TWENTY-FIVE YEARS

“HELLO, Alice,” Jake said softly—too softly.

She gasped and spun around. His secretary. Bitch spy. He smelled his father all over her. She sat at his desk, trying to get into his computer. He’d known the moment he’d recruited her, Ryan’s stench permeating her body.

“I needed to get the Kalwaski file,” she said hastily, her face flaming red. “You asked for the reports and I accidently ruined my copy.”

“And you didn’t think to call me?” He sniffed the air, scenting the lie. He’d been more than careful not to give her anything at all damaging or important. He trusted no one, and she was relatively new. Now she’d proved to be in the enemy camp as he’d suspected. He stalked her around the desk.

Alice tried to hit the power button to turn off his computer, but he was faster, and far stronger. “Bad, bad girl, Alice. Industrial espionage is such a nasty and dangerous business.”

She burst into tears and threw herself forward, into his arms, running her hands down his chest to the zipper of his slacks. “I’ll do anything you want.”

He slapped her hands away, disgusted. “I’m sure you would. Your kind usually do, but you don’t tempt me in the least, not with another man’s stench all over you.”

She went white, her eyes widening in horror. “What are you going to do?”

He knew he looked murderous. He felt murderous. Not at her; she was a pawn manipulated by a master. Ryan and Cathy used sex to control others, and in truth, Jake wasn’t above doing so himself, but not with her, not with someone so deceitful and under his father’s thumb. No, there were other ways.

“I’m going to turn you over to the police.” He let that sink in.

Her sobbing grew louder. Time stretched out while Alice became more desperate. “Please, Mr. Bannaconni, please don’t do that. I’m sorry. Really sorry. Your father—”

“Ryan, or Bannaconni, but never my father,” he interrupted, his voice a merciless whip.

She flinched visibly. “I couldn’t say no.”

He knew how his father mesmerized people, especially women, using a combination of sex and cruelty to keep them hypnotized. No, she probably couldn’t say no. Ryan was shrewd and cunning, a shark with his handsome face and abundance of money. Jake’s little secretary would have been overwhelmed by his attentions. She would have done anything for him.

“I don’t suppose you could have,” he murmured.

Alice collapsed into a chair. “I’ve never done anything like this before in my life, Mr. Bannaconni. I swear I haven’t, and I’ll never do it again.”

That smelled like the truth. “Ryan manipulates women,” Jake said softly, tilting her chin so she looked into his eyes.

He stared at her without blinking, focusing on her completely, dropping his voice to a low, soothing note. “He preys on young, vulnerable women, so many of them, using sex to get his way.”

She wiped at the tears still streaming down her face. “He’s married. He told me he could never leave her, but he was so unhappy.”

“Of course he did. He tells them all that. And then he gets them to spy for him.”

“On his own son?”

“We don’t claim the relationship.” He leaned his hip against the desk. “Maybe you should pass him information.”

“Mr. Bannaconni!” Alice gasped, shaking her head. “I’m sorry. I really am.”

He tapped his finger on the desk as if considering the idea. “I know you are. I’m not going to have you prosecuted, but maybe we can find a way to save your job and your reputation as well. Maybe we can feed Ryan a few things that won’t harm us and yet will satisfy him. Although”—he looked at her sternly—“you might want to quit sleeping with him and ask for a good sum of money instead.”

He allowed a small smile to touch his mouth. Alice never noticed that it didn’t reach his eyes. She was the first of many such recruits.

TWENTY-EIGHT YEARS

JAKE took his first trip to the Borneo rain forest to find his heritage. The rain forest overpowered him, a seductive mistress, beckoning him with mystery and promise. He never expected to feel peace or solace, but the network of tree branches in the canopy formed a highway where he could run and perfect his skills as a leopard. Trees competed for every inch of space. The floor was surprisingly open, yet vines and flowers draped every tree branch, and brightly colored birds were in constant motion.

There in the forest he could barely contain the wildness raging within him. The change swept through him before he had a chance to think, the dangerous animal bursting free, stretching the roped muscles and leaping onto the limbs overhead. Bands of sunshine poured like gold from the sky down through the trees to light up the foliage and cages of roots. There was no silence in the jungle, as he first thought. The rain forest was alive with sound, rustles and chirps and loud calls. The other creatures knew he was there, a stranger walking their land, and almost immediately he was joined by the keepers of the forest.

The leopard people were secretive and territorial, but they recognized him as one of their own. One of them—a man named Drake Donovon, who had been recently injured and walked with the help of crutches—watched over him. Jake didn’t kid himself that it was friendship. Drake was a powerfully built man, as the others were, carrying most of his strength in his chest, shoulders and arms, and he had piercing eyes that could look through a man and judge him. Jake didn’t want him seeing to his soul. Drake wouldn’t find it like the others in his village. Jake was flawed, a child shaped and molded into a monster.