Lover Uncloaked (Stealth Guardians #1)

by Tina Folsom

  “I’ve always admired your necklace,” Jane chatted. “Do you remember where you bought it?”

  “It’s custom made,” Leila said, ignoring the sudden prickling on her nape. She quickly cast an eye over her shoulder, yet saw nothing but the gleaming linoleum floor and the sterile white walls.

  “Custom made?”

  She nodded back at Jane. “Yes, I had a jeweler make it for me.” To conceal her sixty-four gig memory stick and keep her research close to her heart, literally. But nobody knew that. Maybe it was paranoia or perhaps it was simply common sense, but she wanted to ensure that none of her data would ever be lost.

  “It’s beautiful. Where’s his shop? I would love to have something similar.”

  “He went out of business, I’m afraid,” Leila lied and tried for a regretful smile.

  She wouldn’t reveal the jeweler’s name just in case he’d let it slip that the pendant was hollow inside and the perfect size for a memory stick. Nobody was supposed to know she carried her data with her. Already, not saving her data on the networked computer in her lab had raised a red flag and earned her a meeting with the CEO. However, once she’d made her case that she was worried about research being stolen, Patten had conceded to a compromise: each night when she was done with her research, she would back up the data on an external disk drive that she then placed in a safe. Only her own thumb print or that of Patten could open the specially designed piece, thus assuring that nobody unauthorized could access it.

  It appeared that her boss was nearly as paranoid as she was. And why shouldn’t he be? Pharmaceutical research was a cutthroat business. The first company to develop a new drug had an enormous head start no other company could compete with. To be first was everything in this business.

  Her laptop was armed with a special software that would initiate a sequence to destroy all data on the hard drive should anybody tamper with it. It was failsafe.

  “ . . . so I went with the red one instead. What do you think?” Jane pointed to her fingernails, which were painted in a ghastly orange color. Clearly, the young woman was colorblind, even though colorblindness was a male phenomenon.

  “Cute,” Leila managed to say, wondering what else Jane had been prattling on about while she’d had her head in the clouds again. It happened so often lately: she would space out thinking about one thing or another and not even notice that other people were around her or even talking to her.

  At the next bend of the corridor, they turned left. Leila pressed the button at the elevator bank. Doors instantly parted, and she stepped inside, followed by Jane. Her colleague pressed the button to the executive floor, and the doors started closing. Just as they were halfway shut, something beeped and the doors opened again.

  “What the hell?” Jane cursed and pressed the button again. “I can’t believe these stupid elevators. Half the week they’re out of order, supposedly getting fixed, and the other half of the week they’re on the blink again.”

  Leila shook her head. “I wouldn’t know. I normally take the stairs.”

  “Well that’s easy when you’re on the third floor, but try the eighth, and you’ll be out of breath in no time.”

  Leila couldn’t stop herself from glancing at Jane’s three inch heels.

  Yeah, or break an ankle.

  But she refrained from making a comment. It wasn’t her business that Jane was out of shape. She herself ran at least four times a week, trying to stay healthy and fit. As well as slim. She’d noticed how much weight her mother had gained when she’d broken a leg a few years ago and hadn’t been able to move much. Leila knew she had her mother’s physique—petite and solid, rather than tall and lean—and knew that if she let herself go, she would balloon one day. Hence, she ran and climbed the stairs whenever she got a chance.

  When they arrived on the eighth floor, Jane turned toward the kitchen, instructing Leila in leaving, “Go right in to see him. He’s expecting you.”

  Leila pulled her lab coat straight and brushed a hair off the white fabric. Clearing her throat, she lifted her hand and rapped her knuckles against the door.

  “Come.” The order was instant and spoken with unmistakable authority.

  She didn’t lose any time, opened the door and entered Patten’s office. The room was shrouded in semi-darkness. Patten, a man in his late fifties, graying at the temples and balding on top, sat at the wide desk, which was illuminated by a large halogen light. Yet the overhead fluorescent lights were off.

