Chase You To The Sun (3 page)

“It doesn’t feel like one,” Alen responded, a frown knitting his eyebrows together. “If this is a Martian security vessel, where are the Great German insignia? Or the British ones?”

Lana’s jaw dropped when a small, unmarked shuttle emerged from one of the airlocks, setting course for their ship. Alen was right – this didn’t look like a security check at all.

The spacecraft trembled as the strange shuttle docked at their one available airlock with a metallic thud. Everybody turned around to face the entrance, which opened with a hissing sound and spat out three tall men dressed in dark green clothes and holding guns.

Oh God. Lana took a step back in blind panic, her eyes fixed on the tallest of the three men. It was him. Bruce Randall, the space pirate. He looked a bit different from the picture she’d seen – his blond hair was shorter, and his mouth certainly wasn’t smiling. But that wasn’t what struck her most. It was how cruel and absolutely intimidating he came across. His sheer height was frightening to behold. If she stood next to him, she was sure the top of her head wouldn’t even reach his shoulder. And he wasn’t just tall – he was built like an athlete. His shoulders were square and broad, and his large hands gripping the gun looked like he could snap her neck in two without any difficulty. His entire appearance screamed ‘I am powerful and merciless’ at her.

Her heart stopped when the intimidating man with the steely contours strolled toward her, seeming entirely at ease. “You,” he said in a voice that was deeper, rougher and darker than anything she’d ever heard before. “Come with us.”

What?! No, he couldn’t possibly mean that. “But I...” She swallowed, her stomach twisting with fear. “Why? I haven’t done anything.”

He smirked. Now he looked more like his mug shot – secretly amused by something she didn’t understand. “Maybe not. But your father has.”

“My name is Lana Petrova,” she said, trying to stand taller when he stopped right in front of her. He was standing so close her forehead almost touched his chin. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

His hand closed around her upper arm. “You are Svetlana Ivanova,” he said coldly. “And you’re my prisoner.”

“Leave her alone,” she suddenly heard Tori cry out. “Please.”

“Shut up,” Alen hissed. “Don’t provoke him.” He stepped up to Bruce, looking at the notorious pirate with a hint of trepidation in his eyes. Admittedly, Alen personally knew him from his past life as a criminal, but he’d also made it clear that Bruce was a guy he had genuinely feared. “Look... can’t we talk about this?”

Bruce turned around, appraising the man who dared to address him in such an amicable tone of voice. “Novak,” he replied after a moment’s pause. “Stay out of this.”

Alen visibly paled. “Don’t hurt her. Please.”

“I won’t.” Bruce smiled lazily. “She’s worth more alive than dead.”

“But...”

Bruce raised his gun, fingering the trigger as he stared Alen down. “You bore me,” he stated calmly.

Oh shit – this could easily turn into a blood bath if she didn’t intervene. Svetlana took a deep breath, tapping the space pirate gingerly on his muscular arm. “I’ll come with you,” she offered, her voice trembling. “I won’t resist. Just – don’t harm my friends.”

Her kidnapper turned his face to look at her with a hint of surprise in his eyes. “All right,” he said, letting go of her slowly. “Don’t try anything.”

“What about the others?” a dark-haired man next to Bruce piped up.

“Stun them,” he replied. “They might follow us otherwise.”

Lana clenched her fists, bracing herself for the screeching sound of the stunners filling the room. She watched as Tori, Alen, and Captain Blanco dropped soundlessly to the floor.

Turning around, Lana blinked nervously when Bruce’s gaze landed on her once more. “And sedate her,” he added, as if she weren’t there. “The heaviest dose.”

Before Lana could say anything, Bruce’s friend grabbed her shoulder and whipped out a syringe, plunging the needle all the way into her arm. Her head felt immediately heavy and the room started to spin around her as if she was caught in a maelstrom.

After that, the entire world faded to black.

O
uch.

Lana moaned softly as she woke up with a pounding headache. Her mouth felt dry like the Martian desert. She opened her eyes to a crack before shutting them again to avoid being blinded by an overhead light. Where was she?

“She’s awake,” a male voice said.

“Give her some water,” another man said.

When someone put a cup to her lips, Lana scrambled up and eagerly gulped down the water, her eyes still closed. Only when the light above her head was dimmed did she risk opening her eyes again.

