He leisurely spun a silver pen between his fingers, watching Emily intently, savoring the distress evident in her eyes.
“Did you really think your little rescue team would outwit me?” His voice held a taunting note.
Emily’s heart raced, but she refused to give him the satisfaction of a response. Her silence, however, spoke volumes.
A cruel smile formed on his lips. “Well, I’m afraid your friends are in our custody. It’s quite a catch, I must say, from what we’ve seen so far from our security cameras it appears we have seven new shifters to use in our experiments. You’ve done well.”
Emily gasped as the true horror of the situation started to sink in. They’d caught Carter and now they were going to hurt him, just like all the rest. Bile rose in Emily’s throat, but she tried to swallow it down.
The weight of her decisions bore down on her. She had hoped against hope that Carter would escape their grasp, but it seemed she had gravely underestimated the facility’s reach.
“What do you want from me?” she asked again, her voice laced with desperation.
Leaning forward, the boss tapped a few papers on his desk, seemingly unimportant, but Emily knew better. “We have a special project for you. A project that requires your particular set of skills. If you cooperate,” he paused, locking eyes with her, “perhaps I could see to it that your friends aren’t... unnecessarilyharmed.”
The threat was evident, and Emily’s mind raced. The gravity of the choice she had to make was stifling. The urge to save those she cared for battled fiercely with her moral compass. She couldn’t betray innocent lives, but the thought of Carter and his team suffering because of her actions was unbearable.
“Why should I trust you?” Emily shot back, trying to summon any semblance of strength she had left.
The boss chuckled, a dry, humorless sound. “You don’t have to trust me, Miss Whitaker. But you should consider the stakes. They’re quite... high.”
She swallowed hard, the weight of her decisions pressing heavily on her shoulders. The room felt oppressively silent, with only the tick of a clock to pierce the tension.
The boss rose from his chair, moving to the window, his back to her. “I’ll give you some time to think,” he said, his tone suggesting that her choices were limited. “Consider wisely.”
And with that, he left the room, the door clicking shut behind him, leaving Emily in a swirling maelstrom of guilt, dread, and uncertainty about the harrowing path that awaited her. But on top of all that, her biggest fear was for Carter and what he would be subjected to because of her and her rash decision to steal that damn key card.
Chapter Eleven
Carter
The dim overhead lights did little to brighten the locked chamber, casting eerie shadows on the walls that seemed to flicker in rhythm with Carter’s pounding heart. The confined space bore down on him, but even more pressing was the thick tension hanging in the air.
Across from him, Max clenched and unclenched his fists, his feline eyes narrowed, while Logan, with his usual stoic demeanor, stared hard at the only door, probably plotting a way to escape. The scent of unease wafted from Toby, and Seb’s massive frame, while typically comforting in its sturdiness, now seemed coiled and ready to spring.
Arlo paced, his restless energy palpable. “We need to find a way out of here,” he stated, the obviousness of his words hanging heavily in the room.
“There’s always a way out,” Carter replied, more to himself than to the group. “We’ll figure it out.”
Despite his words, Carter felt an overwhelming sense of hopelessness. Max had suggested they tell their superiors in the CIA about the facility and their planned liberation of the shifters held there, but Carter had vetoed the idea. He’d been afraid that they would alert the FBI who would have claimed jurisdiction and taken over the rescue mission. Carter had been too stubborn and pigheaded to trust anyone else with his sister’s safety. Plus, as arrogant as it made him sound, he had believed that the seven of them with all of their CIA training and missions under their belt were the most qualified to get the job done. And yetthey’d walked right into a trap. Why had he been so goddamn conceited? If anything happened to his sister, that was on him. If he failed here today, no one else would come for her and their parents would lose them both.
Carter swallowed, thinking of Emily. The sting of her possible betrayal gnawed at him, but despite the predicament they found themselves in, he was loathe to believe that she would have done that to him. But if her superiors had found out about Carter and her efforts to help the imprisoned shifters and had threatened her family to coerce her to betray him, would she have done it to save them? Yes, they shared the mate bond, and their connection was strong, but she still barely knew Carter. It would be naive and foolish to believe she would risk her family’s safety for someone she hardly knew—whatever bond they shared.
Our mate would never betray us,his mountain lion insisted.
He shook the thought from his mind, focusing instead on the situation at hand.
Ezra, leaning against the far wall, smirked, his confidence undeterred. “They must think they’ve got us good, locking us in here like this,” he quipped, his tone a mix of amusement and challenge.
Max stepped forward, placing a hand on Carter’s shoulder, grounding him. “We’ve been in tight spots before,” he reminded him gently.
Seb nodded, “We got out of them, and we’ll get out of this, too.”
The atmosphere, while grim, was saturated with a sense of unity and determination. The shifters, each so different, were bound by a brotherhood that surpassed mere camaraderie. Theytrusted one another implicitly and were prepared to fight tooth and nail to get out. The odds might not look good, but they weren’t beaten yet.
Logan finally spoke up, his voice low and commanding. “Let’s assess our surroundings and look for weak points. We’ve gotten out of worse. Come on, it’s time to take action.”
Ezra chuckled, his carefree spirit seemingly undaunted. “After all, we’re not your average bunch of locked-up guys, right?”
