Chapter 3
Chapter
Three
So many things were running through his head that Dragon didn't even remember ending the call to Cassandra. The next thing he knew, he was barreling into the living room where the others were all strewn about, watching Rose get her tattoo.
“It’s Cassandra,” he blurted out. “She just called me. Something’s wrong.”
That immediately captured everyone’s attention, and all eyes turned on him.
“What happened?” Steel asked as he sat up from where he’d been lying tucked against the back of the couch, his head resting on Rose’s bare stomach as Lion worked on the tattoo.
Worried as he was about Cassandra and someone knowing of her connection to them, he still had a moment of surprise that possessive, obsessive Steel was allowing everyone in the room to see Rose half-naked.
They’d seen the woman completely naked already when they first abducted her and locked her in one of the cells in the basement.
To try to torture her into cracking so they could send a video of her to her brother, Dr. Ridge Gardner, they’d pumped hot air into the room, unprepared to see their captive just strip and suck it up without complaint.
Even back then, it had been obvious that Steel was affected by his little ladybug, but the man had always been a good team leader.
Always tried to put them first, even if he blamed himself for not figuring out sooner that Dr. Gardner wasn't being completely honest with them about the experimental program they’d signed up for.
But none of them had seen it.
They’d all been too excited about the prospect of getting enhanced skills that would make them better than everybody else.
They’d been cocky young men only seeing the small picture, not the big one.
Because if they’d been looking closer, they would have seen that Dr. Gardner was nothing more than a crazed scientist with delusions of grandeur.
“Someone approached Cassandra when she was going out on her nightly run.” There was no point in pretending that he hadn't been stalking the hell out of the woman he’d been drawn to when she was staying with them.
“Approached her?” Blade asked.
“Because of us. About us,” he explained, hardly able to put anything into words because emotion was throbbing inside him.
More emotion than he’d felt in the last ten years combined.
Anger had been a constant companion, a result of the drugs they’d been given that were meant to erase their consciences, but that was about the extent of what he’d felt.
Now fear, worry, and regret, all tangled together, making it hard to think.
“About us?” Thunder asked, confusion marring his features was echoed in the others’ expressions.
“How would anybody even know that we were connected to Cassandra? To Prey?” Voodoo asked.
“Oh no!” Rose suddenly gasped, shoving to her feet, looking at him with horror and a tiny hint of trepidation.
She knew he’d been the one campaigning to continue torturing her to try to get her to break, and then to kill her once they knew she was of no use, so she couldn’t go to the cops or her brother, but he never really would have killed her even if Steel hadn't threatened him. He’d just been working out his anger at turning his back on Cassandra, taking it out on an innocent woman instead of aiming at himself, where it should have gone.
“What’s wrong, little ladybug?” Steel asked, immediately turning his attention to his girl as he drew Rose into his arms.
“It’s my fault,” she said, guilt heavy in her tone.
“How is someone connecting Cassandra to us, your fault?” Steel asked her.
“Because I told my brother that you work for Prey,” she said, her voice shaking, and given that this woman was all but impervious to torture, given the abuse she’d suffered at her brother’s hands while she was growing up, seeing her distressed hit hard.
“You told him what?” Dragon growled, but he wasn't really angry, just afraid for Cassandra, who now had a massive target on her back.
Sensing his rage, Steel shot him a warning glare before returning his attention to Rose. “It’s okay, you couldn’t have known that he’d get away.”
“But you didn't want him to know that because now he has a way to find you.
I'm so sorry, Dragon. I wasn't thinking. I believed you guys were coming after him, and we were going to bring him back here so you could torture him and then kill him. If I’d known, I never would have said anything, but that wasn't my intel to share, and I should have kept my mouth shut.
I just wanted to not silently take his abuse anymore like I did when I was a kid.
I'm really sorry,” she said, turning imploring green eyes on him.
Rose’s eyes were a darker shade of green than Cassandra’s, but still, staring into them reminded him of the woman he’d just spoken to on the phone.
The little rabbit’s fear for him had come through loud and clear.
