Stealing Jia (Coletti Warlord Series Book 13) Read online

  “I’m allergic to seafood too.” I fought back a grin at the irate expression on Giovanni’s face.

  “Would madam care for a salad?” The waiter asked.

  “That would be lovely.”

  The waiter hurried off.

  “What type of genetic research do you do?”

  “My research is complicated, and too difficult for the female mind to comprehend,” Giovanni answered and placed his hand on my knee.

  I removed it. “Are you manipulating the genome using molecular engineering techniques or somatic genetic modifications?”

  His eyes narrowed. “I have no desire to talk about my research. Tell me about yourself.”

  “I love to dance and take long walks on the beach,” I said glibly.

  “You were raised by the nuns at Saint Michael’s. Are you still a virgin?”

  My mouth tightened. Not only had the ass checked me out, he was sadly lacking in manners. “I don’t kiss and tell.”

  “I must insist on the absolute truth between us,” Giovanni countered.

  Trying not to display my annoyance, I replied, “I’m looking for a dance partner, not a husband.”

  The waiter rushed up and placed our food on the table.

  “Grazie,” I said.

  He turned his gaze to Giovanni. “Anything else, signore?”

  “No. Leave us.”

  The waiter gave a slight bow and left.

  A dozen slimy gray oysters on half shells crowded Giovanni’s plate. My eyes widened as he slurped them down in quick succession. The man was a pig and, quite possibly, a murderer.

  Giovanni smacked his lips. “Did you know Casanova ate fifty raw oysters a day?”

  “No, I didn’t.” Did Giovanni think he was Casanova? Because he had the sex appeal of a dead slug.

  “I also eat fifty oysters a day.”

  “Really.” Resisting the urge to light him up, I dropped my shields and reached out mentally. Time to get the information I needed and end the date from hell.

  Giovanni’s sweaty palm slid up my thigh.

  I stabbed him with my fork.

  Sir Grab-A-Lot yelped and yanked his hand away. “You bitch!”

  “Si, I get that a lot.” I jammed the heel of my stiletto into his crotch. “Touch me again and I will turn you into a eunuch.”

  A whimper broke from him.

  I clouded Giovanni’s mind until he could no longer think clearly. “What have you done with the people you’ve abducted?”

  Blinking rapidly, he said, “They are in my lab.”

  “And where’s your lab?”

  “Hidden in the catacombs beneath the Cistercian medieval church in San Gagliano. Once inside the catacomb you follow the red crosses down the corridor, through a burial chamber and it’s the second door on the left.”

  I caught a fleeting glimpse of crowded cells and piles of rotting bodies. “Are the people from the bar in Verona there?”

  He nodded his head.

  “What type of security do you have?”

  “I have…” Giovanni shook his head. “This is not right.”

  “Tell me.”

  “No!” With a roar of fury Giovanni shot to his feet. His chair crashed to the floor. “Who are you?”

  “Just a girl, looking for a guy.” I stood.

  A pressure injector appeared in Giovanni’s hand. “You will tell me everything.”

  “That’s my line.”

  Giovanni lunged at me.

  I dodged his outstretched hand and lashed out with a solid sidekick to his left knee. Thwap!

  Giovanni yelped as his knee buckled and he fell headfirst into the table. Whoosh! His hair caught fire.

  Squawking loudly, Giovanni yanked off his burning wig and threw it. The wig landed on a mummified body. Poof! It went up in flames.

  “Holy Mary Mother of God.” I looked around for a fire extinguisher.

  “You are a dead woman,” Giovanni yelled and raised the pressure injector over his badly scarred scalp.

  I grabbed a bottle of champagne off a nearby table and whacked him with it. Giovanni’s eyes rolled back in his head and down he went.

  Flames raced along the walls, setting another body on fire and another and another. Panic-stricken patrons ran for their lives as the thick black smoke made breathing difficult.

  Without even thinking about it, I tied a cloth napkin over my face and yanked a fire extinguisher off the wall. Pulling the pin, I quickly sprayed the burning bodies. Merda! The flames kept spreading.

