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From beneath hooded eyelids, Xander Huntington stared desultorily through weary eyes- - at nothing in particular- - while his best friend, Detective Jake Spencer accessed the state of the art security feed that had been installed during the structure's construction. "Hurry, Jake." Xander murmured. "Please."
 
"I'm working as quickly as I can, Xan." Jake returned.

Jake Spencer was former FBI, and, like Xander, was slender, tall, with broad, chiseled shoulders. The private detective wore a permanent frown and his dark hair combed back from his forehead to reveal a perfectly square, and perpetually freshly shaved, face.

"You know", he attempted to assuage; his voice was pitched an octave or two higher and carried an inflection of hope that Xander found rather startling. Parker's fiancé threw a wan, expectant glance at the detective. "It's possible that she pressed the panic button by mistake, or by accident."
 
"In her heightened state of terror, she had the foresight and courage to communicate with me- do not disparage her intelligence. She punched out the entire façade (which was located on the underside of the bed frame), kicked in the speaker grill and punctured the sub-woofer in the process. Don't tell me it was a mistake or an accident! One simply doesn't accidentally smash a twelve thousand dollar security feature! She must have been terrified to inflict that much damage." Xander groaned. "My God! Some animal came into my home and took her- took her from my bed!"
 
"All right, I'm in." Jake announced. "All the video feeds were somehow disabled- just as we suspected, but the battery-powered audio feature that you and I installed is still intact. "Volume is maxed", he said, "here we go."
 
They listened intently and then both men frowned. "There was a struggle. It's all muffled. Can you isolate?"
 
"As we speak." Jake answered, "Damn it. No. It's impossible."
 
"Try another frequency." Xander ordered, and then eagerly looked on as his friend tapped out several strings of code and toyed with the treble and bass, and finally, a weak voice filled the security room:
 
"I'll give you a-"
 
"There!" Xander cried and then ejected himself from the leather chair. "Right there. Did you hear that?" He asked. "She was pleading with the abductor!" Xander exclaimed and then pushed his trembling fingers through his disheveled and positively manic hair. "Anything. I'll give you anything- that is what she was trying to convey when she was silenced. Oh, my God, Jake, she was taken!"
 
"Calm down, Xan."
 
"Easier said than done." Xander hissed and continued his frantic pacing. "She was abducted!" He yelled, and then overturned several pieces of equipment, each of which were worth a small fortune.
 
"I'm afraid so" Jake agreed, grimly. "and the assailants knew what they were doing. Alarms were disabled, all surveillance scrambled, there are no prints, no tracks, absolutely no evidence, aside from duct tape residue on the matress", he continued with a grimace, "and the four guards who were on duty saw nothing. There isn't so much as a strand of thread out of place or, by the same token, a strand of DNA that doesn't belong to either you or her. Look, Xander: I think it's time to call the police."
 
"I can't call the police! If the monsters that took her find out that I've involved the police they will-" Xander choked up suddenly, pressed a palm to his mouth and then shook his head. "I can't lose her, Jake."
 
"All right, I'll call in a few favors."
 
"No expense spared, Jake." Xander blurted. "Hire some men. The best. As many as it takes. Professional and low key. Also: I want you to withdraw everything from my offshore accounts. When the bastard calls with his ransom demands, I will be ready."
 
"Xander, you can't possibly be thinking of paying-"
 
"I'll give them anything!" Xander vowed. "Money, stocks, services, the franchises, my homes. Material things are of little consequence. We do this clean, Jake." He demanded, his face rigid, his brows arched high. "No mistakes."
 
"And you?"
 
"It has to be me that answers the phone when they call."
 
"Will you be all right? I can install a few more men on the premises or-"
 
"No. I just want her back. I can't for the life of me understand why anyone would take her, and not me. It's my money, after all! My God." He exclaimed. "Who would do such a thing?"
 
 

"Jarod." Nia attacked upon her husband's arrival. "What have you done to her?" The woman's voice was emotional contralto, her cadences crippled and weak. She observed the unconscious woman with several deep creases of concern stretched across her forehead. Jarod knew where the concern originated. His wife had been beaten and raped as a child. She couldn't imagine her own husband asserting his authority or dominance, didn't want to believe him capable of forcing anyone to do anything. Power is such a slippery slope. "She has a needle in her hand." Nia observed, was simply attempting to assimilate the events. "It looks like it hurts."
 
"It's a cannula, to deliver fluid and sedatives." He whispered. "She's not in any pain, Nia, I assure you."
 
"Mi corazón" Nia breathed and then crossed herself. "I-I just- I don't-" Nia stammered.
 
