Chapter 19
Harrison
The iron clinked sharp in the air, magnifying each tap of my pen against the stark metal table.
Restraint thinned my mouth as I paused, eyeing the stack of data pages with Dane beside me.
His presence like a military drill sergeant.
Cold. Unyielding. This particular attempt at synthesizing a serum had ended, yet again, in disaster.
Full-blooded shifter DNA produced only further setbacks.
My father’s voice gnawed at me over the phone, demanding to know why the serum hadn’t been finished months ago, why this girl, my fiancé, the one I’d lost, held so much damn importance.
I’d finally hung up. “He doesn’t understand the scientific process,” I said to Dane, leaning back in my chair.
“Failures happen more than successes.” My knuckles whitened around the pen as the tension of dealing with my father forced a thick knot to the surface.
“The fucker acts like all of this,” I waved my hands around the state-of-the-art lab, “just sprung up out of the jungle by magic. He has no idea why it took well over a year to make this part happen. And the setbacks in testing are to be expected. We’re moving in the right direction.”
Dane was silent beside me, taking in the pages without so much as a twitch.
Even I couldn’t tell what he was thinking sometimes.
His certainty an infuriating and yet valuable quality.
But I didn’t doubt his willingness to go further than any of the others on this.
A pulse of satisfaction settled as he nodded, acknowledging the results like the calculated setbacks they were.
“You’ll work it out.” His voice was smooth, confident.
I stilled at the optimism, my eyes going hard as I pushed back from the table. Stark chairs and bright fluorescents felt clinical and precise, like every motion Dane and I made in this room. “The girl’s blood is the key. We know this.”
“It’s taking longer than you expected.”
“Time is of no consequence if we succeed,” I said, turning back to the data. My father was less patient, and he’d made his threats clear enough the last time we spoke. But Dane and I, we were strategists. The victory would be ours alone if it happened. “He can wait.”
The white walls echoed my words back at me, sterile and unfeeling, and my father’s complaints echoed in my mind. I shut them out, focusing on the next step. Dane stayed where he was, an anchor against the disappointment I refused to voice.
“We’ll need to take another approach with Juliet’s family,” I said, sharp and firm. “The only other viable candidate is her mother. But the risk of involving Jules Bettencourt… he could betray us.”
“He might have information.”
I shook my head, conviction as rigid as steel.
“He’s more useful believing the girl’s hiding from him.
We can hold him off. Let him think she’s run from her life with him and her heartless mother rather than from me.
And there’s no way Juliet would be in contact with her parents any more than she’d contact me.
They gave her to me without a thought about what she wanted.
She understands their position in all of this. ”
“So we take the mother.” Dane’s voice was quick, knowing.
I met his steady eyes. It was a risk, but not the kind my father thought.
My father believed in strong-arming to get what he wanted, not strategy.
The longer Juliet remained out of his grasp, the more he would demand action over sense.
I’d let him bark at shadows if it meant I could move without interference.
That’s why he’d not be privy to my plans.
And why I’ll claim ignorance when the news of Renda Bettencourt’s disappearance hits.
Dane waited for my response, his calm like a lure for weakness.
I let the silence stretch, not giving him what he hoped for.
But his face remained impassive, knowing he’d touched a nerve.
He was as loyal as they come, but even he couldn’t predict how much pressure my father would apply when the time came.
“We will take the mother,” I confirmed, my voice a calculated plan in itself.
“She’s the closest we have until we locate Juliet.
We’ll leave her disappearance just messy enough to flush the girl out.
While we’re waiting for Juliet, we use her mother’s hybrid blood.
It’s possible it will work as well or better than Juliet’s.
It won’t stop Juliet from paying for her sins, however. ”
Dane inclined his head, a silent approval. We worked like this, all intention, every move playing into the next.
The room pressed in around me, and I imagined it was not so different from the space Juliet would find herself in once I had her.
I hadn’t been ready to use her blood when she slipped away.
But losing her was a failure, and I didn’t do failure.
I shoved the memory aside, letting it fall into place among the other recent fuck-ups.
I needed her blood, yes, but I wanted to punish her more.
“Whatever happens with her mother, it’s a chance we’ll take,” I said, fixing my eyes back on the data. “I’ll not have any more delays.”
“Understood,” Dane said, taking his cue to fall silent once more.
I felt the heat of my resolve, the precision that drove every damn decision.
Juliet Bettencourt was now an obsession.
The one gamble that mattered. I’d let my father think she was just a piece in our strategy.
Let him threaten and push from afar. But I knew what Bettencourt blood was worth.
Her family’s blood ran with dollar signs.
No one truly knew the value except for me. Not yet.
“We know the driver they use in the city,” I said. “Set the team to follow him. Keep it tight.”
Dane gave a crisp nod, accepting the order. I’d made a mistake in thinking Juliet would never run. I’d thought she was too weak to try to leave. We hadn’t expected how damn fast and far she could run. “And when we have the mother?”
“Straight to the lab. We’ll work fast, get what we need and make it loud. The headlines will bring Juliet to us.”
“And your father?”
My mouth tightened, but my voice remained controlled.
“Fuck him. He’s got no actual power. He’s one voice on the board of directors and no more.
He didn’t think of the consequences when he stepped down and gave me power.
When we succeed, it won’t matter. He’s waiting for results.
We’ll give him more than that. And so help me God, if he even tries to get in my way, he won’t live to see those results. ”
Dane seemed satisfied with my response. He leaned back in his chair, watchful. Trustworthy. He was everything my father wasn’t.
“Move quick,” I added. “Have her in Costa Rica before week's end.”