  A brawny firefighter suddenly tossed me over his shoulder and ran for the exit.

  “I can walk. I can walk.” He totally ignored me. I caught a brief glimpse of Giovanni climbing to his feet before the smoke enveloped him. A savage rage was etched into his features. Our next meeting would be memorable.

  Chapter Two

  The Carabinieri are a military branch of the Polizia and their weapons bunkers have all sorts of goodies. I bypassed their security systems and went on a shopping spree. Some thermite grenades, a nifty sword, an Asus laser rifle, a matching pistol, and body armor. Not the good stuff like the Coletti warriors wore but more protection than my jeans and a tee-shirt would provide.

  I paused by a crate of Falcon rocket launchers. Hmmm. Would I need one? A mental picture of Giovanni’s lab formed in my mind. He had a small army of thugs working for him and I was going in without any sort of backup.

  I’d admit I had serious trust issues after Bianca, my former best friend, framed me for a series of murders. Not only did Bianca look enough like me to be my twin, she claimed she was my cousin. She knew how much I wanted to find my family and used it against me. Only my talent to cloud minds kept me from being arrested. There were only two people who were loyal to me. Sister Sarah and Adam, the brother I had always wanted. But Sister Sarah was pushing eighty and the evil scientist was doing God knows what to Adam. I would save him, no matter what the cost.

  Merda! The crate didn’t list any instructions for the rocket launchers. Hopefully, it was a simple point and shoot. I plucked one out of the crate and placed it on my platform cart. I now had enough weapons to hold off a small army. Once I rescued Adam and the other kidnap victims, I would take great pleasure in obliterating Giovanni’s entire base. If some ancient stiffs got toasted in the process? C ’est la vie.

  Walking past several unconscious guards; I loaded the stolen goodies into my battered van and headed for the tourist trap known as San Gagliano. It’s a centuries-old medieval settlement filled with quaint stone houses and an abundance of olive trees. Majestic snowcapped peaks rose behind the town and to the east was the Adriatic Sea. It was popular with the Americans.

  I did a quick surveillance of the area. To my amazement, there were no guards patrolling the ancient church and a three-year old could bypass Giovanni’s security systems. Either the mad scientist was extremely careless, or he had booby trapped the place. Cazzo! I gave myself a mental head smack. Why hadn’t I taken a gas mask too?

  Parking my van behind a crumbling stone chimney, I glanced out the windshield. It was a perfect summer day. A turquoise sky, cascades of purple flowers covering the ground and a cool ocean breeze. For a fleeting moment, I wanted nothing more than to be a normal girl intent on having some fun in the sun. I expelled a long breath. That life would never be mine.

  If I didn’t get my head in the game, I wouldn’t live to see tomorrow. I quickly applied camouflage face paint, pulled on the tactical gear, and stuffed my long hair under a skull cap. With a couple of keystrokes, I took down Giovanni’s systems. Nerves fluttered in my stomach. I really hated catacombs. All those creepy bodies and the monstrous rats that lived in them. Ugh.

  An armored shuttle suddenly landed by the olive grove.

  My psychic senses went on red alert. Merda! There were two or more Coletti warlords onboard. Were they after Giovanni too? If they were, a smart woman would let them go in and take him out. I smiled. In all the confusion, I could easily free Adam. I scam
pered up a nearby tree and pulled out my binoculars for a better look at them.

  “The Coletti warriors are here to capture you. Do not expect any assistance from them in freeing Giovanni’s prisoners,” a harsh male voice said in my head.

  I stiffened in shock and psychically scanned the area. The only lifeforms I could locate were on the shuttle. The voice in my head wasn’t one of them. “Who are you and how do you know that?”

  “You may call me Loki. My brothers and I have had many run ins with the Coletti and do not want them to forcibly mate you to one of their warriors as was done with our sister.”

  “They took your sister?” Not that I was surprised.

  “A warlord named Wulf hunted our sister, Yakira, from the time she was ten years old.”

  Merda! “They go after children?”

  “Any psychic female is hunted. They never stop until their prey has been captured or killed,” Loki spat.

  Some bad blood there. “Did Wulf capture Yakira?”