The dark-haired man who’d sedated her before was sitting on the edge of the bed she was lying on, refilling her cup with water from a bottle. “Welcome back, Sleeping Beauty,” he said glibly, handing her more water. “Enjoyed your little nap?”

Lana licked her lips. “Where am I?”

He smiled in cruel amusement. “That’s the million-pound question, isn’t it?” he replied. “Or rubles, in your case.”

With bleary eyes she looked around the room. There wasn’t much to go on: the curtains were drawn, the walls were undecorated, and the only piece of furniture that the room seemed to contain was the bed they were sitting on.

“I’m John, by the way,” the man said, still smiling at her. It was creeping her out. “Bruce asked me to take care of you while you were sleeping.”

“How long was I out?”

“Two days.”

“Jesus.” No wonder she’d been thirsty as hell. Lana absently reached for the pad in her pocket to look at the time when she realized it was gone... and so were the clothes she’d been wearing on the Desidan spaceship. She was now wearing jeans and a gray T-shirt.

“Yeah. Sorry,” John commented, when he saw her puzzled expression. “Had to do a strip search. To make sure you weren’t wired or anything. I hope you like your outfit – I just took some random stuff out of your travel bag.”

This man had
undressed
her while she was unconscious? Lana’s stomach turned with revulsion.  Anxiously, she glanced away when John’s smile broadened to a lecherous grin. “I wouldn’t mind doing a strip search again,” he continued, his voice dropping. “Should be more fun when you’re awake.”

Oh God, no. Not this. Lana jumped up from the bed, backing away toward the other man in the room, praying this friendlier-looking silver-haired man would stop his colleague from whatever it was he had in mind.

“Bruce said he wanted to see her immediately once she woke up,” the man said, apparently sensing her panic. “Let’s get her to the living room.”

Lana would have hugged the guy if he hadn’t been a gun-toting pirate. “Yeah, let’s get me to the living room,” she repeated in a tiny voice.

John’s face fell, but he didn’t protest. Instead, he stalked over to the door and pushed it open, revealing a long hallway lined with potted plants on either side. It looked like they were in some kind of mansion. She definitely wasn’t on board a spaceship anymore – Lana could always tell the difference between artificial and natural gravity. The pirates had brought her to a planet, but which one?

She walked down the corridor flanked by the two guards. It opened up into a gigantic sitting room crammed full of luxurious furniture. A giant 3D-TV was fixed to the wall facing the long, white couch. And Bruce was standing in the middle of the room, his gaze never leaving her face as she approached him. Everything looked strangely Elite. Lana hadn’t expected that from a pirate’s lair, somehow. It made the whole situation oddly surreal.

The fear she felt when Bruce took a step forward and grabbed her arm was real enough, though. “John, Chester,” he nodded at his two helpers. “Leave us.”

For a moment, she wanted to beg Chester not to go. Why did Bruce want her alone? Was he going to torture her or hurt her? He’d said she was more useful alive than dead, but alive didn’t mean uninjured. When he forcefully pushed her down onto the couch, she could feel her legs tremble.

“Well then, Miss Ivanova,” he said, lowering himself onto the coffee table so he sat facing her. “Let’s cut through the chase, shall we?”

Lana slowly nodded. “Okay,” she faltered, not quite knowing where this whole conversation would be going.

Bruce kept his gray eyes locked on hers as he leaned his elbows on his knees, making a steeple out of his fingers under his chin. “How much influence and power do you hold within Ivanov Mining Industries?”

Lana tensed up, casting around for a safe answer, but she had no idea what he was expecting. “None,” she finally admitted honestly. “I don’t work for my dad. I’m a trade liaison on Desida One.”

Bruce quirked an eyebrow. “Or so you say.”

“Well, it’s true.”

“As true as your name?” he mumbled in his dark and rough voice. “Lana Petrova?”

She blushed. “I used a fake name when I applied to North Mars Uni.”

“Why?”

“Because my dad wouldn’t let me go otherwise.”

“Why not?”

Lana wiped her clammy palms on the skinny jeans that John had dressed her up in. “He was afraid I’d be the target of rebel attacks,” she whispered. “Because they killed my mom.”

“Why did you apply for a job at the trade department on Desida One?”

“Because I studied Business Economics and it seemed like something I might enjoy.”

“How so?”

“I like the mixed culture of the space station, I’m good with people and I can speak several languages, Sir,” she replied a bit too cleverly. This whole cross examination was starting to tick her off.