  “Come in, come in, Dr. Cruickshank. Excuse the lack of lights, but they burned out just when my visitor was here earlier. Darn embarrassing, too. Better get maintenance on that right away.”

  “Evening, Mr. Patten,” she answered simply, knowing he didn’t expect a reply to his rant about the lights. “You wanted to see me?”

  “Ah, yeah. That’s right.” He brushed a strand of gray hair back behind his ear, making her aware that just like her, he needed a haircut. He appeared somewhat disheveled.

  Now that she looked at him more closely as she approached and took the visitor seat in front of this desk, she noticed that his face looked gray and tired. As if he’d been burning the candle at both ends, just like somebody else she knew: yours truly. Well, he was probably not the only workaholic at Inter Pharma. Nobody got to the top without sacrificing something for it.

  “Sit down … Ah, you’re sitting … good, good …”

  Leila crinkled her forehead in concern. She’d never seen her boss this flustered. She hoped he wasn’t having a stroke, because despite having a medical degree, she was ill equipped for dealing with a medical emergency. The last time she’d seen a patient was during her residency at Mass General, and that seemed eons ago.

  “Are you feeling all right?” she felt compelled to ask, her nurturing side rearing its head.

  His eyes suddenly focused, and he appeared as clear as he’d always been. “Of course, why wouldn’t I? … Well, I wanted to speak to you because I’ve had a visit from a shareholder.”

  Leila sat forward on her chair, uncrossing her legs. Why would Patten want to talk to her about a shareholder? She wasn’t involved in the operations or any of the finances of the company. Apart from being responsible for her own lab budget, everything else she did was pure research.

  A shot of adrenaline suddenly coursed through her. She knew that the share price had recently dipped. Could this mean that the shareholders were unhappy and wanted to cut programs? Possibly eliminate her research?

  “My budget is already tight as is.” The words were out before she could think any further. Darn! The way she acted, she would have never made it in the diplomatic corps. And if she continued with blurted-out statements, her career as a researcher with her own lab could soon land on a slippery slope too.

  Patten gave her a confused look. “What?”

  “I’m sorry, go on; you were saying a shareholder visited you.”

  “Yes. It appears Mr. Zoltan has purchased a large amount of our shares when the market dipped. He now owns 36% of our stock, and while that doesn’t give him absolute control over the company, it makes him the largest individual shareholder—”

  Leila lifted her hand from her lap. “Uh, Mr. Patten, as you know, I’m not involved in that side of the company. My research—”

  “I’m getting to it, Dr. Cruickshank.”

  She nodded quickly, not wanting to upset him any further. Something clearly had rattled him today, and she wasn’t interested in getting hit in the crossfire. It was better to keep her mouth shut and let him talk. Maybe he simply needed to vent to somebody, and apart from Jane and the security guard in the lobby, she was the only one left in the building.

  Leila sighed inwardly. Great! Now her boss was offloading some useless stuff on her when she could utilize the time much better and finish analyzing the data that she hadn’t gotten to yet.

  “As I said, Mr. Zoltan now owns a vast amount of this company and that gives him certain powers. You probably understand that it wo
uld be unwise to anger such a man and deny him what he wishes.” Mr. Patten wiped a bead of sweat off his brow before he continued, “He could force a vote and practically reshuffle the board, boot me out … uh, as you see, I really don’t have much choice in the matter.”

  His eyes glanced at her nervously. In turn, the same nervousness spread to her, making her skin tingle with unease and her palms turn damp. On edge, she shifted in her seat but refrained from saying anything, realizing that he wasn’t done talking.

  “He is merely making sure his investment is safe, you see. It’s not any different from a new owner inspecting his factory and watching over the production process. Right, that’s how we have to look at this.”

  Watching over the production process? Was he saying what she thought he was saying? He couldn’t possibly allow … no, that would never happen.

  “Mr. Patten, I … I,” she stammered, her mind in too much uproar to be able to form a coherent sentence.

