Author's Notes:
Welcome back to my story, my faithful readers! Thanks for hanging with me, and especially to all of you who have taken the time to comment or send me feedback messages. They're greatly appreciated.
Like always, if you haven't read the previous chapters, you're going to get lost. I don't make much of an effort to explain references to earlier events and characters (of which, there are a lot).
The last chapter was long, and a lot of stuff happened. As a result, I'm curious if others felt like the pacing was too fast; I thought that it might be. So, I'm going to try limiting the scope in future chapters. Hopefully, this will satisfy those of you that feel like there hasn't been enough character development for some of the Lionesses as well.
Mea Culpa: This is getting irritatingly regular, and I apologize. I realized after the last chapter that I had managed to shift Elsa Lund from being Helga's daughter (ch. 04) to her granddaughter. The error was in chapter four; I always imagined Elsa as the fresh-faced young maiden to the elderly, dour matron, Helga, and she should have been identified as the granddaughter earlier.
Standard disclaimer: Please, if you like the story, or if you don't like the story, take a moment to comment. It's especially helpful if you have something constructive to add. It helps me quite a bit to see the story through others' eyes.
Finally, as always, all sexual activity takes place between adults.
—MB
*****
Jozef found himself in a sour mood, again, just like he'd been for the better part of a week now. Years of meticulous planning, devious machinations, and overall selfish ambition had gone into making his son the vehicle by which control of the Project would become Jozef's. The thought of having that much power gave him a stronger erection than the efforts of his current wife, Gianna.
She was his third wife, and while she was still sexy, her 53-year old body wasn't really doing it for Jozef anymore; she'd almost reached her expiration date, just like the previous Mrs. van Heuvals. She was riding him hard, but he was distracted and she was getting tired. You'd think having a former model and actress, widely considered in her younger years as one of the sexiest women on the planet, would be enough to hold his attention.
Despite advancing in her years, Gianna's body remained firm. In her early years, she'd never been especially busty. As she aged, though, her curves swelled voluptuously into what the artists referred to as 'Rubenesque.' Her Italian heritage remained, with the long Roman nose and full, pouty lips competing for attention with her large brown eyes. Her hair, with a little chemical assistance of course, was still the color of espresso.
"I'm sorry," she apologized, quietly.
"Mmmm?" he said. "Oh! It's not you. I'm a little distracted with a problem I can't seem to solve." He might be a bastard, but he did have a soft side.
Gianna wasn't buying it entirely. She'd gone into this marriage years ago with eyes wide open. Jozef was a man of many passions, and that had made him irresistible in her eyes. In the intervening time, though, she'd learned that he would never have as much passion for her as he had for power. That, too, was a kind of aphrodisiac. But she couldn't help wishing that he was a little more interested in her. Aging was hard enough on a woman, especially one who'd traded on her appearance for so long. To have her husband lose interest was a bitter pill to swallow, and yet she knew that it was her medicine to take these days.
I wish he'd just make a little effort in bed. It's been a long time since I felt like a real woman
, she thought. As usual, she said nothing aloud to indicate her growing displeasure at the state of affairs in her marriage. She kissed his cheek and slid out of bed to begin preparing for the day.
Behind her, Jozef barely noticed that she'd left. He continued stewing over the unraveling of so much hard work. At least the blackmailer, whoever they were, had not yet followed through on the threat to release the stolen data from NeoGenesys. Every day that passed without an anti-viral treatment was another exponential growth in the number of infected men. The failure of the hit squad to locate and eliminate the hacker stuck in his craw nevertheless, because the threat remained active. Still, in light of the inaction, Jozef was beginning to wonder if the threat of physical harm had been enough to cow the hacker into submission.
Then, there was the fact that Emil and his team had been unable to locate and secure Jordan.
That part confused Jozef as much as it angered him. He had no reason to suspect any of his people of being a mole, but he couldn't shake the feeling that someone had tipped Jordan. His son seemed to have disappeared. As irritating as it was to Jozef, as long as his son continued to lay low, it accomplished much the same thing as if Emil had snatched him. There was always time to deal with his disobedience down the road.
The biggest thorn in his side was Carson Jayne. If Jozef had been an old-time religion kind of guy, he might've thought that Carson was a curse sent by God to torment him for some offense. The bastard had shown up out of nowhere, and now he was on the brink of accomplishing in less than two years that which Jozef had spent many years planning for his son to accomplish. The petitioning by the Okafor clan to match Orisa to Carson had been unforeseen, and in light of the defeat of the Lund-Clemonte petition, it was maddening. Not that he took it all that personally, but it had been quite some time, maybe decades, since a petition had originated from outside the van Heuval line for a match with them.
*****
Jozef was still puzzling over the problem of Carson Jayne in his office hours later. His emergence from obscurity, the unravelling of Eisenfaust's plans—if he didn't know better, Jozef might've thought that Carson was actively opposing him. From the moment the thought entered his mind, it lodged there and began to fester.
Could he be behind the attacks on our group?
he pondered. He hadn't
seemed
aggressive at the meeting. At least, he hadn't until one of his lovers was threatened. Jozef didn't know Carson at all, but he could read people pretty well. The look on Carson's face as he stared down Helga had shown that there was a blazing inferno of rage within him, under the right circumstances. Maybe he was more involved than Jozef had given him credit for to this point.
His musings were interrupted by the unexpected arrival of his daughter-in-law. Aria swept into his office with a flourish. Looking at her, he realized that even though he'd forced her marriage to his son, if the truth were to be told, Aria would not have been his first choice as a wife for Jordan. She was attractive enough, but Jozef saw something in her eyes that left him uneasy. But her father was one of his closest associates, and as far as Jozef was concerned, she was just a link in a chain. Besides, forcing Salvatore to submit to his will ensured that the order of things remained intact.
"Good afternoon, my dear," he said, feigning a pleasantness that he didn't actually feel.
"And to you," she replied just as falsely.
"What brings about this pleasant surprise?" he asked, curious.
Aria's face suddenly lost any trace of happiness. "I'm worried about Jordan. I know you said that he had a family emergency come up, but I just thought it was odd that he'd leave town without letting his wife know where he was going. And I haven't heard from him since he left. Have you?" she asked, watching him carefully.
Careful here
