Chapter 24: : Chapter 24

“You’re telling me that it’s all gone?”

“Y-yes, sir.”

I wait for the supplier to elaborate, but he sounds like he’s concentrating on not shitting his pants. I wish we were having this conversation face to face. Shitting his pants would be the least of his fucking concerns.

“That container of B47 substrate was marked for me. The purchase order was sent. You accepted my motherfucking money.”

“I-I understand, Mr. Oryolov, b-but I have no control over—”

“Who stole it from me?”

“Excuse me, sir?”

“Two tons of an extensively manufactured industrial chemical doesn’t just disappear into thin air. Someone purchased that container and I want to know who.” I’m pacing across my office so chaotically that Kirill has to lunge out of my way.

“I, um… That information is classified, sir.”

“What’s your name?”

Silence.

And then—dead air.

Did that son of a bitch just hang up on me?

I roar, flinging my phone across the room. It hits the door and flies apart, the cracked screen catching the dying sun and winking up at me.

Breathing heavily, I turn to Kirill, who’s already pulling out a brand-new phone from one of the drawers of my desk. “I’ll just transfer the SIM and you should be good to go,” he explains. “As always.”

Suffice it to say, this has happened enough times to warrant a standard operating procedure.

“This has Adrik’s fingerprints all over it,” I fume. “That mudak is retaliating for the beating I gave his ego.”

Kirill is busy trying to pluck the SIM out of my broken phone. “You really think he has the balls? Or the resources?”

“That idiot’s only goal in life is to take me down. What better way than this? Undercutting the development of a drug that I’ve already spent who-the-fuck-knows-how-much on?”

He hands me the new phone as it powers to life. “Point taken. My question is, what do we…?” He trails off as I stalk out of the office. “Where are you going?”

“To fucking deal with it,” I reply. Emma is sitting at her desk, all wide-eyed and concerned at the sounds of mayhem she must’ve overheard. “Cancel all my appointments. I’m working out of the office today.”

I don’t linger to wait for her response.

The journey from Bane to the chemical facility is punctuated by a series of vivid and violent fantasies. All of which involve Adrik suffering a messy and painful death under the heel of my boot.

But as satisfying as those revenge fantasies would be, my first priority is Venera. I need to make sure that this setback doesn’t affect the rollout. I can deal with delays if we’re talking a few days. But if it stretches into months, that’s going to be a significant hit to my bottom line. Which means I need to go into Damage Control Mode.

I don’t even bother with the bullshit white coat when I get to the facility. I storm into the lab as I am and bellow for Sergey at the top of my lungs. He stumbles out of the storage room, his face pale and his brow already sweaty.

“We’ve lost the last container of B47,” I inform him icily. “How much Venera have we manufactured so far and how imperative is B47 to the formula?”

Sergey’s mouth twists into a strange, crooked shape. “Uh, well…”

“Spit it out, Sergey. I don’t have time to waste.”

He wipes his brow with the back of his hand. “I may have a solution.”

“That’s what I like to hear. Go on.”

The man doesn’t look the least bit encouraged. He shifts from one leg to the other, all his nervous tics pinging at the same time. “I have been… experimenting. I did so without your authorization—and I do apologize for that, sir—but I wanted to see if I could improve on or erase altogether the lesser side effects of Venera.”

On any other day, I would have been pissed. But I’m not about to bite off the hand that’s throwing me a bone when I need it.

“In one of my attempts, B47 was one of the chemicals I removed from the existing formula. I switched it out with a different compound. Its scientific name is—”

I hold up a hand. “I couldn’t possibly care less. What were the results?”

“On the face of it, the new formula that omits B47 performs in the same manner that the old formula did. However, we haven’t carried out enough trials to know for sure.”

My jaw clenches painfully. “Then we need to start a new round of trials. Immediately.”

Sergey actually looks a little animated for a change as he nods. “Yes, sir. Right away.”

“How badly is this going to affect our launch date?”

His eyes veer from side to side as though there’s some imaginary whiteboard in front of him. “If we can run a few dozen trial sessions in the next week, we might not need to delay the launch by more than a handful of days.”

This time, when I clench my jaw, it’s out of pure satisfaction. “Good. Do what needs to be done then.”

I’m heading for the door when Sergey stops me. “Sir, we have a trial running as we speak. Would you like to observe?”

I pause. Why the fuck not?

“Lead the way.”

He escorts me out of the lab and across the facility to a sterile clinic room. Each of them is fitted with one-way glass so my chemist teams can observe the effects of their inventions on the test subjects.

