way to protect their future.