I lurched up from my chair and started circling the desk. “The money? We were able to cut it off?”
Luis’s smile faded. “No, that stuff is harder. The program will need to work longer to have a chance. No, this looks like something else entirely. I think we’ve got access to the security network of one of their labs. It’s a web-based security cam. The software piggybacked on the internet signal and got us inside.”
“Which lab?” I asked, taking a seat next to Luis beside the computer.
He searched the name on his phone and found it in seconds. “Looks like a drug-testing lab—one of the Monroe Group’s subsidiary medical research branches. It’s in South Carolina, and they’ve contracted with the state to do all their employee drug screenings. Looks like there’s a walk-in clinic attached to the lab. Kinda weird they’d combine the two.”
“Can we scan through the video feeds of the last month?” Maybe this is one of the places they developed the drug they’re using.”
Luis glanced up, thinking for a moment, then said. “I think there’s a file in here with all the saved feeds from each day. Hang on.” He pulled up a file with dozens of thumbnail clips. Other than a time-and-date stamp, they weren’t labeled at all. Luis started clicking through the tiny pictures. “Tell me if any of these look promising.”
I sat and watched as he clicked through the small frames. He was ten slides in when I almost jolted out of my chair. “Stop. Go back, go back. Two or three slides.”
Luis, who’d already gone past the picture I wanted, reversed course and brought up the image I’d seen fly by a moment before. “This one?” he asked.
My mouth was too dry for me to answer, so I nodded. In the tiny picture, I saw something that made my skin crawl. A woman was being held between two guards. The moment the camera took the timestamped photo, the woman’s face was turned toward the camera. I was looking into the face of Maddy’s mother. She hadn’t gotten away then, or maybe she had, and the royals had caught her again. Either way, the date on the video revealed whatever was on the clip had happened about a week ago. I pointed at the screen and swallowed. “Play that. I need to see what’s happening.”
Luis pulled up the clip and hit play. As soon as the video started, the breath whooshed out of my chest. I’d been right. Gabriella was being pulled down the hallway by two large men. “Is there audio?” I snapped. “Turn it up.”
A second later, I heard her cursing the guards. Gabriella twisted and yanked at her arms, but the two men had vice-like grips on her wrists and forearms. One of the men yanked her arm hard and hissed at her. “Stop fighting, damn it. You won’t die as long as you cooperate.”
The men dragged Gabriella down the hallway. They left the screen, but the feed continued on another camera a bit farther down. The men opened a door and tossed Gabriella inside, then slammed and locked the door. After that, the men disappeared down the hall. The feed stayed on the door. Minutes passed with no movement or action.
“Is that it?” I asked.
Luis shook his head. “These cameras look like they’re motion-activated. It shows several more minutes left of the video. Something else has to happen.”
As though the characters in the clip heard him, the two guards reappeared with Viola at their side. My hand clenched into a fist at the sight of her. Viola strode up to the door and slid back a small panel at eye level.
Her voice came through the speaker, distant and tinny. “Good evening, Gabby. How are we?”
“Screw you.” Gabriella’s voice sounded even more distant through the door, but it was clearly audible.
“Oh my. I’m afraid that won’t happen. You are attractive for a woman your age, but I don’t swing that way. My apologies.”
“What do you want from me?” Gabriella asked, her eyes now visible in the small opening.
“It’s not what I want from you. It’s what I wantforyou. Your daughter is the entire reason you’re here to begin with. It’s her you should be angry with, not me. I want you to have your revenge against her. Doesn’t that sound marvelous?”
“My daughter has done nothing to me. You, you psycho bitch, are the one I want revenge against. You’re even crazier than I thought if you think differently.”
Ignoring Gabriella’s outburst, Viola went on as though the other woman had never spoken. “If only we’d gotten the vial from the vault. All this would have been much easier. But I think we’ve discovered a workaround. A secondary plan since our first was unsuccessful.” Viola gestured to the guards, who opened the door and stepped in. The man on the right pinned Gabriella’s arms behind her back, the struggle visible through the door. The second man pulled out a hypodermic needle and jammed it into Gabriella’s neck, pushing the plunger down. Gabriella gasped and twisted away in pain.
The men tossed her to the ground and hit a red button on the wall. A thick glass partition slid across the room, separating Viola and her guards from their captive. Gabriella rolled ontoher butt, sitting up and holding her neck with her free hand. “What did you do? What was that?”
Viola stepped forward until she was framed in the doorway. “We wanted Edemas’s blood. Our scientists had a plan for it, but all we were able to get was Maddy’s blood from the vault. She’s a direct descendant of Edemas, but there’s still very little of his blood left inside her. While less powerful than what we’d hoped for,” she tilted her head, “there was something wewereable to create with her blood.”
Gabriella never had the chance to retort; a scream of surprise tore from her throat as her hand and arm shifted to a wolf’s. She stared at the limb in fascination and surprise. “What’s happening?”
“Maddy’s blood didn’t have every component I needed, but I think we can work with this. Don’t you think?”
Gabriella’s shift started spreading. She called out to her wolf, begging her to stop, but the drug was too powerful. She was shifting against her will. Soon, she’d fully shifted, and a massive gray wolf stood in the center of the room. Instead of looking fearsome and powerful, the wolf had her head down and was whimpering—scared and confused.
“Gabriella? Can you hear me?” Viola asked.
There was no reaction from the wolf, almost like she couldn’t hear her or maybe was too stressed and panicked to acknowledge the other woman. Gabriella’s wolf looked like a fearful, caged animal.
Viola knelt so she was eye-level with the wolf, staring at her through the glass wall. “The poison forces you to shift, but you have less knowledge of yourself, less human reasoning ability. It’s almost like the pure animal you are finally comes to the surface. It’s beautiful, really. With this, we’ll finally show the world what kind of mangy, dangerous, and disgusting creatures you really are.”