  “Mr. Zoltan will be returning on Monday to sit in with you.”

  “Sit in?”

  Patten nodded, avoiding her gaze, and instead stared at the darkness beyond his window. “He’s requested to learn about your research. My understanding is that he has a medical degree as well and wants to assess the viability of the product you’re working on.”

  Leila jumped up. “You can’t allow that. My research … it’s secret. No outsider can—”

  “Mr. Zoltan isn’t an outsider. He practically owns this company.”

  Disbelief welled up in her, making her knees wobble. “But you said he only owns 36% of the shares, that doesn’t mean he owns us.”

  “In the corporate world that gives him sufficient power over us to force practically anything he wants. We don’t even know what other resources he has at his disposal. For all we know, he can buy another fifteen percent, giving him full control.”

  Leila leaned over the desk. “Please, Mr. Patten, you have to stop this. I can’t have a stranger looking over my shoulder. This is sensitive work. If somebody gets hold of my formula, they can steal it. It’s not safe to have somebody in the lab who might—”

  “I understand your feelings, Dr. Cruickshank, but I have no choice. My hands are tied. Your research belongs to this company. It’s not your property. If I tell you that you have to allow someone access to it, then you’ll do as I say,” he ground out between clenched teeth. “Do we understand each other?”

  Leila pulled back, disappointment running in her veins. “I understand.” Her jaw tightened. “Is that all for tonight?”

  He nodded, a tired look crossing his features. “Go home, Dr. Cruickshank. You’ll eventually see that things aren’t as bad as you might think.”

  She turned without another word and walked back to her lab, holding back tears of frustration until the door latched behind her. Dropping into her chair, she covered her face with her hands and let the tears come.

  This wasn’t fair.

  She’d worked so long and hard for this, and now some rich shareholder with a medical degree would swoop in and nose around in her work. What if that wasn’t everything he wanted to do? What if he was intent on taking over the research and taking credit for it? She’d seen things like that happen before, where one researcher was booted out in the middle of the project and some newbie had taken over, claiming the credit for the ultimate result.

  Or what would happen if he was incompetent and destroyed the progress she’d already made? If that happened, her parents would never get better.

  She couldn’t allow this to happen. Nobody would ever find out enough about her research to be able to take over. This was her life’s work!

  “You can’t take this away from me, Patten,” she mumbled, wiping the tears off her cheeks.

  As she pushed back the chair, it scraped against the floor, the sound echoing in the empty lab. Her legs carried her to the wall safe. She pressed her thumb against the touchpad that activated the scanner. Then she heard a mechanism click. A beep accompanied by a green light told her that her authorization had been accepted.

  Leila pulled the thick door open and peered into the dark interior. She had to do what needed to be done.

  THREE

  Aiden burst through the door of the compound. There was no need to open it. His body simply dematerialized as he passed through the solid material and rematerialized beyond in a process too fast for the human eye to analyze. All it would see was a man walking straight into a door or a wall, the process behind it remaining a mystery. It was a power unique to Stealth Guardians; no demons known to them had a similar skill.

  He charged down the hallway. The massive building consisted of three stories above ground and two below. Its walls were thick, like those of an old English castle, build the way their ancestors had built their own strongholds. Their past was imprinted on the structure: ancient runes decorated the walls and floors, and charms to ward off evil hung over each door and window.

  There were many Stealth Guardian compounds dotted all over the world, places where the brothers, and the few sisters, lived together. All compounds were protected by the collective power of the Stealth Guardians, their virta, and might as well have been invisible. An ancient hypnotic-like spell ensured that the buildings went unnoticed by humans.

  Inside, no humans were allowed. Not even the charges of Stealth Guardians could be trusted to keep its location secret. There was always a chance that one of them would turn against them and eventually betray them to the demons.

  Within the walls of the compound, Stealth Guardians could recharge their energy after each mission, energy they expended as they cloaked their charges from detection by demons.

