Stealing Jia (Coletti Warlords #12) - Gail Koger Page 0,2

with a price. Zarek demanded we turn over all psychic women to him. Seems he needed us as breeding stock.

Big surprise, the Coletti warriors were thieves and not good ones either. They kept getting caught. Their raids started the Great Galactic War. Unfortunately for the females of the universe, chemicals used on the Coletti people in the war created a genetic anomaly and only one female baby was born for every one thousand males. The Coletti women were going the way of the dodo bird and guess who got to pay the price for their men’s stupidity? Us psychic females.

Central Command suddenly began enacting new laws. Anyone with extrasensory abilities had to report to their local military base, fill out registration paperwork, and get chipped like an animal. You faced fines and jail time if you refused.

The Coletti sent hunters to Italy to hunt down any psychic female but I evaded them easily until I crossed paths with Giovanni Dragos. Then everything changed.

Chapter One

Homeless people and street kids were vanishing at an alarming rate. I hacked into the Polizia’s computer servers and found they were as stumped as I was. Our animal sanctuary already housed twenty-two frightened children. Their stories were all the same. Some creepy dude with white hair had jumped out of a black van, shot the older teenagers with tranquilizer darts, and abducted them.

Two weeks later, the kidnapper attacked the bar where Adam, one of the orphans from Saint Michael’s, and his band were playing. This time the bad guys got sloppy and surveillance cameras caught them in the act. To my surprise, the attackers included two Polizia officers, which did explain why the investigations never went anywhere.

After hours of trying, I finally managed to link mentally with Adam. A jolt of raw fear shook me as I stared into the face of a T-Rex. Holy Mary Mother of God! The Rodan were behind the kidnappings. The monster injected a blue liquid into Adam’s neck. A guttural scream tore from Adam and our link broke. In my heart, I knew he still lived, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t reconnect with him. If I didn’t find him soon, the Rodan would eat him.

Borrowing the Polizia’s facial recognition software, I quickly found out our white-haired suspect was one Giovanni Dragos. He had an extensive criminal history for everything from theft to assault with a deadly weapon. Giovanni also had a master’s degree in biochemistry and his highly unethical research in genetic engineering had the Polizia hunting him too. Dread slithered down my spine. Was he using the homeless people and street kids in his experiments or feeding them to the Rodan or both?

Giovanni Dragos resembled an evil scientist with his wild, white hair, thick bushy eyebrows, and pale blue eyes. The man was a ghost. I couldn’t locate where he worked or lived. The only thing I did find was his online dating profile.

His profile picture was unique to say the least. His shark-like smile didn’t reach his eyes and he wore enough gold jewelry to double as one of those old rap singers. To impress the ladies, he posed in front of a microscope with tissue cultures littering the desk. For that little touch of class, he had pinned a blood-red rose on the lapel of his white lab coat. According to his bio, he was a passionate lover who enjoyed dancing the Tango. Giovanni even posted a vid of himself at a local dance competition. The man had two left feet and his partner was limping badly when she left the dance floor.

The only chance I had of getting close to Giovanni was going on a date with the ass. My profile included a vid of me in a slinky black dress, doing a very sexy Tango. Ten minutes after I posted it, Giovanni contacted me. He wanted to take me to dinner at La Antica, a secluded restaurant famous for its romantic atmosphere. Donning my little black dress and red Manolo Blahnik stilettos, I went to meet the creep.

To my horror, La Antica was inside the ancient catacombs of San Pancrazio. Dinner with the dead wasn’t romantic. It was a health hazard full of microbial bacteria and I wouldn’t even mention the diseases the rats carried. The musky scent of the ancient remains made me queasy. A skeletal priest in a hooded brown robe stood guard at the entrance. In his boney hands was a large cross. Behind the priest hundreds of