Chapter 2 The Female Reproductive System
THE FEMALE REPRODUCTIVE SYSTEM
*Samantha*
Henrik’s eyes were glacial and blue enough to make you believe in recessive gene dominance. His gaze met mine with an energy so openly malevolent it was practically scented with testosterone.
I tried not to look rattled. My hand went for my campus badge a full second before my brain gave it the order. Henrik’s stride lengthened. He cut across the sidewalk without once glancing for traffic, because obviously the cars would stop for him. They did.
“Samantha!” he called, voice friendly and entirely at odds with the felony violence in his gaze. He lifted a hand, palm up, as if inviting me to a sociable game of Russian roulette.
I took a step back toward the biology building, thumbed the badge, and held it at the ready. “Henrik,” I called back, forcing calm into my voice. “Didn’t realize you were allowed outside of a cage without a leash.”
He grinned, flashing teeth. My fear made them look both whiter and sharper than possible. “Rumors of my incarceration have been greatly overexaggerated.”
As he approached, I did my best to hide my movements and intentions. The moment he got within ten strides, I scanned in, pulled the door open, and slipped through, letting it close with hydraulic slowness between us as he ran to grab the handle.
Too late. It clicked shut with me on the inside and him on the outside. Thank God.
Henrik’s features twisted with anger and he pounded on the glass door.
Internally, I gave myself a high five for not flinching.
Outwardly, I slowly crossed my arms and pasted on an unperturbed smile.
Apparently resigned to the impenetrable partition between us, Henrik huffed a laugh and placed one palm flat against the glass.
The look he gave me belonged on a National Geographic special.
“What, not even a handshake?”
“I don’t like being touched by violent offenders.” I shrugged.
He huffed another laugh and pushed away from the building, his eyes scanning me openly. I took the opportunity to calm my racing heart and inspect him as well.
Up close, Henrik looked older than Tobias.
Less pretty boy, more “CEO of Fight Club.” His nose had clearly been broken more than once, but rather than diminish his beauty, it only enhanced the suggestion that he was dangerous.
His hair was much lighter than Andreas’s, but not quite the golden white of his older brother’s.
His smile widened as it settled on mine again. “You’re a coward, Samantha. Just like your father.”
If he wanted to anger me, he succeeded. I’d always suspected Tobias and Henrik had something to do with what happened to my father. I decided to take his current statement as proof.
I smiled back, showing all my teeth. “Oh? Most people just tell me I have his eyes.”
Henrik leaned in again, forehead nearly touching the glass, his blue eyes boring into me. “You’re not as clever as you think. Or as safe. I’d have caught you, if I wanted to.”
I pretended to check my phone, though my hands shook so much I almost dropped it. “Then why didn’t you? Worried I’d get blood on your expensive coat?”
Henrik chuckled. It was a deep, rolling sound that might have been pleasant in another context, like, say, a commercial for luxury vodka, or an ad for a private island.
“You know, listening to Andreas is a mistake. He makes promises he can’t keep, and he doesn’t know anything about taking care of a woman.
” Henrik gave me a quick, lascivious once-over, licking his lips as he added, “Maybe you and I could reach an agreement instead. Unlike my little brother who has no experience, I know what I’m doing. ”
I cringed at the thought, an honest expression, and shook my head. “No, thank you. I prefer my men to walk upright.” I gave him a look, then turned my back on him for two seconds, just to see what he’d do.
What he did was pound once, hard, on the glass with the side of his fist. It made me flinch and triggered a wave of heat down my spine.
I spun, holding my phone like it was a can of mace. “Leave. Or I’m calling the police.”
He pressed his hands together, prayerlike, then splayed them wide in a performance of mockery. “You don’t even want to know why I’m here?”
“No.”
He looked over both shoulders, scanning the sidewalk. “It’s good you’re cautious. It means you actually understand what’s at stake.”
That, for some reason, angered me more than anything else he’d said so far. “I know exactly what’s at stake.” I’d lived through losing everything. It was time for this psychopath to know how it felt.
Henrik grinned again, and there was something feral about it. “I know about the addendum.” He sing-songed the statement like a taunt. “To the will, right? You plan to have a baby. Are you two already trying?”
For a moment, I literally could not speak. My ears rang with an icy static, and every drop of blood in my body tried to leave at once.
He knew about the will. And about the grandchild clause. Andreas had been right to be paranoid.
Henrik laughed at my silence. “You’re not even denying it?” His eyes dropped to my stomach. “Are you knocked up already?”
I managed to get my tongue unstuck. “Henrik, why are you here? You don’t need to stalk me to know what’s happening. Just text Tobias and get your briefing.”
He leaned back, clearly enjoying himself. “Tobias doesn’t know how to get things done.” Then he lowered his voice to something deeper. “And because I want you to hear it from me that nothing is guaranteed. Nine months is a long time. Anything can happen.”
I did not respond. There was nothing to say to that.
His smile faded, replaced by a darker and flatter expression. “I’m not going to let my Genetix be inherited by a fucking fetus. So, if you have a death wish, keep playing house with my little brother. But don’t get too comfortable.”
Henrik didn’t move, not at first. He just let his words hang in the cold air, hands pressed to the glass, mouth twisting in the approximation of a smile.
I stayed where I was, just on the other side of the door, thumb still white-knuckled around my phone, wondering why I hadn’t called the police yet.
If he wanted to intimidate me, he was succeeding beyond his wildest expectations.
I watched as he pulled a phone from his coat, thumbed a text or maybe took a photo.
Then, like he’d grown bored with the whole “terrorize Sam” event, he took a step away from the door, rocked back on his heels, and surveyed the street.
