“I’ve heard of Prey Security, but I thought they had more integrity than to come after an innocent person for someone else’s crimes,” Rose said.
“Little ladybug, Prey doesn’t know we took you. We will do whatever it takes to get to your brother, including betraying our boss, a man who has given us everything we needed to survive these last six years.”
“Including using me. Making me once again suffer at my brother’s hands, even if it’s through you.”
December 28th
10:11 P.M.
Why was she always the pawn?
Unwanted by her parents, unwanted by her brother, manipulated into becoming the person she was through torture and neglect, and now punished because her brother was a psychopath with delusions of grandeur.
For once in her life, she just wanted to be Rose. Wanted to matter just because she was herself, a human being, deserving of love and affection. Never had she wanted to be her parents and Ridge’s little scientist robot, existing only to serve their goals. Neither did she want to be used by Steel and his team to get their revenge.
When did she get to just be herself and live her own life?
“You were all we had,” Dragon said with a shrug, like her very existence was inconsequential.
Anger sparking, she glared at him. “If anything, I should be the one who gets to use you to seek revenge on my brother. After all, you said you only met him ten years ago, back then I would have been thirteen, Ridge had been raising me for nine years already. I’ve done almost double your time suffering at his hands.”
The large hands massaging her feet stilled for a moment, and she got the feeling Steel didn't like hearing that he and his team weren't the only ones who had been victims of her brother. Dragon, on the other hand, merely narrowed his eyes at her.
“How do we know you weren't in on everything your brother has done?” he demanded.
That was a ridiculous enough question that it absolutely earned the eye roll of all eye rolls. “Yeah, I hear the military employs a whole lot of thirteen-year-olds. Honestly, I can't believe you were all stupid enough to think a man like Ridge cares about anybody other than himself, and anything other than his own goals.”
“We were desperate,” Steel said like that explained away everything.
But it didn't. It didn't explain away the fact that she’d been kidnapped, locked up in a windowless cell with no furniture and no toilet except for a hole in the floor. Been starved and dehydrated, tortured with hot and cold, whipped, and then almost buried alive. Okay, the last had been instigated by herself, but of course she was going to try to escape when they were holding her prisoner.
Trailing a finger along the bandages circling her wrist, she looked Steel dead in the eye. “Oh, you were desperate. Guess that makes it okay then. You want revenge on my brother for doing what he did to you, which granted, is totally messed up, and I have no arguments with you that you deserve it, but going after me only makes you the same as him.”
Steel winced, and she felt the tension in the room rise several notches. It probably wasn't wise to taunt her captors, but honestly, Rose found she’d reached the end of her rope, and apparently, what she found there was a complete lack of care about anything, including what happened to her.
“Just because you might not have been in on it when you were thirteen doesn’t mean you aren't now,” Dragon said defiantly.
“Clinging to that to make yourself feel better?”
“We have no proof you weren't working with him,” Dragon said.
“And using editing romance novels as a cover?” she asked, laughing at the absurdity of it all. “Look, I’d love to say I'm shocked to find out what my brother did, but the truth is I'm not. Ridge has always been psycho, and he’s always wanted to find out if he could manipulate DNA. When you find my brother, you can kill him. I don’t care. Actually, that’s a lie, I do care. I know I'd sleep easier knowing he’s dead. But using me to get to him won't work.”
“You're his sister,” Dragon insisted.
“And you're his creations. Using yourself as bait would work better.”
“We talked about that, but he’ll know it’s a trap,” Steel explained.
“He would have known using me was a trap, too.”
“But we were hoping he would have risked it to save you.”
“Then you hoped wrong. Why would Ridge care about saving me when he spent almost a decade and a half abusing me?” Rose wasn't ashamed to admit that she’d been abused. She understood she’d done nothing wrong, nothing deserving of what her brother had done. She also understood why other kids who had been abused internalized it and blamed themselves.
It was just different for her because her brother always talked about molding her into his creation. He might not have altered her DNA, but he had still played with her head in his attempts to create a protégé.
“That’s why you were so good at withstanding what we did,” Steel said softly, and she wondered if he realized he’d stopped massaging her feet and was now gently caressing them.