Dane stood and turned to go. He stopped at the door, hand on the knob. “This is a sound plan, Harrison. Juliet will be in your hands soon.”
The words weren’t consolation. Not between us.
We knew better than to soften the truth with hope.
We worked with clarity, with precision, with ruthless demand.
And yet, there was a weight to what he said.
I kept my expression unflinching until he’d left the room; the door shut with a firm click behind him.
I looked back at the failed lab data, a reminder of what waited. Cold inevitability wound through me. Yes, I would have her in my hands. Her mother’s blood would lead us to the serum. It would lead us to everything. Juliet would lead me to satisfaction.
Intercepting the car was easy after the driver picked up Renda Bettencourt from her private club.
I waited in the shadows, timing the pulse of each second with steady breaths, watching.
The sleek black van rounded the corner, headlights like slashes through the thick New York air.
Every precaution taken. Every camera in the vicinity had been hacked.
The team, all donned in Hollywood production-level masks, moved in, swift and clean, as they forced the car to a stop on the quiet side street.
Within moments, they had the driver subdued.
The rear van door opened with perfect timing, and the street seemed to exhale into silence.
Empty. Unknowing. They reached for the elegant woman still unaware in the backseat, and I felt the slow coil of success.
Each action deliberate. Renda barely managed to register surprise before the syringe slid into her arm, neat and clinical.
Drugged. Secured. A faint smile crossed my lips as they lifted her into the van and disappeared down the street.
Not a single movement wasted. I turned, and the shadows seemed to close in behind me as if I had never been there.
They followed a calculated route, one we’d gone over a dozen times.
The van wove through the maze of New York City streets, places they might be remembered.
Not that anyone would. The city didn’t notice things that weren’t flashy enough to demand attention, and our actions were all deliberate silence and shadows.
We drove to the secluded private airfield where my jet was fueled and waiting.
Everything was as expected. Everything but the time it took us to reach this point.
Even then, there was an order to it, a structure I’d expected even in its delays.
I let out a controlled breath as the van halted near the small plane, and I could see Renda’s inert form, head resting like she’d fallen into a faint. Elegant even in her captivity.
Another car waited at the hangar, ready to pick up the trailing operatives. I’d timed it to the second, ensured that nothing felt spontaneous or unplanned.
The side door of the jet opened as they pulled up.
A metal staircase jutted to the pavement.
Renda’s dress shimmered in the hangar’s overhead light as they moved her from the van to the plane, taking care not to mar the image she projected.
I watched the tableau from the doorway, knowing the silent spectacle of it would make Dane’s team nervous. But they wouldn’t question my methods.
Another brief flash of movement. The team worked with machine-like precision, securing Renda’s drugged form into the plush seat, as though they were kidnapping royalty. In some ways, I supposed, we were. Bettencourt’s fortune could be considered vast by any standard.
The hum of the jet engines replaced the van’s low rumble.
Everything was swift, clinical. The crew’s smooth motions were like punctuation, hard and clear, on the page of my design.
They buckled Renda’s limp form into her seat, knowing she wouldn’t stir until they landed on the airstrip miles from the lab.
By the time she realized where she was, it would be too late for anyone to find her.
I knew how fast they’d move. Jules Bettencourt was a shark when it came to the appearance of family devotion.
He’d make statements, hold press conferences, wring his hands for the media, pretend he hadn’t offered his daughter up like a sacrificial lamb for his business deals.
And she, his prized jewel, his bet, his folly—she would see the reports, be lured into thinking she could save the woman who turned a blind eye to her own abuse.
We’d underestimated her once, assumed she’d been too sheltered to know how to get far.
But I understood her more now. She was a survivor. A runner. I’d use it against her.
The transfer to the jet was seamless. I felt the anticipation of inevitable results, of looming success, a heady thrill just beneath the cold precision.
The only loose thread was Juliet herself, and that would be quickly tied off once she surfaced.
Once I had her in my grip, she’d understand the depth of her mistakes.
I stepped back from the window where I watched, one last glance at the jet.
The team was exiting, a last sweep through the hangar before they returned to New York City and resumed their watch.
Even they didn’t know everything that was at stake here.
Not yet. I’d make sure it stayed that way until there was no room for error or questions.
I checked the app on my phone to see the interior of the jet’s cabin. Renda’s hair gleamed under the overhead light, and her head slumped to one side, helpless. I could see the steady rise and fall of her chest, the muted thrum of life. She was as vulnerable as I needed her to be.
The hangar fell silent once the doors shut, echoing emptiness where the team had just stood.
I held the weight of it, felt it settle like a shroud.
Juliet Bettencourt was about to make the biggest mistake of her life, coming out of hiding for a woman who’d given her away like an object to be bartered.
I knew what family meant to them, which was to say nothing at all.
She’d learn it soon enough, but by then it wouldn’t matter.
The plane roared to life, a low growl that shuddered through the hangar and faded into the thick night as it pulled away.
The headlines would follow by morning, I knew.
We’d laid the groundwork for it. I let myself savor the inevitability, how every move I’d made since she ran would draw her in, pull her back to me.
She wouldn’t know the danger; wouldn’t see it coming until it was too late.
They’d arrive at the lab in Costa Rica by morning. Her blood would give me the answer to the only question that had ever mattered, the question that haunted me, consumed me. I’d have the serum. And I’d have Juliet. It was all there, laid out, waiting.
I turned from the hangar, the hum of the departing jet already lost in the dense air. The night swelled up, closing around me, and the next chapter of Juliet’s life would be mine to write.