When an icy silence followed her pedantic remark, Lana realized she shouldn’t have mocked his questions. Bruce’s eyes narrowed. “Are you trying to be smart, little girl?” he said, his voice suddenly so low and threatening that it made her quiver.

Oh, shit. “No,” she yelped, swallowing hard.

“You’re not under the impression that I’m conducting a job interview, are you?”

“No.” Silently, she pleaded for him to let her insolence slip this one time. He could kill her with one hand – she should have kept her big mouth shut.

“Good.” Bruce stared at her menacingly. “I didn’t drag you all the way here to listen to your wisecracks.”

“Why
did
you bring me here?” Lana asked timidly.

He was still fixing her with a burning stare, his face impassive. “I’m the one asking questions, Lana, not you. Besides, you probably know why.”

Lana blinked. “Because you’re my father’s sworn enemy?”

“That’s not really a reason, now, is it?”

She bit her lip. “You want him to pay a ransom?”

Bruce shook his head. “Not just that. I want him to do
exactly
as I say. And in order for that to work out, I have to keep you alive – and imprisoned, of course.”

“For... for how long?” Her voice was strangled.

The frighteningly tall, broad pirate opposite her smiled viciously. “For a long time to come, Lana. Unless you want to change that story about not having any influence in your daddy’s mining company. I just need one of the higher-ups to pull a few strings.”

“But
why
?” she blurted out. “I’m not saying I have any influence – I don’t, I swear. But if it’s money you want...”

Bruce opened his mouth, and for just a single second, he looked almost lost. “No, that’s not what I want,” he said. “Money is just a means to an end.”

“Then why do you always attack transport ships with precious cargo from Prometheus?” Lana asked softly, cowering a bit when Bruce’s scorching gaze landed on her once more. It was like a fire was burning behind his slate-colored eyes, sparked by a simmering anger that seemed to be part of his personality.

“You must be a really good actress,” he quietly replied. “Either that, or you honestly don’t know what kind of business your father is in.”

Lana blinked in confusion. “I don’t get it. We only mine for gemstones to sell them to the richest Elitists.”

“
We
?” His voice rose and his hand suddenly gripped her wrist violently. Bruce leaned forward, his face only inches away from hers. “Have you ever held a pick axe in your life? Have you even been
inside
one of those mines, you doe-eyed, velvety-skinned Elite princess?”

“N-no,” Lana whispered, her face growing hot. She couldn’t help but breathe in his nearness. To her horror, she realized it wasn’t just fear that made her heart beat faster. It was his warm hand on her delicate skin and his eyes looking at her from up close. “I’m sorry, Mr. Randall, just – I don’t know why I said ‘we’. My dad always speaks about the company like that,” she babbled.

Bruce’s mouth twitched bitterly. “Oh, you can call me Bruce. I haven’t been ‘Mister Randall’ for a long time.”

She gaped at him. “You mean you were Elite once?”

He exhaled slowly. “You ask too many questions,” he cut her off, getting up and dragging her with him, still holding her wrist in a death grip. “Let’s go.”

Lana didn’t dare ask him where to. She just followed him obediently as he walked over to the sliding doors on the other side of the room. It was only when he opened them and they stepped onto the patio that she paid any attention to the world outside.

The sky was blue. A gentle wind blew across the lawn surrounding the big house that belonged to Bruce. In the distance, she could see a patch of tall, green trees swaying in the breeze, and beyond that, a high fence. She was on Earth, and it was summertime.

“We’re on Earth,” she breathed, not being able to stop a little smile from erupting on her face. Here, the air wasn’t fake and filtered. This place was alive with buzzing energy. It reminded her of the happy times she’d spent on Earth with Tori.

“You like it here?” Bruce spoke, sounding a little bit incredulous.

Lana looked up at him and nodded timidly. “A lot. Well – I’d probably like it better if I weren’t a prisoner.”

An almost imperceptible smile tugged at one corner of his mouth. “Probably.”

“Am I allowed to walk around in the garden by myself?” she asked hopefully. “Is that why you’re showing me around?”

Bruce laughed briefly. “The main reason I’m showing you the grounds is because I want you to pay special attention to that electric fence down there. It keeps people out, and of course, it keeps you in.” He dipped his head and continued more softly: “Don’t even
think
about running. If that fence somehow doesn’t electrocute you, I will track you down and make you wish you’d died.”