"Nia, I had to sedate her."
 
"She resisted. She fought you." Nia's voice dropped to a whisper. Gingerly, she lifted her fingers towards his face with the intention of soothing the bruises and abrasions; her hand stopped short, however, and she took a compensatory step away from her husband. "She didn't want to come here, she didn't want this and you- you-" Forced her. Just like I was forced. By monsters. 
 
Jarod observed as his wife paled, talked sub voce to herself. In Spanish.
 
"Nia", he said gently, aware that he was treading on unstable ground. She shook her head resolutely. "How could you do this?"
 
"Nia, please, don't-", Jarod whispered weakly and fixed her with a morose expression, "Cariño", he pleaded, "don't look at me like that. Please! You know who I am, you know I'd never hurt you."
 
Nia wasn't systematically biased against- - or frightened of- - men in general, only men who were in positions of power and authority, and particularly men who flaunted and abused that authority. "I'm doing this for you." He added, and they both knew it was a lie.
 
Jarod advanced slowly. "You have to understand-" How could he explain it to his wife, explain the innumerable indignities and stones that he and Parker had prodigally cast at one another?

Explain such an esoteric relationship, and that he wasn't marginalizing Parker as a woman, but rather, marginalizing her status, stripping her of control in an attempt to reach a peaceful resolution? He had been forced to utilize the same tools the Centre used, to employ the only method Centre personnel were able, or perhaps willing, to comprehend: control.
 
Left to their own devices, he felt it was quite possible that he and Parker could sort out the mess the Centre had made of their lives, but not while she was within the confines of her comfort zone, in her home, while at the helm of the Centre, and with the Triumvirate navigating the entire squalid ship. He recognized the futility in even flirting with such a notion.
 
Messy discourse was a given; there was bound to be difficulties altering the deeply entrenched perspectives. In fact, Jarod knew there was little hope of fostering homogeneous rationale; to wit: Nia would never be swayed, would never share his attitude.

Even if he could explain it, his wife wouldn't understand. "I can't." She said, and then whispered a prayer and a litany of obscenities in her native tongue. "You- you abducted her and-"
 
"The Centre abducted me!" He countered angrily.
 
"The Centre. The Centre did that to you. She didn't."
 
"You're comparing me to the Centre? Nia, unlike the Centre, and the way they hurt me, I- I would never hurt her." He vowed and observed as his wife's face crumpled. "Because you're in love with her." Words carried on an unbidden, piteous sob.
 
Jarod's jaw unhinged in response to the accusation; he wanted to immediately contradict her words, wanted to swear on his life and hers that the accusation was patently untrue. "Of course he isn't." Margaret chimed in with a snort of disapproval. "He loves you, sweet heart- that's why he married you. He married you." She repeated and then draped an arm across Nia's shoulders. "Nia, honey, you're trembling."

Jarod's mother directed the accusation at Jarod and then smiled sweetly at her daughter-in-law. "Let's get out of this chilly basement and get you some tea, dear."
 
Tea.

Jarod snapped his eyes closed, clenched his jaw. He refused to be transported into the past, to allow that memory to haunt his soul. He would need to simply find some way to do what must be done and move on with his life and allow Parker to move on with hers.
 
With Xander. Xander. A fucking pretty boy with muscles and a tan and a tight ass and several rather hefty bank accounts and a net worth that would put that of Bill Gates' to shame. It was such a cliché.

Xander. What the hell kind of name is that anyway?

"What are you going to do now, Jarod?" Ethan's inquiry shook Jarod from his reverie.
 
"Relax, Ethan", Jarod crooned as he parked a hand on his brother's shoulder, "I'm not going to hurt your sister." Jarod smiled, observed his half brother's gaze fixed solidly on Parker. "Ethan?" Jarod asked. "Ethan, are you all right?"
 
"That looks painful."
 
"It was either the cannula or multiple needle sticks."
 
"Multiple. Why?"
 
"I know your sister. She's going to refuse to eat and drink and it's possible that I will have to sedate her again- especially if she reacts violently to the hypnosis." He said with a single brow raised in contemplation. "With the cannula, I have the delivery system in place already."
 
"You wouldn't force fluids on her, Jarod? Or hypnosis? My god, that's- that is-" Criminal. Sadistic. What am I saying? He's already forced sedation on her, taken her against her will.

Ethan feared that it wasn't a question of "what would Jarod do?", but rather, "what wouldn't Jarod do?"
 
