Chapter 27
I balanced a tray of food on my head as I stepped handless up the ladder to the loft area. Katie was curled into a little ball on the bed, her hands tucked under her cheek, sound asleep. I felt like a randy teenager watching her.
She was an erotic vision, her ass minus clothing displayed in its full glory. I felt my loins stirring and reluctantly told my libido to shut down. I set the tray on the dresser and turned back to the security monitors and my encrypted laptop.
After round two and a few hours of sleep, I was up, dressed, and only away from my desk less than an hour since waking for the second time. I'd stopped long enough to run to the stores for perishables, slippers, clothes, and toiletries for Katie. I started and finished a load of laundry from our discarded clothing and made her breakfast. What do you call breakfast food at eight o'clock in the evening, brinner?
I got back to work. I was so motivated, focused by my day with Katie, I had one goal in mind that evening. Well, two, but she was sleeping so soundly the second goal would have to wait. I was more determined than ever to find and kill Jorge Riaz, through any contact I could find, despite the sudden demise of Carter.
For a moment during sex, I'd seen my life complete and whole with Katie. I saw my future with her, our brown-haired children playing in the yard, my world more normal and perfect than I had any right to expect it could ever be. Then she'd reminded me about how she was sterilized by Riaz.
The doctors told her after she'd been rescued that the drug had two functions. It lowered her chances of becoming pregnant by eighty-seven percent from first ingestion, and with continued use that number would rise until it was one hundred percent. The doctors said they weren't sure about Katie, but the likelihood that she'd taken enough of it over the six months she was in Cantana to cause her body to be infertile was high. The doctors weren't sure, because the drug was new and untested at the time of her use.
Its other function, its main function, was a potent aphrodisiac. It was black market, because of the birth control side effect. That bastard had force-fed her an experimental illegal drug just so he and his men could rape her without fear of pregnancy. It was a selfish, evil crime against her, with psychological and physical repercussions.
I hated Jorge Riaz more, as if that were a possibility. I needed to find him. I planned to wrap my hands around the sadistic prick's throat. I planned to squeeze the life out of him and would enjoy watching his eyes bulge out of their sockets and cloud in death. It was the first time I'd ever felt any emotional attachment about killing someone. I needed it so much I could feel the blood on my hands.
I'd slipped in and out of the various secure black net sites where my group placed messages, received assignments, and kept each other posted on the goings-on inside our circle. I hacked my way through the various webpages, silently stalking for what seemed a fruitless search.
I wiped my hand across my face and considered other avenues to obtain the goal. If finding Jorge Riaz was that easy, I would have found him before now. He was a ghost. It was very possible Jorge Riaz was already dead. If so I planned to bring him back to life just to torture and kill him again. First I had to find the piece of shit.
Katie yawned and stretched her limbs across the bed, looking like a little kitten. My body went from murderous to aroused in a heartbeat. A small smile played on her lips as she gazed over at me, meeting my eyes.
"Morning. Or would that be evening? What time is it?" she asked sitting up, holding the blanket against her chest.
"Evening. Eight-thirty." A smile crossed my face as I remembered what she'd been doing at the same time on February twelfth of the year prior.
"What?" she asked.
"Nothing. Hungry?"
"For food? Starving." Her innuendo made me smile.
She pushed the blanket off, then covered her bare lower half with her shirt as she searched for her missing undies. Finally she gave up. She kicked the covers off her feet and bravely got up and walked across the room to the bathroom. I grinned as she lifted the hem of her t-shirt in the back and wiggled her bottom before closing the door softly behind her.
I laughed, enjoying her brief flashing. The relaxed, flirty Katie was back. I shut down the laptop, then made the bed and set the tray of food in the center. I sat down with my legs crossed and my back against the half wall, fidgeting as I awaited her return.
Katie emerged from the bathroom, face freshly scrubbed and beaming from the inside out. She crawled onto the bed and sat on her heels looking down at the tray of food.
"Do I smell bacon?" she asked, her brown eyes wide.
"Yes. Also eggs, orange juice, coffee, and buttermilk pancakes from scratch." I lifted the cover off the plate of food with a flourish and set it on the dresser.
"Yummy," she said, licking her lips. She crawled past the tray to me and settled herself between my legs, her hands on my shoulders. Her fingers felt hot even through my sweater.
"Thank you." She gave me a quick kiss on the lips, then turned to the food. I pulled the tray next to my leg and she picked up a fork and dug in.
I wrapped my arms around her waist and pulled her back against my chest. She offered me a bite of her bacon, which I ate, and then I sucked the salt from her fingertips one at a time. When she finished most of the food, she pushed the plate away and snuggled against my chest, sipping coffee.
"Mmmm, so good. Where did you learn to cook?" She leaned her head back to glance up at my face.
"Why?"
"Because you said you prefer Chinese food. That means take-out, right? So if you prefer take-out you don't usually cook."
"You're reading too much into it. I do a pretty good stir fry if I do say so myself." My smile was tight as I looked down at her.
"Really? So where did you learn to cook?" she asked again.
"No."
I stared at the monitors, my jaw firmly set. There were many things in my past that I had no plans on sharing with her, no matter how much I wanted to.