  “He did.”

  I had never heard anything about the Coletti taking child brides. Loki was probably giving me his version of the truth. From his mental signature, he wasn’t human, so what kind of alien was he? Did he have tentacles or scales? My biggest questions were: how did he know about Giovanni and me? More importantly, what did he really want? “Why are you telling me all of this?”

  “You humans have a word. Ah, yes, payback. We wish to take from the Coletti as they have taken from us. Family is everything to the Bjarke. We will help you rescue the one called Adam.”

  A humorless laugh broke from me. Nothing was ever that easy. I was being conned. Loki wanted something from me, but what, and where, was he getting his information? “What is your price for helping me?”

  “You are a thief, and we require your skills to obtain an object,” Loki replied.

  It was never a good thing when a client became evasive. It usually meant the odds of pulling off the heist were poor, and I didn’t want to end up in some alien jail. “Is this object on Earth or another planet?”

  “We will provide you with the necessary details when Adam has been rescued.”

  Merda. Loki planned on using Adam as leverage. “Sorry, but I’ll have to pass on your generous offer.”

  “We will speak again.” Loki’s presence vanished from my mind.

  Not if I could help it. My attention was drawn to the shuttle as the landing ramp lowered.

  Singing off key, an old man wearing a bright red shirt covered with snarling blue coyotes and yellow Bermuda shorts staggered out of the shuttle.

  He wasn’t Coletti, but he did have some kind of psychic abilities. My eyes widened in alarm when I realized the warlords had vanished. Had they gone after Giovanni already? Or were they hunting me?

  To my disgust, the old guy tottered over to my tree, whipped it out and urinated. So much for making a quick exit and who knew one old man could produce that quantity of urine. Very stinky urine. Where was his keeper?

  A dark-haired woman in typical tourist garb hurried out of the shuttle. “What are you doing?”

  “Taking a piss.” The old guy hollered. “You blind?”

  The woman threw her hands up in the air. “There’s a perfectly good toilet onboard the shuttle and I only stopped so you could take pictures of those stupid ruins.”

  I frowned. Her mental signature matched that of a Coletti warlord’s, and I was literally stuck up a tree. A chilling cold encircled my body and bam! I couldn’t move. Not a finger or a toe. My grip on the tree loosened. No matter how hard I tried I couldn’t stop myself from toppling off the branch. I smacked the ground hard. Oof!

  “Oh, look. A falling songbird,” the dark-haired woman exclaimed.

  Was that supposed to be funny?

  The old guy grabbed my rocket launcher. “With a new Falcon rocket launcher.”

  “Put it down before you blow something up,” the woman barked.

  The old man scowled at her. “I know my way around weapons.”

  Bang! Flames shot from the rocket launcher. Whoosh! The missile whizzed away.

  “Fuck!” Armor engulfed the woman, and she knocked the old man to the ground.

  Kablooey! The shuttle blew into a thousand tiny pieces.

  The woman did her best to shield the old man and me from the flaming debris raining down on us. “Nothing like announcing our presence to the evil scientist,” she chided.

  I had always heard the Coletti were awesome warriors, but these two were inept fools.

  “It’s not my fault the controls are touchy,” the old man retorted.

  The woman retracted her helmet. “It wouldn’t have been a problem if you hadn’t picked the stupid thing up.”

  “Maybe.”

  Envy swelled inside me. They were family. Idiots, but family.

  A glittering blue light suddenly engulfed us. Merda!

  Chapter Three

  When the light faded, we were in an ancient dungeon complete with mummified human remains shackled to the wall. I did a mental happy dance. Not a rat in sight.

  “Was that a transporter beam?” The old guy ran his hands over his body.

  I wanted to know too.

  The woman nodded. “It was.”

  “It felt like my insides were being scattered about the universe.” The old guy blew out a relieved breath as he patted his groin. “But I’ve got all my parts.”

  I would have rolled my eyes if I wasn’t paralyzed.

  The dark-haired woman tapped her comm-link. “Damn, my bracelet’s not working.”

