“That’smygun, actually,” Raynar corrected.
Chase whipped his head toward his soldier. “I wouldn’t remind anyone of that,” he snapped.
Raynar swallowed and nodded with a jerk.
“All right,” Chase started before Jaggar said, “Sir, no, you can’t—”
Chase pinned Jaggar with a stare so ferocious that Jaggar visibly wilted beneath its intensity. “Are you questioning my judgment?” Chase asked with cold calm, and I doubted a question had ever sounded more dangerous.
“Of course not, sir. It’s just that they’re trained and—”
“You will disarm as Mr. Fletcher suggested and take your seats.”
Jaggar and Raynar hopped to obey, though Jaggar was openly twitchy as he took in how Hunt didn’t bother to lower his weapon as they placed theirs out of easy reach.
Chase stared down Hunt’s barrel and waited. What felt like an entire minute passed before Hunt finally lowered his arm to his side. He continued to hold the gun.
“Get help for Brady. Griffin too. Then we’ll talk.”
“I’m fine,” Griffin interjected. “No need.”
But Chase went on as if he hadn’t heard him. “I’ll get them help now, but we don’t wait to talk. There’s too much on the line, and those thieves who call themselves your parents are looking for us as we speak.”
“‘Thieves?’” I echoed under my breath while Layla apparently squeezed Brady’s arm hard enough for him to yelp and yank it away.
Our parents, mine especially, were definitely liars. But thieves?
If the billionaire had been dangling strands of sparkly diamonds or pretty, shiny blades, or the keys to a freaking Lambo, I wouldn’t have been half as intrigued and tempted.
“What did our parents steal?” Hunt asked, a heartbeat before the words could slip from my own lips.
Chase didn’t shy away from the question. He leaned forward onto his shiny, wing-tipped leather shoes to make eye contact with each of us in turn. “They stole industrial secrets, the results of years of experiments, invaluable data that didn’t belong to them. Expensive equipment too, but that’s not the important thing. They stolebiological material. My property.”
Meeting my stare head-on as if he anticipated that my mind would be blown wide open, he added, “They stole all ofyou.”
5
The Devil You Know
From across the room, I blinked at Chase so many times that his polished, smooth-shaven face began to blur.
He saw us asbiological material. We werehis propertythat our parents supposedly stole.
That’s why his eyes were glinting with avarice. The motherfucker actually appeared to believe heownedus.
Surely, he couldn’t be that insane.
A memory of Jaggar pointing his gun at me moments before he pulled the trigger—on Chase’s orders—flashed through my mind.
Never mind. Obviously Chase was precisely that insane. Not only did he think he owned us, but he thought that gave him the right to kill us, in order to … what? Provide him with more precious data?
When forced to confess, our parentshadadmitted they’d run from their “employer” and hidden us from said employer. They’d failed to mention that a narcissist considered us his possessions, but the rest added up well enough.
“Raynar,” Chase said, slicing through my thoughts. “Go get the nurses.”
With a quick glance at the discarded weapon, Raynar rose from the armchair and exited the room.
Once the door shut behind him, I told Chase, “No matter what you think of us, we aren’t your fucking property. We aren’t anybody’s property.”
