“Wait!Please.I need to speak with you about Gretel Macy.”
Jamey immediately put the phone back to her ear. “Is Gretel okay?”
“As far as I know,” Marist said. “She called me this morning. You see, I mentioned to you that Charles requested we have a conversation about your brother. But Gretel thought you and I should have a different conversation, about shell companies and diverted funds and why Charles Stone has been pushing so hard to get S.B. 1437 passed and fresh money in our hands. And I’m inclined to agree with her.”
She cleared her throat. “Ms. St. James, do you still have anyone you trust on the force?”
Reece stared at the gun against Grayson’s temple, a new wave of fury flooding him. “Get away from him—”
Grayson made a noise of surprised pain as one of the soldiers jammed a needle into the side of Grayson’s neck and depressed the oversized syringe.
Reece saw red. “What the fuck is that?” he barked at Charles, yanking uselessly against the grip of the gloved soldiers who held him. “How fucking dare you—”
“Calm yourself,” Charles snarled, far too loud. “Or else—no.” He clamped his mouth shut and took a breath through his nose. “Congratulations, Mr. Davies,” he said, calm again. “Your ability to project emotion is stronger than even I realized. But ask yourself if it really is your smartest course of action to enrage me while I hold a gun at Evan’s head.”
Grayson’s eyelashes were fluttering, his body going lax in his captors’ hold. “What did you just give Evan?” Reece demanded.
“He’s simply received a large enough dose of ketamine to keep even an enhanced empath sibling docile. He’ll be fine—assuming you cooperate.”
Reece could barely hear Charles over the ringing in his ears. “Cooperate with what?”
“A very simple negotiation.” Keeping the gun only an inch from Grayson’s skin, Charles gestured with his other hand to Cedrick’s unconscious body in the back of the ambulance. “You took Cedrick from me. Bring him back, or I take Agent Grayson from you.”
Reece sucked in a breath, cold rage and sick understanding rushing through him.
“It’s a fascinating data point you’ve provided us,” Charles said. “No matter how deep your corruption goes, there are still people you can’t bear to hurt—or to let anyone else hurt. And Evan here is one of yours.”
“That’s not—”
“Don’t bother lying to me, Mr. Davies,” said Charles. “I’ve received the report from Olympia. The building wasdestroyed from the inside out. An alarming number of bodies were found in the rubble, including Dr. Nichols. We’ll be locking the empaths up somewhere even less hospitable now, thanks to you.”
“The hell you will,” Grayson started, speech slurred, but one of the men elbowed him in the gut, hard.
“Don’t touch him,” Reece snapped out before he could stop himself.
Charles smiled coldly. “As I said: Useless to pretend. We know Evan’s enhancements and limitations intimately and are well-equipped to cause even the Dead Man a world of pain.”
“Cedrick experimented on Reece first.” Grayson’s eyes were half lidded, but he was still fighting to get words out. “None of this would’ve happened if he’d left empaths alone—”
“Evan, be silent or I’ll pull this trigger just to shut you up.” Charles gestured impatiently at Cedrick again, his gaze on Reece. “I know when I’ve found a pressure point. I’ve dealt with more of your kind than you can imagine. How do you think we discovered empaths can become corrupted in the first place? That wasme, my research, nearly four decades ago.”
Four decades?“We’ve only had one generation of empaths,” Reece said with another pulse of anger. “How old was the empath you experimented on?”
“Ten,” Charles said unapologetically. “We thought it’d be better to start young, to see if we could acclimate the pacifists to violence so we could find uses for empaths in the military. Imagine our shock when we discovered so much more.”
He pressed the gun into Grayson’s temple, metal against skin. “But that’s all ancient history. In the here and now, you’re going to provide us with another new data point.”
Reece ground his teeth. He wanted to tell Charles to go straight to hell, but his gaze was locked on the gun against Grayson’s head. “What exactly are you asking me to do?”
“Must I repeat myself?” Charles’s gun never wavered. “Bring. Cedrick. Back.”
“How do you not understand?” Reece bit out. “What you want is impossible—”
Lie.
Reece’s eyes went wide.
Charles cocked the gun. “Make it possible.”
