Flawed Revenge (Prey Security: Delta Team #6)

Chapter 1

Chapter

One

No one was supposed to be there.

The only people who had this address were he, his five teammates, and their boss.

Since Lion was right there at home, along with his five teammates, and there was no way Eagle Oswald, founder and CEO of Prey Security, would turn up unannounced, whoever had just set off the alarms by touching the front gate shouldn’t have found that gate.

This wasn't the sort of property you just stumbled upon by chance. It was buried deep in the forest atop a mountain. A few towns were nearby, but none close enough that you’d have your car break down driving from one to someplace else.

There were roads that circled the mountain further down, and one barely noticeable track that led only to their front gate.

Once in the six years he and his team had lived there, a lost hiker had stumbled upon the place completely by accident.

When that happened, they’d taken the badly hypothermic man straight back down to the closest hospital, administering first aid along the way.

Thankfully, the man had no idea who had helped him or where exactly he’d been, because a security breach could quite literally result in him and his teammates losing their lives.

Not just him and his teammates.

Now five women lived there with them. Five women who had captured the hearts of his teammates.

Five women who were now part of the Delta Team family.

Rose Gardner, the younger sister of the man who had tricked them into signing up for his experimental drug program a decade ago.

Cassandra Charleston, the younger sister of their Prey colleagues who made up Charlie Team.

Whitney Daley, the woman who had created the initial version of the drug they’d been given, then been bought by Dr. Gardner when she was just ten years old and forced to work for him.

Indigo Yates, the only other survivor of those experimental drugs who hadn't succumbed to either the anger or the suicidal thoughts that came as side effects.

And most recently, Maya Newell, who had been bought by Dr. Gardner and kept as his sex slave.

Five women who had changed everything, breathed fresh life back into their previously revenge-fueled existence.

Steel, Dragon, Blade, Voodoo, and Thunder now had a purpose that didn't revolve entirely around retribution.

They smiled more, laughed often, their eyes were bright with hope, and the house was nearly constantly filled with the sounds and scents of sex.

Because they had no idea who had shown up unannounced at their remote property, those five women, the heart of their Delta Team family, were safely tucked away in one of the safe rooms, while he and his team grabbed weapons and headed out into the thick forest that surrounded the house.

If anything happened to any one of those women, he wasn't sure that his teammates could survive it.

Over the last several months, they had all come to accept that perhaps they weren't the monsters Dr. Gardner had spent three long years telling them they were.

The drugs had messed with their ability to connect to their emotions, but it hadn't destroyed it.

They weren't without conscience like they had believed themselves to be.

They could still feel empathy, compassion, joy, and excitement.

Love.

But that anger still existed. Those whispered voices urging them to end their lives hadn't disappeared. They’d just quietened. For the others at least.

Not for him.

The woman he had loved was forever lost to him.

Choices he’d made a decade ago couldn’t be undone.

Not with the words he’d thrown at his girl when he’d realized the experimental drugs were coming with side effects he hadn't expected, and he’d truly believed the only way to keep her safe was to get her as far away from him as possible.

Just because he’d lost his chance at love and had no desire to search for another, didn't mean he wouldn't kill anything that threatened the lives of his teammates’ women.

Whoever just showed up there had no idea what they were walking into.

Or maybe they did.

Two days ago, they’d finally gotten what they wanted. Dr. Gardner had been killed. All six of them, along with Maya, had participated, and they’d watched as the man bled out before them.

It should have meant this was over.

Should have been the culmination of a decade of planning.

Only the crazed scientist had delivered a shocking declaration with his dying breath.

He’d told them that the experimental drug program had been someone else’s baby, that he had been running it for none other than his mother, who they had all, including Rose, believed to have been dead for the last twenty years.

Was it Mrs. Gardner who had somehow managed to track them down?

It seemed unlikely because Dr. Gardner had no idea where they lived, and they were also careful when they came and went from their remote property.

