“Because he’s going be useful.” Alex’s voice had an edge of anger to match theirs. “Aren’t you, Holt?”
“Yes, sir,” Traynor said eagerly. “I was careful never to get details about the Polaris experiments from Victor, you know. Plausible deniability is very important in our field.”
“What about the details of the experiments on the Grayson brothers?” Reece asked, cold and quiet, before he could stop himself.
Alex glanced at him. There was no way the other two empaths hadn’t guessed at Reece’s complicated feelings where Evan Grayson was concerned, but Alex only looked back at Traynor expectantly.
“I signed off on those,” Traynor said earnestly. “Charles said I needed to. But I was careful not to ask questions or get details there either.”
Reece’s blood pressure was high enough he swore he was seeing a red tint to his vision. “Charles?”
“Charles Stone,” Traynor clarified. “He wanted to know if corruption was a fixed state or if a corrupted empath’s powers could be increased through additional trauma.” He leaned in and added, “It’s tough to find something that could further traumatize an empath who’s already corrupted, but Charles knew the Grayson family had been close to each other and thought using Alex’s brother might work. And given Evan hashis enhancements and is able to withstand significantly higher amounts of pain—”
Reece had to go or Traynor was going to wind up a bloody corpse on the floor.
He shoved off the wall and didn’t stop, his feet taking him straight out the French doors and onto the deck, then down the stairs to the lawn that rolled down to the lake’s edge. He crossed the lawn and stepped out onto the dock, shoulders heaving from the force of his breaths, gaze fixed on the green hills on the other side of the water and the houses dotted in among the green. People going about their lives, no idea Reece was here, drowning in fury, enough empathic power burning through him to ensnare anyone unlucky enough to be nearby—
Before he’d meant to, Reece had yanked his phone out of his pocket. His fingers moved on autopilot as he opened his text messages with Grayson, scrolling up and up, to the picture of him in Reece’s bed. He stared at Grayson’s face for a long moment.
And then he hit Call.
It rang several times, the toneless drone tinny and distant against the vastness of the lake and cloudy sky above. Then, finally, the familiar deep drawl floated up from the phone. “Grayson.”
Voice alone wasn’t going to be enough. “I want a video call,” Reece snapped.
There was a pause. “What?”
“Alex gave you super hearing. I know you heard me.” Reece’s voice was still too low, too rough. Tension was vibrating under his skin, forcing him to pace as he spoke.
“Why?”
“I got my reasons,” he said, mimicking Grayson’s drawl. “Isn’t that the bullshit nonanswer you usually give? You keep bragging that you’re not scared of me, so put your camera on and prove it.” His voice broke as he said it, sharp as cut glass.
There was another pause, a longer one.
Then the line cut out in Reece’s ear.
A few seconds went by. His fingers tightened on the phone, but then it began to ring again with an incoming video call.
Reece hit Accept, and Grayson’s face filled his phone screen.
“This proof enough for you, sugar?”
Reece’s fingers tightened on the phone for a very different reason. Grayson had cleaned up at some point, jaw shaved and hair styled, though his hazel eyes were still bloodshot and rimmed with dark circles underneath. He was obviously filming himself from the driver’s seat of the Smart car, head nearly at the roof and broad shoulders blocking most of the view, but the background noise held the telltale sound of cars zipping ceaselessly past. “Are you on I-5? While usingvideo? Evan Miguel Grayson—”
“You’re the one who asked for this. And I pulled onto the shoulder before calling you back.” Grayson was staring at him. “I wouldn’t’ve expected that you knew my middle name.”
Reece hadn’t expected the old traffic lecture to fall from his lips. He shook himself irritably. “Yeah, well, just because you don’t know me at all doesn’t mean I have the same problem.”
Grayson sat back in the seat. “Point taken,” he said. “You didn’t kill Smith, and I owe you an apology for believing that frame job.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t apologize yet,” Reece said lightly, the dagger’s edge still in his voice. “I don’t think murder is off the table at all.”
He stepped out onto the dock, feeling raw and exposed under the endless gray sky above. But his blood pressure had dropped a point or two the moment Grayson had come into his sight, whatever stupid brain cell that still cared about Evan Grayson calming the moment he saw the familiar face, whole and unharmed.
On the screen, Grayson tilted his head. “You planning to turn on your camera?”
“Maybe I’mplannin’on just watching Dead Man TV.”