For a heartbeat, I thought he’d leave. But instead, he pivoted on one shoe and scanned the sidewalk, head cocked in a way that was at once predatory and weirdly expectant.
I followed his gaze and saw why.
Not too far away, a black Mercedes pulled up, then idled.
A moment later, the driver’s-side door popped open and out stepped Tara, all five foot, eight inches of her, hair up in the same efficient ponytail as mine.
She wore a navy windbreaker, dark leggings, and sneakers, but the way she moved made the clothes look tactical.
Henrik squinted at her. I watched, fascinated, as the gears turned in his head. For a second, I wondered if he would assume Tara was me. As Tara walked toward us with long, unhurried strides, Henrik started forward, his interest likely piqued.
At fifty feet, his shoulders bunched and he glanced back at me with unmistakable confusion. But then he turned back and met Tara halfway up the steps to the building.
“Hey,” Tara called out, voice calm.
Henrik stopped, shoulders rolling back, and for a moment I thought he might just bowl her over. Instead, he put on that same flat, professional smile. “You’re not Samantha,” he said.
“Nope,” Tara agreed, shifting her weight, then continuing to walk up the stairs and around him with a casual authority. “Just a friend.”
The words hung there as Henrik turned back toward the building, watching her. Eventually, he released a laugh that didn’t touch his eyes. “Well, since Samantha won’t come out to play, maybe I could play with you.”
“I wouldn’t advise that,” Tara replied, inspecting me, then mouthing the words, Are you okay?
I nodded, but then shifted my focus back to Henrik, not wanting to take my eyes off him for even a second.
She turned her back to me and he looked her over, top to toe, and I saw a flash of something—caution, maybe, or the animal calculation that precedes an attack. “Why? You some sort of ninja or something?”
“Something like that,” Tara said, and took one step closer.
There was a stillness then, the kind of hush that comes before an avalanche. Henrik continued openly sizing her up, then darted a glance at me through the glass. I tried not to look like I was cowering, but there was a zero percent chance I was fooling anyone.
“Tell your friend to come out and talk like an adult,” Henrik said, voice still soft but edged now.
“Nah.”
Henrik’s smile dropped. “‘Nah?’”
“That’s right. Nah.”
He laughed again, but this time it was short, almost a bark. “You’re serious.”
She said something that sounded like “Deadly,” but since she faced away from me, I couldn’t be sure.
And then, as if they’d been following pre-rehearsed choreography, they both moved.
It was fast. I barely registered the blur of Henrik’s hand as he reached for Tara’s neck, or the way Tara stepped inside the grab, twisted his wrist, and drove a knee into his gut so hard it lifted him an inch off the cement.
He doubled over, more from surprise than pain, but Tara was already behind him, one arm around his throat, the other pinning his wrist. Henrik tried to elbow her but she shifted, swept his feet, and brought him down in a controlled sprawl on the cold concrete.
He thrashed, kicked out, tried to roll. Tara let him, but only enough to humiliate him further, and then—when he growled and went for her ponytail—she caught his arm, bent it backward, and held it at an angle that seemed impossible.
Henrik let out a curse so loud it reverberated through the glass.
“Let. Go,” Tara said.
Henrik, to his credit, tried one last time to flip her. She let him get just enough leverage to think he had a shot, then shifted her knee into the small of his back, and he went face-down with a yelp.
“I told you to let go,” Tara said, voice steady, not even breathing hard.
Henrik’s reply was a string of expletives in what sounded like Swedish, though it might have just been the universal language of defeat.
Tara let him go, slow, never giving him her back.
To his credit, he didn’t even try to stand.
She stepped away and kept her eyes on him, posture relaxed but ready.
In that moment, I really, really wanted to go to Tara’s kickboxing class.
Tara straightened, brushed her hands together like she’d just finished a particularly annoying round of weeding a garden, and said, “He’s not armed. You can come out, Sam.”
For a few heartbeats, I just watched Henrik, face-down, still trying to recover his dignity if not his wind. Then I pushed open the door, adrenaline burning through my veins, and hurried down the steps. I gave Henrik as wide a berth as the stairs allowed.
He looked up at me, eyes glassy with rage and, maybe, confusion. “You think you’re safe? You’re not,” he spat.
“Get in the car, Sam,” Tara said, never looking away from Henrik still sprawled on the ground.
I did as she instructed, rushing for the door, opening it, and catapulting myself inside. I had never wanted anything more in my life than to be inside a locked Mercedes, surrounded by reinforced steel, and speeding away from this entire encounter.
What felt like seconds later, Tara slid in behind the wheel, yanked her own door shut, and had the car in gear before I’d even managed to get my seat belt buckled. My hands shook so hard I had to use both of them to thread the latch through the buckle.
“Are you really okay? Did he touch you?” she asked, eyes darting between me and the road.
“He didn’t touch me, and I am okay,” I said, and not believing it. The adrenaline was leaving my system and now I was shaking all over. “Thank you.”
Tara gave me a smile, but it looked tight. “May I suggest I take you home now and you skip kickboxing tonight?”
“Uh . . . okay.” I nodded, agreeing with her. I would go, just not tonight.
She grinned, the real kind this time. “Come next week, okay?”
I nodded again.
We merged into traffic, leaving Henrik behind. The car was silent except for the muted thump of tires over potholes and the steady thrum of my pulse, which refused to slow down.
I was shaken, and scared, and my hands weren’t going to stop trembling for at least a year, but there was something else under the surface—a kind of bright, savage relief. And, deep down, a quiet, vengeful satisfaction. Henrik had fallen for the smoke screen. He thought we were trying for a baby.
The truth would never occur to him, not until it was too late. And by then, Genetix would be mine.