Chapter 6
Chapter
Six
While Steel couldn’t argue the fact that he was confused as hell about this entire situation he and his men had gotten themselves into, there was one thing he was certain about.
They couldn’t go on like this.
All the things they thought they’d be able to achieve by having Ridge Gardner’s little sister in their possession were now clearly not going to happen.
Yesterday, after they’d forced Rose to take the drugs, one a painkiller the other a sedative, he and Voodoo had spent a couple of hours in the basement cell with the little ladybug, cleaning her wounds, putting antibiotic cream on them, bandaging the ones on her wrists, and rehydrating her.
As they were doing that, the others were getting the video ready to send.
It had now been twenty-four hours since the video had hit the doctor’s email.
The video had been watched, they knew that thanks to the tracking virus they’d hidden in it. Unfortunately, they hadn't been able to get a read on the doctor’s location, though. Wherever the man was hiding, he was using protections so he couldn’t be found.
If the crazed scientist had watched a video of his sister being tortured and yet made no attempts to reach out to them despite their threats that they would escalate things, then nothing was going to work.
Personally, Steel didn't see how a man could watch a woman he was related to strung up, bleeding, and being struck with a whip, and not want to tear off the heads of the people doing it.
He had been the one overseeing the torture, and he wanted to rip off his own head and those of his team who were only following his orders.
They had miscalculated the doctor’s attachment to his only living family member, and because of that, they’d needlessly inflicted suffering on an innocent woman. One he knew was messing with all of their heads with her crazy behavior, refusal to cower before them, and bratty confidence.
“Still no replies?” Steel asked Dragon, who was monitoring communication for them.
The man shook his head, and as he looked around at the faces of the other men sitting around the kitchen table, he knew it was time for him to make some tough decisions.
He’d promised them that he would get them retribution, and made the decision to go after Rose, even though the others had all agreed.
He’d insisted on continuing with things even when his gut was nudging him to admit that what he was doing wasn't only wrong but wouldn’t get him the desired results.
That they had to change up their plans was a given, but Steel hated letting his men down again. Seemed it was all he managed to do.
“None,” Dragon replied, frustration emanating off him in angry waves.
Steel got it, he did, he felt the same way.
This was supposed to work, supposed to be a slam dunk.
Yet instead, all they had now was guilt over harming an innocent, and confirmation that the soulless killing machines Dr. Gardner wanted to create had finally come into existence despite them fighting against it for a decade.
Spearing his fingers through his hair, Steel prepared himself for what he had to say.
Knowing he had no choice didn't make it any easier. “He doesn’t care about her,” he admitted, a hard admission to make, because really they should have been able to guess that a man who would so easily play God with other people’s lives didn't care about anyone but himself.
Angry grunts and growls came from the other men, and he knew they were all having as hard a time understanding that as he was.
They had all walked away from their families to protect them.
If they found out any one of their parents, siblings, nieces, nephews, grandparents, aunts, or uncles had been harmed, they would move heaven and earth to save them.
Not callously ignore the problem.
“What does that mean for your little ladybug?” Thunder asked.
Shifting uncomfortably at hearing her called his, Steel hated that he had been transparent enough with his … interest in the woman that the others had picked up on it.
He hated even more that it wasn't just an interest.
Attraction.
Denying it didn't make it any less true.
The little ladybug was twelve years younger than him, pretty much still a child, and despite whatever had led her to a place where she could not only tolerate torture but refuse to bow down before them and beg for her freedom, she had dug herself out from under it.
Built a life for herself.
A life they’d torn her away from with no care or consideration for her feelings. They’d viewed her as nothing more than a tool for them to use, and that left him with this unpleasant knot of guilt sitting heavily in his gut.
“We letting her go?” Blade asked.
“We can't,” Dragon immediately protested.
“Why?” Voodoo asked.
“Girl has no value to us if her brother doesn’t care about her,” Lion reminded Dragon. “What else are we going to do with her?”
“Can't keep her locked in the basement forever,” Blade said.
