PROLOGUE
The old man was furious. He was so furious that he had just shot one of his best enforcers in the head. He didn’t care. He felt nothing to lift his arm, point the gun, and fire.
He had started perspiring when the photographs were set out on his desk and this made his scarring itch and burn and had added to his fury. The soft collar of his shirt felt as though it was a rough rope chaffing him. All the best surgeons, specialists, and medical experiments could not undo what had been done. He could be treated and prescribed pain medication, but nothing would heal the irreversible damage. These thoughts combined with what had just been revealed brought out a rage so vile that he did not care about the pain. This lasted only momentarily because the pain was eventually debilitating.
Looking down at the photographs again, through a fury-glazed eye he could see a young woman who was the image of the witch that he hated. She had stolen what had belonged to him and destroyed so much more.
He had made her pay for that, and the thought brought a crooked and malicious frightful grin.
This hatred he had carried over many years and because of the need to hate her he had willed himself to live and to heal. Hatred was his close friend and kept him searching for the child he had always known he would find one day. This child was his property and therefore belonged to him. No one took from him what was his.
But now she was gone.
The photographs had arrived too late. By the time he sent his men to find the home where she lived, she had already left. The idiotic estate agent had been easy enough to interrogate and just as easily disposed of. But she had no information as to where his property had gone.
All this time he had been after Viggo’s son and did not think how fortunate he would be that this man would have married his missing property. Nor did he think for a moment how, by a stroke of genius, Viggo’s son would be some sort of highly trained special agent.
He tried to smile at this, but it only caused pain and it ended up looking like a freakishly grizzly smirk.
He would go after this Michael Trend and through him, he would find his property. Viggo had paid dearly for his betrayal. The old man saw Viggo as a weak individual who had tried to protect a son that he, Vasili Tchenko, had created. Although Viggo had never given the child’s whereabouts up, Tchenko knew where to start. There were not that many orphanages in Louisiana, but they were run by nuns and Tchenko would never harm a nun.
In his twisted mind, Tchenko thought that harming a nun was the worst crime a person could commit. All else was secondary and unimportant to him.
Walking stiffly, with the help of two canes, he sat back down at his desk to look at the photographs and call on the intercom for his nurse. He needed something for the pain before he called in his top men to start the process of locating his creations one at a time. Vasili Tchenko was not a man who would ever give up what he truly believed belonged to him and these two people were no exception.
He needed the girl and her blood to continue his father’s, and then his own, work. Tchenko did not even consider her human. To him, she was his creation. His property and he wanted what he felt belonged to him returned. Leaning forward slowly, he pressed the intercom and summoned his nurse to erase his pain, if only momentarily.