"Had you rather I allow her to become dehydrated, starve to death?" Jarod asked and then observed as Ethan grimaced. "I- Jarod, maybe this isn't a good idea. She wasn't aware of the attack in Estonia; she hasn't been searching for us, she- Jarod, she typed up the directive that dispatched the disposal team to Raines' forest home."
 
"Yes, and I'm certain her reasons for doing so were purely selfish just as everything else she has ever done. Tell me, Ethan: why did she fawn over her father all those years? She knew he was a monster and turned a blind eye, she knew everything, she knew he'd given Raines the green light to lobotomize my brother!"
 
"She loved him, Jarod. He was her father."
 
"And you love her, Ethan; you're loyal to her- I understand that, but you need to understand something too: love and loyalty can blind you to the truth."
 
"What truth, Jarod?"
 
"Your sister won't be happy until she's captured every single one of us. Now, I'm going to need you to back me up on this, on every decision. You can not, under any circumstance, undermine my authority. We must be a united front-"
 
"Against my sister?" Ethan asked, incredulously. "What if your decisions are not in her best interests? I love her, Jarod. She's alone and afraid and I will not turn my back on her. It's unfair of you to even suggest-"
 
"That's not what I am suggesting-"
 
"Then why didn't-"
 
"I had no other recourse-"
 
"You didn't exhaust all other-"
 
"Sons!" Major Charles intervened after bounding down the steps and through the gate that Jarod had installed to prevent Parker's escape. "That's enough bickering."
 
"Oh, let them duke it out," Parker murmured thickly, to which the three men responded by snapping their heads around to where she lay. "My money", she continued without opening her eyes, "by the way, is on Ethan."
 
The younger of the men smiled at that and dropped to a low crouch and placed a hand atop Parker's. "How are you feeling, sister?"
 
"Mm", she groaned, "like I was sedated." Parker intoned dryly and then moistened her lips and clasped her brother's hand. "Where are we?"
 
"He can't tell you." Jarod informed her smugly, slowly enunciating each word.
 
Perturbed as she was by his speaking out of turn, his speaking period, Parker swallowed- - and nearly choked- - on the barb. As tempting as it was to launch into attack, launch shafts of piercing misanthropy and stinging derision, she believed it was neither the time nor the place for her serrated tongue. There would be a chance later, perhaps a final parting shot in passing. Later.
 
"Right." She whispered. "I suppose a telephone call is out of the question."
 
Animated quite suddenly, Jarod pressed a palm to his forehead in mock astonishment; Parker believed him to be a rather repugnant caricature of himself. "And they said I was the genius." Jarod's sardonic retort, his words were a bitter, incisive blade.
 
"What do you expect to gain from this?" Parker inquired softly.
 
"Drop the act!" He hissed. "Damn you, Parker! If you knew anything about this", Jarod snarled, drew in ragged breath, "then God help you." Parker observed the muscles in his face, his jaw clenching. "What do I expect?" He asked. "What do I expect?" He yelled. "You know damn well what I expect."
 
"What?" Parker asked and then turned her gaze towards Major Charles and Ethan. She searched the three forlorn faces, observed as Ethan grimaced; she was certain their collective behavior portended horrific news. It wasn't curiosity but rather fear that prompted her to inquire once more: "What?" She asked again, this time, however, with a measure of fear coloring her voice. "What do you want?"
 
"I want my child." Jarod answered. "Where are they keeping her?" Jarod asked and then scrutinized his huntress: Parker's knitted brows lifted, her eyes widened, her lips parted, an expression of abject horror and genuine surprise was etched across her features.
 
Jarod felt certitude wither, and that was prior to her halting: "I wasn't even aware that your wife and you had a child- uh until-" She shook her head, "until now." Parker frowned. "Your wife must be terrified. Oh, my God." She murmured. "Mm, ordinarily, I'd funnel money from obscure Centre accounts, but given the circumstances, I suggest distancing ourselves from the Triumvirate's oversight committee. Xander." Parker said. "Xander will give the abductors anything-"
 
Jarod wore an expression of disbelief. "You really don't know." He groaned.
 
"Know what?"
 
"She's my daughter. Mine. Not Nia's." He clarified and then continued in halting breaths, "The Centre. Raines!" Jarod vomited the name, and exhaled a ragged breath. "My semen was used, was cultured with a number of ova collected from only God knows who and then-" Jarod drew a tremendous breath, "t- the ova were submitted to intracytoplasmic sperm injection; the fertilized embryos were then transferred to a surrogate's uterus, to several surrogates as a matter of fact!" He exclaimed and then waited for Parker to either confirm or deny.
 
"Broots is investigating several unsubstantiated claims that were made regarding Raines and some clandestine activities, eyes only projects, however, there have been no rumors about another Mirage project."
 
