Master of Lust-Chapter 320 - -

Chapter - 320

Ten minutes later.

The kitchen staff had been zip-tied and locked in the dry storage pantry. The guards were unconscious and bound in the delivery van outside.

Rick, Sharon, and Vancroft were in the massive Walk-In Freezer. It was minus ten degrees inside. Carcasses of beef hung from hooks.

Vancroft was tied to a chair in the center of the freezer, shivering violently.

"This is an outrage!" Vancroft chattered. "Do you know who I cook for? Silas Warner! He will have you skinned!"

"Yeah, yeah," Rick said, opening the silver briefcase. He pulled out the DNA sampler—a nasty-looking needle and a retinal scanner. "Hold still, Henri. This won’t hurt. Much."

He jammed the needle into Vancroft’s arm. The chef shrieked. Rick drew a vial of blood. Then he forced Vancroft’s eye open and scanned it. Then he held a recorder to his mouth.

"Say: ’The soup is excellent, Mr. Warner.’"

"Go to hell!"

Rick sighed. He tapped Vancroft on the nose with the MP7. "Say it, or you stay in here until you’re a popsicle."

"The... the soup is excellent, Mr. Warner!"

"Perfect." Rick fed the data into the mask machine in the briefcase. It began to whir and print, synthesizing the gelatinous face of Henri Vancroft.

Rick turned to Sharon. She was leaning against a frozen side of beef, shivering, her arms wrapped around herself. Her eyes were wide, dark, and dilated. The adrenaline dump from the car chase and the breach was hitting her hard. She looked wild. Dangerous.

Rick felt it too. The buzz. The hum of survival. The nearness of death on the highway had stripped away the layers of civilization.

He walked over to her. The cold air of the freezer swirled around them, their breath pluming in white clouds.

"You okay?" Rick asked, his voice low.

Sharon looked at him. She looked at the blood on his knuckles. She looked at the way the suit fit him. She grabbed his lapels and yanked him away from the hanging meat, slamming him against the cold steel door of the freezer.

"Shut up," she hissed.

She kissed him.

It wasn’t like the pool. It wasn’t gentle. It was violent. It was a collision of teeth and desperation. It was the taste of adrenaline and the need to feel something hot in a freezing world.

Rick groaned, his hands finding her waist, gripping the leather of her jacket. He lifted her, pinning her against the door. Sharon wrapped her legs around his waist, her boots thumping against the metal.

The cold of the freezer was forgotten. The heat between them was a furnace.

Rick devoured her mouth, his tongue sweeping inside, demanding, taking. Sharon met him with equal force, her hands tangling in his hair, pulling his head back to bite his neck.

"You drive like a maniac," she gasped against his skin, her breath hot. "You climbed out of a car. You’re insane."

"Effective," Rick growled, nipping at her earlobe. He pressed his hips against hers, the friction sharp and immediate.

"I thought we were dead," she whispered, her hands roaming over his chest, checking for wounds, checking that he was real. "When you went out the window... I thought you were gone."

"Not yet," Rick said. "I’ve got too much money to die."

He kissed her again, harder, his hands sliding down to cup her ass, squeezing the firm flesh through her jeans. He ground against her, feeling her wetness even through the layers of clothes. The adrenaline was a drug, and this was the high.

It was primal. It was messy. It was happening three feet away from a bound, terrified French chef who was watching with wide, horrified eyes.

"Mon Dieu," Vancroft whispered. "They are animals."

Rick ignored him. He ignored the cold. He ignored the mission for just one, burning minute. He was lost in the feel of Sharon, the taste of her fear and her lust.

Sharon pulled back, breathless, her lips swollen, her eyes wild. She rested her forehead against his. "We have to stop. We have to finish this."

"One minute," Rick murmured, kissing her nose, her cheek, her mouth one last time. "Just one minute."

He held her there, suspended against the door, until their heart rates slowed from ’cardiac arrest’ to merely ’sprinting’.

He let her down slowly. Sharon smoothed her hair, her hands shaking slightly. She looked at Vancroft, then back at Rick. A small, wicked smile touched her lips.

"Okay. I’m good. Let’s freeze this guy."

Rick turned back to Vancroft. The mask was finished printing. It sat in the tray, a perfect, translucent replica of the chef’s face.

"Okay, Henri," Rick said. "Here’s the deal. We can’t let you go. You’ll call Silas. And we can’t kill you, because then your biometrics might get flagged in the database as ’deceased’ if they have a pulse-link."

"So what are you going to do?" Vancroft asked, trembling. "Kidnap me?"

"Better," Rick said. "We’re going to put you on ice."

He opened the System Shop. This was the seed he needed to plant for later.

[Shop > Sci-Fi > Containment]

[Item: Cryo-Stasis Pod (Portable)]

[Description: Induces immediate, safe suspended animation for up to 30 days. Target requires no food, water, or air. Vital signs are masked to appear normal but resting.]

[Cost: $500,000]

Rick winced. Half a million. But it was necessary.

"Buy."

A sleek, white, coffin-sized pod materialized on the floor of the freezer with a heavy thud.

Vancroft screamed. "What is that?! A coffin?!"

"It’s a nap pod," Rick said. He cut Vancroft’s bonds. "Get in."

"No! Never!"

Rick sighed. "SLEEP."

Voice of Command worked this time. Vancroft slumped, groggy. Rick and Sharon lifted him and placed him inside the pod.

Rick pressed the button. The lid hissed shut. Frost coated the glass. Vancroft’s face relaxed into peaceful slumber. A digital readout on the side beeped: STATUS: STASIS. PULSE: NORMAL.

"Perfect," Rick said. "He’s alive, so the system won’t flag his ID as dead. But he’s out of the way."

He looked at the pod. This could be useful, he thought. If things go wrong at the Chateau... having a hostage, or a way to smuggle someone out...

He put the pod into his Inventory.

[System Inventory: Cryo-Pod (Occupied - Henri Vancroft)]

Rick turned to Sharon and Nadia, who was standing in the doorway holding the laptop.

"Okay," Rick said, picking up the silver briefcase with the face mask. "We have the face. We have the transport. We have the invites."

He checked the System Quest.

[Quest: The Winter Conclave]

[Objective: Infiltrate the Warner Chateau.]

[Time Remaining: 13 Days.]

Rick grinned. He looked at his reflection in the chrome door of the freezer. He adjusted his tie.

"Ladies," he said. "Pack your aprons. We’re going to Switzerland."

High above the Atlantic, in a satellite relay station owned by Corporate Oversight, Johnson watched a screen.

He saw the thermal signature of the Alfa Romeo on the Italian highway. He saw the explosion of the SUV. He saw the heat bloom of the bodies in the warehouse.

He picked up a secure phone.

"Director," Johnson said. "The asset is active in Milan. He has acquired the biometrics."

"Is he following the script?" a distorted voice asked.

"No, sir. He’s improvising. He’s... efficient. Brutal. And he’s spending money we can’t trace on tech we didn’t give him."

"Interesting. The ’System’ anomaly remains consistent. Let him run, Johnson. Let him enter the Chateau. Silas has something in his vault. Something that doesn’t belong to him. Something... older."

"And if Rick finds it?"

"Then we see if he can handle the truth. Or if it breaks him."

Johnson hung up. He looked at the screen, at the dot representing Rick Smith.

"Good luck, Chaos Agent," he whispered. "You’re going to need it."

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