“Seems like that should go without saying,” Hunt inserted.
I huffed a bitter snort. “Totally. And taking us away from an obviously awful, incredibly toxic situation doesn’t make our parents thieves.”
It made them good parents, right? Maybe they’d redeem themselves after all.
Chase’s lips parted to reveal expertly whitened and straightened teeth. “If they were your actual parents, your argument might have some merit. Perhaps. But they aren’t.”
Again, my eyes lost their focus as his words registered.
“Come again?” Layla whispered.
“Yourparents”—the billionaire hooked manicured fingers into air quotes, his shiny watch catching the light—“aren’t your parents. Theywerethe lead researchers of my most important project. Theyweremy employees, with no rights to any part of discoveries they made while in my employ. Their research was advanced under a work-for-hire arrangement. I’d explain what that means, but you’re all smart enough to already know. I won’t talk down to you.”
Oh, so “talking down” to us was his main concern here? The balls on this asshole!
“You’re the result of experiments conducted under my authority, funded by me. That means you’re my property, and they took you. Plain and simple. That makes them thieves, and that also makes you mine to do with as I please.”
Layla and I shot to standing, and even as I wobbled, a growl rumbled in my chest.
I wasn’t the only one. The five of us sounded more like beasts than people. Even shot and bleeding, Brady clenched his teeth and narrowed his eyes at the nutter, about to attack.
Beyond grumbling their disapproval, Griffin and Hunt had gone still. That meant they were as dangerous and poised to take down a mofo as Brady, Layla, and me.
I was unsteady on my feet, and any attack I might attempt would likely result in my ass landing on the floor.
Didn’t mean I wouldn’t do it anyway.
This megalomaniac was too fucking much.
He didn’t even care that Hunt was holding a gun! Did he believe he, too, was invincible? That he’d come back to life after Hunt shot him between the eyes? Maybe he did. But money couldn’t buy a person a second chance at life, even if they had enough cash to fill an entire Olympic-sized swimming pool.
Chase chuckled—further proof there was something majorly wrong with him—while Jaggar cast what he must have thought were covert looks at his weapons, just out of reach.
“I’m not saying that’s the kind of relationship I want us to have,” Chase clarified, presumably as clarification of hisownership claims. “I’m just stating facts so you can understand the situation as it really is. The scientists who’ve charaded as your parents all these years have been lying to you your entire lives. I’m here to tell you the truth.”
Layla snorted. “Yeah, I’ll just bet you are.”
Chase tipped his head in a way that said, “But I am!” Then the door opened and a nurse in plain gray scrubs marched into the room with no more than a glance at the standoff going down right in front of her. She was either remarkably well paid or had seen enough to know that she should keep her curiosity to herself. She flicked a glance at Griff, then Brady—triaging—before walking over to Brady first.
A second nurse entered, pushing a stainless-steel cart laden with scalpels, needles, and other surgical supplies. Behind her, an orderly with a broom swept the glass and crystal shards, cleaning them all up, before a surgeon waltzed in. Unlike the nurses and the orderly, his eyes widened at the scene. Even so, he didn’t say anything, stalking across the room to examine Brady’s wound as the nurse cut open his shirt.
“Well?” Layla prompted. “You said there was no time to wait to talk. So, talk.”
“Yeah,” Brady said, then hissed as disinfectant burned his wound. “Before one of us decides we’d rather pummel your ass than hear you out.”
Chase positioned himself so he could lean against the patch of open wall beside the door and crossed his arms over his chest. “I wonder if this group aggression is a side effect of your unique makeup.”
“Sure, why not?” Griffin barked, his sarcasm thick. “It couldn’t be because none of us are fans of being fuckingowned. Or of a manipulative asshole pulling strings to get us allkilled. It couldn’t be that, no.”
The surgeon looked from Brady’s gunshot to the rest of us, his eyes wide and startled.
Chase caught his stare with an intent one of his own, and the surgeon hastened to make a show of examining the back of Brady’s shoulder and finding an exit wound. A clean shot through. That was something, at least.
The nurse injected Brady with a local anesthetic while Chase said, “First off: all of you, please, call me Magnum. I’d like us to be friends.”
Brady and Layla snorted. Griffin and Hunt seemed to vibrate with pent-up ire. I wondered if maybe I was dreaming all of this, starting with Brady impaled upon unforgiving rebar at that party. The experience felt too bizarre to be real.
“We’ll get there,” Chase said.
