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I bit my lip. Reggie’s life was in the balance. I wasn’t destabilizing this situation just to defend my freckles. But still. What a colossal dick. Even with the little things.
“You looked very pretty,” he offered, as if to placate me. “The dress was inspired. It put all your best attributes on full display.”
“I hate being on full display,” I blurted.
I cringed silently. There I went again. Cass Clarke, quintessential slow learner.
“Do you think I care if you hate it?’’ He sounded genuinely curious.
“I am sure you don’t,” I said. “But why am I on display at all? Why me? I’m the new girl. The youngest. I have no clue, about anything that goes on here. Any of your thirteen other offspring could do a better job in this situation than I could!”
“Actually, no,” he said. “They’re all just a little bit off. Every last one of them. In different ways, which makes it extremely difficult to pinpoint the origin of the problem. Even Nicole had severe problems with impulse control. They function well up to a certain point, but put them under real pressure, and they fizzle. They’re all broken.”
Right, you psychotic dickwad. You broke them. You fucking hack.I gulped the words back. “I’m sure they would do just fine at a dinner like this,” I said.
“They might pass, but they wouldn’t shine. And they should. I chose their mothers very carefully. It does disappoint me. So much time and money invested, and… well, whatever. You win some, you lose some. Jana, for instance. All that training, all those medical degrees, all that pharmaceutical expertise, and look at her. Coming apart like a wet paper bag, right in front of my business associates. Appalling.”
That made me shiver. So calculated, doling out his precious seed only to the worthiest of vessels, and then finding his offspring all wanting. He didn’t even know that they were people. He only saw them as flawed experiments. He’d broken their hearts, but he had no idea, because he had no heart himself.
“They might surprise you,” I said. “People grow.”Except for you, asshole.
“Nicole and Vincent were actually plotting to kill me when they met their untimely demise, did anyone tell you that?” he said, in a conversational tone.
I gaped at him. “They… but… ah…what?”
“They were very piqued that I took Shane Masters away from them. And this after they almost beat him to death, like the undisciplined idiots that they were. So they plotted to kill me, to take control. They thought they could use Ethan Masters, Shane Masters’ brother, to get control of the algorithm. They even took Shane Masters’ little girl as leverage. It wasn’t a bad plot, really. It almost worked. I was always proud of Nicole’s fierce ambition, her ruthlessness. I’m glad to still be alive myself, of course, but I do miss her, vicious, murderous bitch though she was. Vincent was no loss to me, but Nicole was special.”
“I, ah…” I groped for words, but what he’d said had wiped my mind blank.
“What she did not understand, however, was that she would never have been able to use that algorithm without me,” he mused. “In fact, none of my offspring but you would be able to manage it. Besides which, it requires an unthinkable amount of server capacity for all the computations. Only an entity such as, say, a government intelligence agency, could use it. Or someone like me, with my vast resources and my technical skills. Just imagine, if Nicole had been successful in her plot.” He chuckled. “She’d have gone to all the trouble of murdering me for nothing, in the end.”
“She actually… she tried to kill you? Really?”
“That’s not the relevant part of what I’m trying to tell you,” he said impatiently. “Yes, she was a hell-bitch. Yes, she was dangerous and unpredictable. Yes, I still miss her. But now I have you. And between you and me, my dear, you have far more to offer me and my mission than Nicole ever did. Of all my children, you are the only one who can represent me. Nicole was not… well. Properly house-trained, let’s just say.”
“You mean to tell me that I’m your ambassador to the normal world?” My voice cracked in dismay. “That is a sad state of affairs, Mr. Halliwell. I hate to break it to you, but I am all different kinds of weird.”
He gave me his lip-curling smirk. “Perhaps so, but at least you’re original.”
I just sat there, nerves buzzing with alarm. His approval scared me even more than his anger did.
“By the way, Cassandra,” he said, his voice casual. “It has come to my attention that you are showing a keen interest in our visitor on Level Eight.”
I was so startled, my mind just fixated on the euphemism he’d chosen. Visitor? In a cage and a shock collar? That was some sneaky-ass doublespeak if I ever heard any. I stammered a little. “Ah… how did you, ah…”
“Haley informed me that you were enchanted by that naked shower video she compiled. Not that anyone blames you for that. Almost all of my daughters and more than a few of my sons were much struck by his impressive physique. But after, I was told, you dug for more information. Accessed more video. Studied it at great length.”
I let out a breath. So Invisibility Cloak was not yet discovered. He hadn’t copped to the passkey theft. They’d only seen me perving on the Masters shower vid, mooning at the guy through hacked cameras. The damage was limited. “Yes. I… I did.”
“What’s the nature of your interest? Beyond the obvious, of course.”
“I wouldn’t call it interest,” I said. “‘Curiosity’ would be a better word. He’s like, I don’t know. A tragic romantic character. Like the Count of Monte Cristo.”
“As you well know, he’s the key to that algorithm that I need,” he said. “I expect you know his story?”
I was on very shaky ground here. Tiptoeing. “Ah… ah, I did do some?—”
“Of course you did. Forget you ever knew it. I am sure that Shane Masters strikes you as a dashing figure. But his presence here must remain secret. He was never here. Understand?”
