Midnight’s Queen (Stroke of Midnight #3)

Chapter 47

Aleks woke to the clack of a keyboard.

What the hell?

He turned his head toward the sound and suddenly the night came rushing back. He was in bed with Portia. In her home. And she wasn’t freaking out.

“Good morning.” Even the gritty note of sleep couldn’t hide the smile in his voice.

Portia looked up from her screen. “Good morning.” Her voice was welcoming and a bit shy. “Did you sleep okay?”

“I slept great.” He’d fallen asleep with her in his arms and it had been perfect. Hauling himself up into a sitting position, he studied her.

Her hair was pulled into a loose braid that draped over one shoulder. She wore his shirt, haphazardly buttoned, slipping off one shoulder.

She had the sheet pulled over her lap and her computer sitting on her crossed legs.

“What are you doing?”

“Hmm?” Already engrossed in her work, she blinked and looked over at him again. “What?”

He laughed. If the city could only see the Ice Queen adorably lost in her work. No one would believe him if he told them. “What are you doing?” he asked again.

“Oh, I woke up with an idea about what to do with the Vyne scientists. I know I saw a program referenced in the system, so I went looking for it.”

“What do you mean what to do with the scientists? You found them?”

“Oh, yeah. We shut down the labs a couple of days ago. Sorry. It’s been a wild few days.” The smile she aimed at him kicked his heart rate up several notches. “They’re currently in the holding cells at Tremaine headquarters.”

“What’s wrong with that?”

“I don’t want to keep them prisoners indefinitely. That’s the kind of thing my father would do and I refuse to be like him.” She sighed. “I can’t let them loose, though, either. They’ll be cranking out Vyne in another location within days. Same with the street cookers.”

“Who?” He’d obviously missed a lot, but when would she have told him? Not in front of the Solveigs. And last night, well, they’d been otherwise occupied.

“Ash and the Jack located another lab downtown. They helped me shut it down at the same time we closed the internal one. So, now I have four people who know the formula.”

She was right, there were no good options when it came to a dangerous drug like this. “What’s your idea?”

“There’s a procedure that can erase those memories.” Portia beamed at him and spun the computer screen around.

“What?” He couldn’t have heard her correctly.

“It’s a simple procedure, from what I understand of the documentation,” she said. “It removes memories with surgical precision. Once it’s done, they’ll no longer remember the formula for Vyne or how to make it. I haven’t decided whether they’ll get their jobs back, but either way, they’ll no longer be a threat.”

His pulse a nearly overwhelming throb in his ears, Aleks’s brain struggled to parse her words. “You’re kidding, right?”

“What? It’s the perfect solution. We shut down the Vyne pipeline and they get to continue with their lives. Win-win.”

“Win-win?” He was going to be sick. “You’re messing with their brains.”

“Barely,” she said. “The doctors say it’s safe. It’s been used by therapists for years.”

“You really don’t get it?” He’d told her everything. He’d bared his soul and she didn’t understand why he thought this was so wrong?

His fists clenched at his sides. “You’re talking to a guy who had his brain fucked up by a Tremaine product about removing memories from other people’s brains with another Tremaine product. And you don’t see the problem.” His voice was cold and controlled.

She flinched from his tone, but didn’t back down. “What happened to you was a terrible accident. If this goes forward, it will be their choice.”

“The implant was my choice too.” He emphasized choice . “The side effects weren’t. What are you going to do when they have side effects too?”

“I can’t control everything, Aleks. I can only make the best decision I can with the information I have.” She slammed the laptop shut and put it next to her on the bed. “I’m not the bad guy here. The bad guys are the ones who have been making and selling Vyne.”

She sucked in a breath. “My father would have killed them. Except I’m pretty sure the whole setup was his idea. Is that what you want me to do, Aleks? Kill them?”

His face paled. “That’s not?—”

She shoved the bedsheet off her lap. “I refuse to discuss this here. Let me know when you want to have a rational discussion.”

He glimpsed long bare legs as she leaped out of bed and left the room, taking the computer with her.