Warily, Ben pulled out what was in the drawer that Teilo had warned him about. It wasn’t anything harmful if Ben discounted the names on the files and how large they were.
There were other files, with other names, though not as thick. He laid them all on the table and started with the file with the farthest date.
He sucked in a breath and flipped open the file to read. He wasn’t sure how long he’d stood there reading. Only an ache in his neck alerted him to a lack of movement for some time.
His panther wasn’t making much of the information. The awful feeling of dread in the pit of Ben’s stomach was all his right then. The cruelty was mind-boggling, along with how meticulously they’d documented everything from the beginning.
It was easy to see the sick rationale for the ‘subjects’, as they referred to them. Build the perfect assassin. What sick fuck thought of that?Was it the previous council’s lead?
Ben didn’t think so. The dates didn’t marry. They kidnapped Marvin decades before this place started the experimentation. Was this a branch off from that program? Or something else entirely?
The burn at the back of Ben’s throat increased as his gaze lingered on the page. Start with a test tube and play god, mixing DNA in their laboratory. With each subject, they had the idea of creating mirror images so they could easily pass them off as the same person without issue. Yet they didn’t want them to come from the same person. They discarded blood relative shifters, wanting a pure source of DNA so as not to contaminate the experiment.
The documentation was intense and meticulously detailed. They’d documented how they’d hunted for different shifters, who all shared similar physical traits. Doppelgangers. Then the fuckers tweaked their DNA in a test tube to see what the outcome would be.
There were a lot of mistakes. The documents blandly outlined how they had murdered many babies when they didn’t meet their ideal of sick perfection.Seven have survived!
Ben’s blood ran cold. Nausea coiled in the pit of his stomach when he flipped pages.Where were the other five?
“They died,” Nico answered in a flat monotone voice, when Ben must have projected his thought.
Teilo held Nico’s hand, his expression grim. The man who loved to smile was nowhere to be seen.
This is what Teilo was warning me about. Not a physical threat, but what… a threat to my sanity when I learn how they were formed, or to our mating?Not that anything was going to be a threat to their mating. Whether it was a driving need or a perverse form of curiosity, Ben had to know.
Stealing a breath, Ben flicked through the file marked with Nico’s name first. Each test, every training technique, none of which was humane, was there. Printed in neat black ink, explaining every reaction and how they used Nico’s unique connection to Teilo and the reverse.
Nico and Teilo were the scientists’ one true success story—of sorts. They truly were cage brothers, not DNA connected, but somehow able to look identical in human form. True doppelgangers. But somehow, whether the result of the experiments or design, Teilo and Nico were something so much more—mates.
One thing the scientists couldn’t understand or make in a fucking test tube. A magic far stronger than what they’d done created the bond the cage brothers shared. It was a gift from the Fates. One Ben would swear the Fates gave the cage brothers because of the atrocities they’d endured to keep each other safe.
Nowhere in the file were the scientists able to explain it. Just a long, long list of experiments they tried to break the bond. When that didn’t work, the scientists and trainers had used Teilo’s and Nico’s bond to ensure total compliance as the two assassins became the perfect killing machines.
Ben’s eyes ached with the tears that wanted to fall for all his mates had suffered. He dashed a hand over his eyes and glanced at where all his brothers stood. A wall of support. “We can’t take this information out of here.” Ben glanced about, wild-eyed, as he saw the mountain of information.
“This is part of an ongoing investigation,” Kylo snarled.
Ben stomped over to his brother and waved the file he still held in his face. It was that or punch him. And right then, with the fury burning through him, Ben wasn’t sure he’d stop at one punch. “If we remove this information from here, someone could replicate it! They were playing god. Killing fucking babies if they didn’t meet their fucking criteria of perfect.” He strode away, then swung back around, the fury wanting a target. “All for what? To use these babies. Torture them all in the name of science, money, and murder.”
The air wouldn’t go into Ben’s chest. His lungs were being squeezed by the graphic images his mind had painted. Or maybe he was reliving one of his mates’ experiences. Who knew?
All that he could feel was pain, deep, gut wrenching pain. And the knowledge that his mates had lived through that pain—it was their lived experience…
He shuddered violently and slammed the file back down on the desk. “It fucking ends here. The made to order assassins. Exact replicas for backup so no one would know the difference, so they could commit murder after murder for profit and politics undetected.It ends now.Do you hear me!”
Breathless and struggling to keep the shaking under control with his mates watching him so intently, Ben glanced at Mao, his mind already forming a plan. “Can you make this place nothing more than a pile of dust without causing a forest fire?”
Kylo’s mouth opened, and Ben shook his head. “No, you need to find another way to get what you need. The only thing you can have is whatever information you can type into your cell phone on the scientists. In fact, I insist on that, as we’ll want to make sure they can’t fucking share what they did.”
Kylo’s lips snapped together, and he nodded, only his eyes revealing how unhappy he was.
“I can.” Mao glanced over at Nico and Teilo, who’d stood stoic throughout. “Can you show me where you think the weaknesses are in the building? I’m sure you’ve figured them out.”
Nico grunted while Teilo stepped forward. “What do you have to sink a building from its foundation?”
Mao and Teilo walked out of the office, the conversation continuing.
Nico came over and stood next to Ben. His hand rose, and for a second he hesitated, before he ran it down Ben’s arm and intertwined their fingers, squeezing hard.You’ve made the right choice. Nothing good could come of this… information.