They’d been living these last seven years, ever since they escaped the glass cage Dr. Gardner kept them trapped in, with a target on their heads.

Safety had always been paramount. They knew that the scientist would never willingly let them go and would also be hunting them.

Whoever had shown up could be completely innocent. They might have no idea who lived there, or what danger they were in, but there was no way they could take chances.

Not with Rose, Cassandra, Whitney, Indigo, and Maya there.

Their family had to be protected at all costs.

And that was what they were. A family. Not born of DNA, but forged in blood nonetheless.

They’d been brought together for different reasons, but from the moment they signed up for the program and were appointed as a team, they’d become each other’s everything.

They’d relied on each other for everything, lived naked in a cage side by side for three hellishly long years, watched each other’s backs, and supported one another when the rage and suicidal thoughts became too much.

Now that their family had grown, there was even more reason to protect it, no matter the cost, even if that meant eliminating an innocent.

There was no way he would allow the men he considered to be his brothers to suffer the same loss he had.

If that meant the person at their gate was innocent, but killing them was the only way to ensure his family’s safety, then he’d do it in a heartbeat.

There was no greater pain than losing your other half.

None.

Maybe the woman he’d loved hadn't died, but the position he’d put her in had cost a life nonetheless, and he’d never gotten over that. Lion had been responsible for a lot of deaths, both in his military career before the experimental drug program and after, but only one haunted him.

Only one kept him up at night.

Only one made him feel like he deserved more punishment than Dr. Gardner ever had.

Only one had effectively destroyed the only woman he would ever love.

Pressing his hand to the ring that hung from a silver chain around his neck, Lion vowed to do whatever it took to protect his new family. He’d failed his last one, and it had almost destroyed him, he wouldn't fail again. These people were all he had left in the world, and he wouldn't lose them.

Couldn’t lose them.

He’d barely survived losing his last family, losing his team, losing the women who had become like sisters to him would finish him off.

With his weapon in his hand and his team at his back, they moved soundlessly through the trees. Special forces training alongside their enhanced skills made them a formidable opponent, one that whoever had shown up couldn’t even begin to imagine.

“Thunder says there’s one person standing by a car at the gate,” Blade whispered to them.

Because of his enhanced speed, Thunder always went ahead of them to scout things out. Then relayed whatever he saw to Blade, whose enhanced hearing could hear whispers from over a mile away.

While the trees impeded Lion’s ability to use his enhanced vision, as they moved a little closer, he spotted it.

A black car, parked outside their gates.

A single figure, also dressed in black, standing beside it.

The person didn't appear to be holding a weapon. Instead, they were standing by the gate, looking through it, with an almost perplexed expression on their face.

But there was anxiety there as well.

Whoever this person was, they weren't sure that they wanted to be there.

Too bad it was already too late to take it back.

They were here now and they were about to get an up close and personal look at just how dangerous he and his teammates could be when someone threatened their family.

March 13th

1:15 P.M.

Maybe going there was a mistake.

This place was creepy.

Like horror movie vibe creepy, and Kate Gage hated horror movies. She’d never been good with scary things, not as a child, not as a teen, and not now as a twenty-eight-year-old woman.

Turning around, getting back into her car, and driving back into town would be the safer option.

Definitely the smarter one.

But she couldn’t do that.

No matter how unsettling—okay, outright terrifying—this place was, she couldn’t leave. Not after all the trouble she’d gone through to find it.

And it had been a lot of trouble to get there.

Still, no matter how long it had taken her to find this place, the urge to turn around, climb back into her car, and head home, there was no way she could do that when the stakes were so high.

So she was going to have to do her best to pretend that the gate leading to what looked like a long, tree-lined driveway wasn't half covered in overgrown bushes, almost like someone had been trying to hide it.

That didn't mean that this place was haunted.

Besides, there was no such thing as a haunted house.

Even if this were the perfect setting for one. Even though it felt like she was being watched, although she couldn’t see anyone.