“Steel’s little ladybug will find a way to gut us eventually,” Thunder said with a smirk, amusement dancing in his gray eyes.
“If we let her go, she’s going to go running straight to the cops,” Dragon protested.
“So what if she does?” Lion asked. “Not like she saw our faces, or knows where we brought her. I don’t think the cops are going to have any chance of tracking down Mr. Bedroom Man.”
Huffing a small chuckle at Rose’s ridiculous name for him, Steel nodded in agreement. “She no longer holds any value to us. We’re going to have to look for another way to get to Ridge Gardner.”
“Or we do what we told him we’d do,” Dragon persisted.
“What? Up our torture game?” Voodoo asked as he shifted in his seat.
The man had always been a healer, and now with his almost otherworldly ability to heal others, Voodoo had taken on a heavy burden.
He took other people’s pain and deaths personally.
The first time he’d been unable to save an innocent who got caught up in a black ops raid they’d performed, Steel had worried for his friend’s sanity.
Voodoo could handle inflicting pain on someone who deserved it, but they all knew Rose didn't. If Voodoo had struggled with whipping Rose, there was no way he would handle anything more.
Besides, nothing they did to Rose was going to bring out her crazed scientist brother.
“And what exactly do you propose we do to her?” Steel asked, trying to remind himself that Dragon was taking out his frustrations at losing Cassandra Charleston over their plans for Rose, on Rose herself.
But it wasn't the little ladybug’s fault that she was related to Dr. Gardner, that they’d targeted her because of it, or that she was strong enough to withstand what they’d done to her so far.
“Whatever it takes to get our revenge,” Dragon answered simply.
“You want to cut off body parts? Skin her alive? Electrocute her?” Voodoo demanded, and Steel was glad he wasn't the only one who looked a little queasy at the idea. The last thing he needed was to take out his own anger on Dragon and rip the man’s head clean off his body.
“None of that is going to break her,” Steel said confidently. While he had no idea just what Rose’s life had been like before she started over, it was obvious enough that it had included firsthand experience with torture.
Another reason her brother had to die.
Ridge had raised Rose after their parents’ deaths, so if Rose knew all about someone inflicting pain on her for fun, it had to have been her brother who did it.
“I want to do whatever it takes to get us what we want,” Dragon growled.
“Torturing Rose isn’t going to get us her brother,” Lion said.
“And it’s not going to break her,” Thunder added.
“Besides, I don’t think our fearless leader likes the idea of playing with his little ladybug,” Blade said, shooting him a smirk that dared him to disagree.
Refusing to play into that and admit he felt anything at all for the fiery woman downstairs, Steel kept his expression impassive.
“Just because this didn't work doesn’t mean that we won't find something that will. None of us is going to stop until Ridge Gardner rues the day he ever decided to play with other people’s DNA.”
With an irritated growl, Dragon slammed the lid of the laptop closed and stalked out of the room.
“Follow him,” he told Thunder, who nodded and pushed away from the table. “I’ll make the little ladybug some food, lace it with sedatives, and we can get her prepped to return her to her house tonight.”
“Your little ladybug will be okay, she’ll bounce back,” Blade told him, clapping him on the back as he headed for the fridge.
Steel prayed that his friend was right, but the problem was that no matter how strong you were, the weight of the world on your shoulders eventually broke your back.
Look at them, when their DNA had been altered, their brain chemistry changed so they could be molded into Ridge Gardner’s perfect killing machines.
They’d vowed to never use their skills to harm an innocent, yet they had one they’d tortured locked in their basement.
December 27th
12:00 P.M.
It was time.
Rose kept her body still, her expression impassive, but inside she was hyper-focused, taking in every single minute detail, because she was going to find a way out of this room.
Even if it killed her.
She was all too aware that she was a whole lot less worried about that possibility than she should be. But after you’d lived your entire life as a series of torturous events one after the other in a never-ending stream, the end didn't seem as terrifying a prospect.
Only she’d found her end. At least it was supposed to be.