She hadn't been upset that she was accosted by a stranger while alone after dark at the park, she was just worried for him and what the revelation meant for his team.
Forcing himself to drag in a ragged breath and not let his fear fuel his anger and lead him to do something he would regret, he gave a sharp nod at Rose. “You didn't mean any harm.”
“Really?” Rose looked at him with tentative hope, and he knew then and there that she’d cemented her place in their weird and dysfunctional family, because he knew she knew how strong their bonds were and didn't want to put Steel in a position where he had to choose sides.
They all knew which side Steel would choose and it was hers, but she didn't want that anyway.
“You're not going to try to kill her?” Steel asked skeptically.
With an irritated huff, Dragon stormed further into the room and flopped down into one of the armchairs. “You know I was never going to really try to kill her.”
“Uh, I did not know that,” Rose piped up, making the guys snicker in amusement, and Dragon couldn’t remember the last time things had felt this light in their home. Rose wasn't just good for Steel, she was good for all of them.
“Cover up now, little ladybug,” Steel growled, seemingly just remembering she was topless now that he deemed there to be no threat to her life. “I’d really love not to have to rip out all of their eyes.”
“Relax, they’ve seen it all before, several times, and Lion was just—”
With another growl, Steel snatched Rose off her feet, crushing his mouth to hers to silence her before she could remind him that Lion had just been touching her breasts.
Laughing, the tattoo artist pressed her shirt—one of Steel’s—into the other man’s hands, and Steel managed to drag his lips from hers long enough to pull the shirt over her head.
When she ground against the bulge in his pants, Steel appeared to remember they had an audience and set her down on her feet, guiding her arms through the sleeves with a gentleness none of them were used to witnessing.
Both were breathing hard, and unable to resist holding her in his arms, Steel sat back down, tugging Rose into his lap and wrapping his arms around her with a possessive glare at the rest of them.
As they all took their seats, Dragon fought against the direction his thoughts wanted to take. Imagining what it would be like to have Cassandra there, sitting on his lap, his arms around her, his intentions clear. She was his and everyone else should back off.
But she wasn't there.
He’d made his choice, and he had to live with the consequences.
“What did this person tell Cassandra?” Steel asked, protectiveness sharp in his dark eyes. The other guys all liked Cassandra and viewed her as a sort of younger sister.
“Apparently, she told her that Dr. Gardner doesn’t just want us back because he created us, he wants to find out how we survived his experimental drugs when nobody else has. He has an antidote,” he told the others, who all gasped in shock.
Rose ran a soothing hand over Steel’s arms, which were banded around her. “What does that mean exactly? Can my brother undo what he did? Turn you back into who you were before? Would you even want that? Good or bad, this is who you are now.”
Would he go back if he could?
Part of him would say yes, that the man he had been before was a better one than the man he was now. The other part knew even if he lost his enhanced sense of smell, it wouldn't undo the horrors they’d lived through those three years Dr. Gardner kept them captive.
“I wouldn't go back,” Steel was the first to say it, and one by one the guys nodded their ascent. Rose was right, for good or bad, this was who they were now.
“Might not be an option anyway,” he informed them.
“According to Cassandra, this woman told her that Dr. Gardner plans on injecting us with the antidote, studying us, then reinjecting us with the same drugs as last time to try to figure out how we were able to adapt and thrive. This woman doesn’t think we’d survive. ”
A small whimper escaped Rose’s lips, and she pulled Steel’s arms tighter around her, not liking the idea of losing him.
“Not going anywhere, little ladybug,” Steel said, but anger danced in his gaze.
“We need to find out more about this woman. We need to know who she is, how she knows about us, how she’s connected to Dr. Gardner, and how she managed to figure out that Cassandra was a good way to get to us.
Dragon, you need to go to Cassandra, see if you can pull more details from her. ”
Perfect.
That was exactly what he wanted to hear.
Maybe he wasn't strong enough to go to her on his own, but now he had the perfect excuse.
January 4th
11:34 A.M.
All morning, Cassandra had felt out of sorts.
What annoyed her the most was not knowing whether it was because she’d been accosted by a stranger or the phone call to Dragon.