  Hmmm. Giovanni must have set up an energy suppression field. Maybe he wasn’t as unprepared as I thought.

  “I’ve found three surveillance cameras,” the old man announced.

  The woman instructed, “Take them out.”

  His arms and legs gyrating wildly, the old guy danced around the dungeon and yelled like a lost soul, “Hu-hu-hu-hu-hu.” Flames erupted from the cameras.

  What was he? I had never seen powers like his.

  The woman turned her attention to me, and her voice sounded in my head. “My name is CeeCee Tsosie. The old man is Jesse Tsosie, my uncle. Our team is here to stop Giovanni from creating more monsters. I think that’s your objective too. I propose we join forces and take him down together.”

  Only fools trusted strangers. “You’re Coletti,” I snarled. “Give me one good reason why I should work with you? Plus, that old fool over there blew up your shuttle and got us captured.”

  “This might be Coletti body armor, but I’m a shaman, not a warlord. That old fool is not as harmless as he looks.” Tiny bolts of lightning formed on her palm. “I can get us out of here, but Giovanni’s creatures are loose in the catacombs. Truce?”

  Creatures? What kind of creatures? God, I hoped they weren’t giant mutated rats. The cold surrounding me vanished and to my relief, I could move again. “Truce.”

  “Oh yeah, Giovanni installed an energy suppression field in his swell dungeon and your weapons are as useless as mine,” CeeCee added.

  The suppression field I knew about, but what in the world was a shaman? Was she like an American witch doctor? “Shaman?” I carefully got to my feet.

  “I’m a protector of my people and I can control the weather and other things.”

  My gaze roved over CeeCee’s petite frame. “You’re Polizia?”

  “I am.”

  “What did you hit me with?”

  “I psychically stopped your ability to move,” CeeCee answered.

  I tried to cloud her mind. “Handy talent.”

  “I know one of your abilities is to cloud people’s minds. Give it a rest. It won’t work on me. I’m also aware you’re a master thief and a paid assassin. But I’m a shaman.” CeeCee turned and blasted the cell door with a huge bolt of lightning. Kaboom! The door disintegrated.

  My eyes bugged in shock. Holy Mary Mother of God!

  “Truce, or do I leave you behind?”

  “Truce. That basta
rd is using my, ah, brother as a test subject.”

  “What does he look like?”

  I sent CeeCee a mental image of Adam as I had last seen him. He was a tall, athletic teenager with way too many tattoos, a sneering skull tee-shirt and his thick black hair stood up in spikes.

  “Do you know where he’s being held?”

  “Si. In Giovanni’s lab. It’s down this corridor, through a burial chamber and the second door on the left.”

  CeeCee’s interrogation continued. “What’s your brother’s name?”

  “Adam Stanka.”

  “Do you have any idea how many test subjects Giovanni has here?”

  “Adam, his band mates and twenty of their fans were taken from a bar in Verona,” I replied.

  “Did you go to the police?”

  I gave CeeCee a look. “No, but I hacked into their servers. They’ve done this before. Almost a hundred people are missing from Verona alone.”

  “Do you know if Earth First is involved?”

  “I don’t have any hard evidence, but a lot of the test subjects are missing psychics.” Boom! The floor bucked beneath my feet. My mouth tightened. “Your team?”

  “Yes. What has Adam been able to tell you?”

  “Not much. Giovanni keeps him sedated, but I keep getting flashes of an older Rodan injecting a blue liquid into him and the other captives.”

  CeeCee’s lips drew back in a feral snarl. “The Rodan consider psychic brains a delicacy and human meat is a big seller at their version of a supermarket. “Are you sure that bastard’s working with the Rodan?”

  “I am.” I backed up as lightning bolts crackled around CeeCee. Merda! She had a bit of a temper.

  The energy bolts abruptly stopped and CeeCee took a deep breath. “We need to take Giovanni alive.”

  “What? No! That monster dies today,” I snapped.

  “Sorry, but Zarek wants him alive so he can interrogate him.”

  I gasped in alarm, “You work for Zarek?”

  “I’m his new investigator.” CeeCee didn’t seem very happy about that fact.