He wasn’t surprised by Theodore’s offer. They had gatekeepers on their payroll exactly for this kind of emergency. What hewassurprised by was Atria’s explosive response.
“What? No! You can’t!” She lunged for the phone again. This time he let her close her small fingers around his own and bring the phone closer to her face. “Sovereign, it isvitalthat Ruby and I get to the conference. Ten years of work—”
“Is not in any capacity worth your life,” Theodore interrupted. Tone sharpening, he asked, “Have you been in contact with Ruby since you got off the plane?”
“I…” Atria paled again. “No. Kazimier took my phone and I didn’t think…” He felt her fingers tighten around his. “She’s supposed to be in Vegas. She sent me a picture from the Strip just before I boarded.”
“I’m going to confirm that she’s safe as soon as I get off this call. Kaz, what do we know about the bounty? Can we take care of it like we did for Viktor?”
Kaz’s stomach sank. He couldn’t bear to look at Atria’s face when he answered, “I don’t know. I haven’t had a chance to dig yet, but I have a feeling this isn’t going to be as simple. It’s a bounty for the record books. Those don’t just go away, even when you take out the person holding the purse.”
Theodore cursed again.
“Why?” Atria was no longer gripping his hand. Instead, her fingers had moved to circle his wrist. She held on like she feared he’d disappear, or like she might try to shake some sense into him at any moment. “Why would anyone payanythingfor my kidnapping? I’m no one.”
Theodore’s tone was grim when he answered, “Unless you’ve made some extremely wealthy enemies, it has to be your research.”
“Her research?” Kaz made a face. “Why do you think someone would come after her for clean energy shit?”
“Because she could put any number of industries out of business? I don’t know.”
“That doesn’t feel right.” Kaz tilted his head down to peer into his mate’s stricken expression. Her eyes were huge and dark. The bruise on her cheek was swelling, and when she tipped her head back to look up at him, she appeared as soft and delicate as the fairy tale princess he imagined her as.
In a low voice, he asked, “Tell me, princess. Why doyouthink someone might be after you?”
“I…” Her forehead puckered as she thought. “I really don’t know. Our research has been mostly ignored. People have been trying to find a solution to the m-energy problem for a thousand years. No one thought we were special.Icertainly don’t have any enemies. Not with the kind of money you’re implying, anyway.”
One of her hands pressed against his chest, right over his pounding heart, as if she needed to steady herself. Her skin was hot enough to sear the shape of her palm into his flesh — or at least the beast in him hoped it was.
Did she realize that she was leaning in? That she was gradually pressing skin against skin, until they were so close he couldn’t fit a playing card between their bodies?
Kaz’s breathing sped up until it felt like he was on the verge of panting. That wet spot on his thigh grew, and the pressure in his cock was quickly approaching unbearable.
Still, he couldn’t find the will to put distance between them. Not even one millimeter.
Slowly, she continued, “There was… Well, way back in the beginning, when we were only just starting to make a little headway, there was some interest from independent funding groups. We were running low on cash and waiting for the grant from the Energy Commission to go through.”
She paused, her expression pinching. Kaz set his phone on his knee, then used his free hand to gently rub her bare arm. “No detail is irrelevant here. Go on.”
Atria let out a slow breath. “I don’t know if it means anything, but for a while one of our ex-research partners met with the group and came back with a really, really big offer. I mean, alife-changingoffer.”
“Why didn’t you take it?”
“Because it felt weird,” she answered, shrugging helplessly. “I didn’t know the group or anything they’d funded. They were some crazy venture capital investor think tank thing, and they wanted to give us an absurd amount of money sight unseen? It was really strange. When Ruby and I dug deeper, Norman finally told us that they wanted us to add asmallextension to our research.”
Norman.Kaz’s instincts prickled. He didn’t like the familiarity with which she said the name. Something triggered his intuition, and he made a mental note to press the topic later.
Theodore’s voice came through the speakers to ask, “What did they want?”
Atria swallowed. “They… wanted us to experiment with applying our technology to weapons.”
As one, Kaz and Theodore muttered,“Fuck.”
“We didn’t take them up on it!” Atria was quick to explain, hands waving. “We were co-leads, and since Ruby and I refused to do it, we had the majority. Norman strongly disagreed, but there was nothing he could do about it. We turned them down and never heard from them again.”
Kaz’s mind raced. There were approximately a dozen different factions that could fund something like that, as well as have the motive to do so. But whynow?“Has any of your research been made public recently?”
“No, we’ve kept everything confidential. Not that anyone had any interest, of course, but it’s part of the contract with the commission. We had our breakthrough six months ago and just got permission to announce it at the conference.” Her fingers curled into his chest. Tone changing to something beseeching, she said, “Please, youhaveto understand— Ruby and I need to be at that conference. Our research will change the world. This is our chance to finally show everyone.”
