Joaquin chuckled. “I’m not sure which part of that you thought was a request. You will help me, one way or another. It’s up to you what’s left of your boyfriend when you do.”
“What’s your plan, Joaquin?” Mark asked, trying to deflect the man’s attention off Jenna. “What’s the end goal here? Selling the ability to subjectify to the highest bidder? What a cliché.”
Joaquin shrugged. “Clichés exist for a reason. And one of the beautiful things about being richer than nearly everyone in the world—which I will be once this is done—is you don’t have to care about clichés.”
He turned back to Jenna. “You have twelve hours to make it happen.”
“Twelve hours?” She shook her head. “Even if I believed it could be done, which I do not, twelve hours isn’t enough time.”
“That’s all you have,” Joaquin said. “I’m receiving final bids in eighteen hours, and I want time to test the merchandise.”
“I won’t do it.”
“Then I hope your boyfriend likes pain. Because I will hurt him, Jenna. I’ll do it again and again and again until you help me, simply to hear him stop screaming. And your deadline will still be the same, so every minute you delay, you make your own job—and his life—harder.”
“Don’t do it, Jenna,” Mark said. “I can take it.”
Because thank God Joaquin hadn’t had time to dig far enough into Jenna to know her true fears. No doubt the man would use them against her in a heartbeat.
Mark would take every bit of pain he had to if it meant Jenna wasn’t terrorized and Joaquin didn’t get the ability to make robots out of anyone and everyone.
“What happens if it can’t be done?” Jenna asked between ragged breaths. “I’m not playing games with you now. What you’re asking for is impossible even if I did my quickest and best work.”
Joaquin was truly smiling now. “Find a way. While you were asleep, I also had my scientists do a work-up on your genetic profiles so we could create a subjectification compound for both of you.”
“What does that mean, asshole?” Mark asked.
Joaquin glanced at him before turning back to Jenna. “It means that if Jenna fails, I’m injecting you with the formula, and I’ll order you to slit your own throat while she watches.”
He turned and gestured to the door, and men swarmed in, unbuckling Mark and Jenna from the chairs and getting them up, marching Jenna and dragging Mark to an empty lab down the hallway.
Mark was thrown into another chair and strapped down. This time, it wasn’t just hands and feet. More straps across his chest and legs, and one across his forehead, holding him in place.
Jenna was thrown against one of the lab tables, and Mark struggled uselessly against the restraints. Joaquin watched him with a smile on his face, the bloody knife twirling over his fingers.
“Time to get to work, Jenna. Every fifteen minutes you don’t have progress, Mark here gets more pain.”
Mark was about to tell her not to when one of the thugs shoved cloth into his open mouth and sealed it with duct tape before he could spit it out.
Joaquin simply looked between the two of them, twirling the knife once more. “I don’t care about most things, as long as I get my way. But, this?” He pointed back and forth between Mark and Jenna, grinning. “This is going to be fun.”
Chapter 24
Mark was strapped to the chair. It was all Jenna could see and think about. Blood had soaked through his pants where Joaquin had stabbed him, and she couldn’t watch him go through that again.
But she also couldn’t just hand over the kind of power Joaquin was asking for. Nor had she told him she would. He was forcing her hand, and she hadn’t corrected him.
Twelve hours. What could she do in twelve hours?
What she’d told him was…mostly true. It was possible that a formula for universal subjectification existed. But even if she were motivated to find it, it would take her way more than twelve hours. Between formulation and testing, it would takeweeks, not hours.
She wasn’t surprised Joaquin had jumped the gun and created a date and time for a sale before he had a final product. It hadn’t occurred to him that he would fail. She could use his own arrogance against him.
If she could keep it together when Mark was bound and bleeding a few feet away.
She’d never thought this would be true, but she would rather be dragged outside and left there as torture than see Mark hurt more. Of course, no way in hell was she giving Joaquin that knowledge. All he’d do was hurtbothof them.
She was willing to bet they were somewhere near Las Vegas. If they’d really been out for twelve hours, Ian and Callum knew they were missing and were already doing everything in their power to find them.