  Weapons long forgotten were stored in the vast underground vaults, weapons that could kill even an immortal Stealth Guardian. While no human weapon such as a gun or a knife could permanently injure Aiden or his brothers and sisters, any weapon forged during the Dark Days had the power to kill Stealth Guardians and Demons of Fear alike.

  As Aiden rushed into the large kitchen that was the center and indeed the hearth of the house he called home, his eyes scanned the assembled quickly. Manus was busy raiding the fridge, clad only in a pair of tightly fitting leather pants, his scarred chest bare, while Logan poured himself a drink. His dark hair hung loose over his shoulders and it looked as if he’d just only risen.

  Enya, the only female in their compound, lounged in one corner of the large couch in the adjacent great room. Her long blond hair was braided and pinned up in circles on the back of her head. She rarely wore it open, and Aiden could only suspect that it had grown down to her waist by now. Instead of watching the football game that blared from the giant TV mounted on the wall, she had her nose stuck in a book.

  Aiden cursed. “Where the fuck is he?”

  Heads turned toward him. Manus slammed the fridge door shut and placed a bunch of plastic packages of cold cuts on the kitchen counter.

  “I’m afraid that my mind reading capacity isn’t worth shit, so toss us a name, will you?” Manus exchanged a look with Logan who kicked back his drink in one gulp.

  “Somebody’s in a pissy mood today,” Logan added as if wanting to provoke him.

  Aiden felt his temper flare and squared his stance.

  “Manus kinda has a point,” Enya suddenly interjected not even looking up from her book.

  “I’m talking about fucking Hamish!” Aiden felt the air rush out of his lungs, the anger about his second’s failure to back him up growing with each moment.

  Logan grinned and lifted the whiskey bottle once more. “Had no idea you guys were that close! But hey, if you wanna fuck Hamish, go—”

  Aiden had Logan by the throat before he could finish his sentence and slammed him against the oven door. “I’m not in the mood for your fucking jokes. I’m asking again: where the fuck is Hamish?”

  His captive pushed against him, shaking off his hands with more grace than a man of his massive build seemed capable of. As Logan carefully straightene
d his T-shirt and rolled his shoulders, he lashed an angry glare at him.

  “I haven’t seen Hamish in two days. He was supposed to be with you. So piss off, and let me enjoy my game.”

  Logan turned and walked to the couch, plopping down in the corner opposite to Enya. When the weight with which he’d let himself fall jolted her and almost made her lose her grip on her book, she only raised an eyebrow.

  “Testosterone,” she mumbled under her breath.

  Logan narrowed his eyes. “And you know exactly what to do about that, don’t you? But no, you’re not gonna spread your legs for any of us, are you?”

  “Shut it!” Manus’s response came before Enya could even reach for the dagger that always sat at her hip, even when she was relaxing.

  “Asshole,” she hissed.

  Manus glanced at Aiden. “As for Hamish. If he isn’t with you, maybe he got ambushed.”

  “Then we should trace his cell and find him,” a voice from the door added to Manus’s sentence.

  Aiden whirled his head to the new arrival: Pearce.

  “It’s not like him to neglect his duties,” Pearce continued as he stepped fully into the room.

  Aiden nodded. Pearce was right.

  “I was outnumbered.”

  A soft hand touched his arm. His head snapped to the right. Enya had approached him without him noticing. “What happened today?”

  Aiden braced one hand against the kitchen counter. He squeezed his eyes shut. “I called Hamish, but he didn’t show. I couldn’t hold them off any longer. I killed two of them, but the third stayed within the protection of the vortex. He was too strong. He had complete power over her.” So much so that she’d tried to kill him, and instead . . . “My charge killed an innocent child. I had to terminate her.”

  “Fuck!” Manus cursed.

  “Not another one!” Logan added.

  “Damn it, what the fuck did you do, Aiden, sleep on the job? Why wasn’t she cloaked?” Manus ground out between clenched teeth.

  Aiden allowed the fury to blaze from his eyes as he faced Manus. “I protected her as best I could!”