The observation room is bristling with Sergey’s underlings, who might as well be carbon copy clones for all that I can tell the difference between them. I shove aside the clipboard-toting fucks and muscle my way to the front of the room. I barely acknowledge the technicians I pass—because I’m so fixated on what’s happening on the other side of the glass.

Both members of the couple in the observation room are young and attractive.

But I doubt that’s the reason they’re fucking like a pair of horny rabbits.

The man’s pants are down around his ankles and the woman’s skirt is hiked up around her waist. He shoves into her rhythmically, his ass clenching with every thrust. She lies on the padded examination table, her hands flung carelessly over her head. Both wear hazy, dreamy expressions that look strangely familiar to me—because I just saw one very, very similar on Emma’s face last night.

That one didn’t require a single dose of anything illicit.

I clear my throat. “Who’s the principal investigator for this session?”

A stern woman with short brown hair steps forward. “That would be me, Mr. Oryolov. I’m Dr. Dahlia Canaan.”

“Dr. Canaan. When were these subjects introduced to one another?”

“Just moments after entering the room less than an hour ago.”

“And they both ingested a sample size of Venera?”

“Fifteen minutes prior, yes.”

My eyes keep going back to the young couple. The man’s jaw thrums as he increases the speed of his thrusts. She moans wildly, her hair flipping from side to side. They’re both so lost in the sex. They could be fucking in front of the President, the Pope, or their own damn parents and it wouldn’t slow them down a bit.

“And they’re aware they’re being observed?”

“Of course, sir. All our test subjects are informed in advance and required to give their signed consent.”

“How long has it been since they entered the room?”

“Approximately… fifty-seven minutes, sir.” She consults her clipboard. “We noted flirtatious dialogue approximately thirty-one minutes after ingestion of Venera. Physical contact was established after approximately forty-six minutes. Intercourse was initiated less than eighty-four seconds after that.”

Fucking flawless.

I turn to Sergey. “If these results hold, we’re golden.”

“I see no reason why they shouldn’t, sir.” He actually looks halfway confident for a change. His face is a slightly less pasty shade of white and there’s only a hint of warble in his voice. By Sergey’s standards, that’s as good as it gets.

My gaze shifts back to the young couple. He’s fucking like a jackhammer, but it doesn’t matter; she’s still coming every fifth thrust. Two strangers going absolutely apeshit over each other while a room full of scientists and doctors watch—it’s the type of thing that’s only possible when you don’t give a shit.

The thought of anyone watching Emma and I together makes my blood boil. I would soundly beat to death any person who so much as looked at her naked body while I still hold a claim to it.

This couple in the observation room? They don’t give a shit.

Must be nice.

RUSLAN: I need you to check in on Sergey more often. Make sure he has everything he needs.

VADIM: Your wish. My command.

That reply is a little too flippant to be sincere, but I decide to let it go. If throwing some snark my way is how he soothes his wounded ego, I’m willing to be generous.

Only because he’s my uncle.

Only because he held my father together after the accident.

I glance at Kirill, who’s busy running a red light. “Did you pick up my schedule for the next week like I asked?”

“Of course. It’s in the back with the rest of your files. I believe Ms. Carson color-coded everything for your convenience.”

I don’t like the suggestive lift in his tone when he says her name, but I let that go, too, still high from my eleventh-hour victory over Adrik. I shouldn’t be counting chickens just yet, but I have a good feeling about Sergey’s revised formula.

“By the way,” Kirill adds, “you have the Olsen-Ferber charity gala coming up next week. I’ll need to arrange a special security detail for that. Did you pick a date yet?”

My jaw twitches uncomfortably as an unwelcome image pops into my head. Me, at the gala, with Emma on my arm, decked out in a red gown to match her lipstick.

Fuck no. That is not happening.

I’m already making stupid decisions when it comes to her. Case in point: the lack of condoms last time we fucked. Just when I’d resolved to wear them, the woman attacked me before I’d barely set foot in the door. By the time I got my head on straight, I’d already filled her.

Feeling that sweet pussy tighten around me was absolutely worth it, though…

I grind my teeth. I need to get a grip and stop thinking with my penis. “I’ll take Jessica. You can halve the security detail on my entourage for the gala. She always brings her own men—and even if she didn’t, no one wants to kill me bad enough to get within a mile of her.”

I don’t miss the way Kirill’s face scrunches in disgust.

We’re turning onto 48th when I make a last-minute decision. “One more thing: add Emma to the entourage for the gala.”

Kirill brings the SUV to a grinding halt. “Emma?”

I shrug, feigning apathy. “Just in case I need her.”

Yeah. Sure. That’s why she’s coming.