JakesPrisoner Read Free Page A

Call me.”
    With the briefest of kisses, she was gone. As the vehicle
pulled away, Jake caught a last glimpse of the red dress as Tanith entered the
glass lobby of a residential building. He would call her the minute he got back
to the ship and he wouldn’t stop calling her until she agreed to see him again.
     
    Tanith hugged herself as she entered the lobby. The human
was perfect. No slime, no forked tongue and he didn’t care about Raoul. Best of
all, he talked to her like a real person and not like an object that he wanted
to acquire. The elevator doors chimed open and she stepped inside. As the doors
closed, a dark hand reached between them, forcing them open again. Her heart
dropped like a stone when she saw the men from the night before.
    “Ms. Jasson, Atam wants to see you—now.”

Chapter Two
     
    “Not a chance, Jake. This is supposed to be a diplomatic
mission. The big guy will lock me in the brig if I breach security on the
Cyraelian com systems. Anyway, I thought you were pumping her for information
last night?”
    A slow red tide crept up Jake’s neck and Pete roared with
laughter. “You struck out? I don’t believe it. The biggest womanizer in six
galaxies and you struck out? There is a god after all.”
    “Please, Pete, just take a look.”
    “Not a chance.” Pete swiveled in his chair and turned to
face the monitor.
    Jake turned on the view-screen and looked at the yellow planet.
Far below them was the vast tract of desert, which made up most of the southern
hemisphere of Cyraelia. He had commed Tanith at her office several times and at
her home, but she hadn’t responded to any of his messages. Either she didn’t
want to see him again or she was in trouble because of him. Both options gave
him a sick feeling in the pit of his stomach. Pete was the only one who could
help him. “I’ll get you a date with Ensign Nakamara,” he offered. “She was just
telling me yesterday how cute and charming you were.”
    Pete swiveled around in his chair. Jake knew that the techie
was shy with women and the petite ensign turned him into a tongue-tied idiot
every time she looked at him. “Did anyone ever tell you that you’re a complete
bastard, Svenson?”
    “Frequently,” Jake gave him a lopsided grin. “I’ll be back
in an hour and I want to know everything then.”
    Fifty-five minutes later, Pete commed him in his quarters.
“Jake, I’ve sent you an encrypted file and you better delete it the minute
you’ve finished reading it. It’s not pretty. You may want to think about
walking away from this one.”
    Jake’s fingertips hovered over the screen. If it was bad,
maybe he should just delete it without reading it. He felt as if he was spying
on her. You are spying on her, idiot.
    Tanith’s face appeared in a news com about her appointment
as technical advisor for RVS, a consortium that developed tech products for the
Cyraelian defense forces. Her bio said that she had graduated top of the
women’s military service class for her year. It was strange that she went to
military school, given the Cyraelian attitude toward women.
    Jake flicked through the next file. Her service record
indicated several reprimands for insubordination. That sounded just like her.
The next file was Tanith’s transfer to the military school by Cyraelian social
protection services. She was just sixteen and the report indicated that she was
uncontrollable.
    A sealed juvenile criminal record revealed four counts of
terra-pod theft, when Tanith had run away from foster homes. She had been
placed in foster care after her parents died. There was a separate law
enforcement file on their deaths and it looked as though Pete had spent twenty
minutes trying to decode it. He bit down lightly on his lip as he read the report.
Tanith’s mother had committed suicide and her father died six months later.
Poor kid. Her older brother, Raoul, was deemed to be a bad influence on her
because he worked for crime lord Atam Sorza. The same