"Broots was." Jarod corrected. "He's been moved."
 
Parker looked up in suprise. "Moved?"
 
"Yes. He's been-" Jarod paused meaningfully, "reassigned."
 
"You took Broots!" Parker exclaimed. "What about Debbie?" She inquired. "You can't-"
 
"I can", Jarod interrupted, "I already have. Now", he continued authoritatively, "hypnosis will save us a great deal of time and trouble."
 
"No!" Came the unequivocal assertion. "No." She repeated, a bit more civilly. "I'm going to need a computer, a secure connection."
 
"It seems that you've forgotten how this works", he said and then held his hands up, palms facing her, "but that's all right; I'll remind you: I am the kidnapper", Jarod informed Parker, "you are the prisoner- and that", he continued in flagrant condescension, "means that I make the demands."
 
"You're the kidnapper. You?" Parker shook her head. "I never thought I'd ever hear you say those words to anyone."
 
"Desperate times, Madame Chairwoman, call for desperate measures, and know this: I will go to any measure to retrieve my child."
 
"Telephone my fiancé. He will give you whatever you need to-"
 
"I already have." Jarod interrupted brusquely. A roguish grin tugged at his lips as he recalled the conversation:

"How much do you want?"

"Oh, it's not money that I want, Mr. Huntington."

"Stocks? Services? I'll give you anything! I will give you everything I own", he cried, "you can have everything but please, please-"

"You will listen to me if", Jarod had paused at the man's sob, and then continued matter of factly, harshly ,"if you want to see your fiancé again. Alive."

"Then she is alive! She's- you haven't hurt her? Please", he sobbed, "tell me you haven't hurt", Xander sniffled and then whimpered her name.

Her name!

Jarod had recoiled at that, had nearly forgotten to stay in character; it was as if he'd been punched. Sucker punched. Parker had shared that part of her soul with that man? With another man!

"Listen to me." Jarod had ordered. "You are going to want to follow my instructions to the letter, Mr. Huntington or you will never see her again."

"And?" Parker asked eagerly, expectantly.

"He was rather disappointed that he couldn't trace, I'm sure." Jarod opined and then answered with a rather sinister grin plastered on his face. "Let's just say that I persuaded him follow my instructions."
 
"Then, you have what you want."

"No", Jarod countered, "no, not quite."
 
"I don't understand." Parker said.

"Of course you don't so I'm going to come to the crux of this and make this a great deal easier for both of us." Jarod said and then dragged a chair towards the cot where Parker lay and unceremoniously dropped his weary form into it. He leaned forward, forearms on his legs, his finger steepled.

"You have my attention." Parker said through clenched teeth.

Jarod nodded. "I think the most natural course of action-"
 
"You are not going to hypnotize me, Jarod." She interrupted. He raised his head as if to nod. "Yes, of course." He whispered, "I've no doubt you're strong enough to resist hypnosis; I, however, have ways of weakening that resistance." He explained and then displayed a glass bottle and syringe. "This is going to happen."
 
Parker recoiled at that, and swallowed- swallowed hard. "Is this what constitutes justice now?" She asked. "Breaking and entering, restraints, forced sedation, abduction, forced hypnosis?"
 
"Jarod, she doesn't know anything." Fletcher intervened.
 
"People repress memories", Jarod directed the words towards Parker, "now don't they, Madame Chairwoman?" He intoned rather smugly and then observed as her gaze dropped to her lap, as she shifted uncomfortably in her restraints.
 
"What are you talking about, son?"
 
"The secrets, the lies", Jarod answered his father, however, he continued to study his huntress, and delighted in how the tables had turned, "your mother's supposed suicide?" He sang. "Her beating?"
 
"People can only repress an event that they actually witness." Parker pointed out. "Raines wouldn't have trusted me- not with a secret of this magnitude. You know as well as I do that Raines didn't survive for more than fifty years inside the Centre and then slither his ghoulish carcass into the Chairman's seat by allowing loose ends to lie around untied."

Jarod averted his gaze suddenly and stared off into the distance at some amorphous picture taking shape. And then he blinked absently, dropped his gaze and studied her hand.
 
Parker observed his apparent discomfit with an arched brow and then swung a questioning gaze to a bemused Ethan, who simply shrugged. Jarod offered no explanations, Parker posed no questions. The latter simply observed in silence as the former removed the cannula and applied fresh dressing to the already bruised injection site.

When the restraints were severed, she grimaced and then massaged her limbs and stiff muscles, and finally stood and stretched and announced that she was starving.

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