John regarded them thoughtfully, studying them one by one as if trying to decide whether they could handle the information. Finally, he looked at Adam and nodded.
“Most of you have probably already figured out by now that I used to work for the DCO,” Adam said. “What some of you may not know is that I was the first shifter the organization recruited and that Frasier led the team I was placed on. In fact, he was supposed to be my partner.”
Trevor didn’t miss the way Adam emphasized the word recruited. From what he’d heard, Adam had been given a choice between a lifetime in a foreign prison where he’d never see the light of day again or working for the DCO. Adam had chosen the latter.
“I wasn’t thrilled with the situation, but I tried to make the best of it,” Adam continued. “At first, it wasn’t as bad as I’d feared. The ten-man team I was on did some good things and stopped some bad people. But then one night in June of 2003, we slipped into a cozy, little mansion outside Roanoke, and everything changed. We’d been told before the mission that the man who owned the house was a cold-blooded killer selling military weapons secrets to China. The plan was to move in and execute him before he had a chance to take any of us down. I admit, killing people was something I was used to, so I didn’t think too much about it. But the moment we walked in and I picked up the scent of children, I knew they’d lied to us.”
When Adam fell silent, John picked up the story. “The house belonged to Walter M. Collins.”
Trevor frowned. “Why do I recognize that name?”
“Collins was an up-and-coming congressman for the state of Virginia,” John said. “While he’d made a name for himself in the House, he was exploring the idea of running for Senate. With his military background, voting record, and charisma, he had a good chance of unseating his rival in the upcoming election.”
“Thorn,” Landon surmised.
Adam nodded. “Thorn sent us in there to execute a political rival, plain and simple. When several of my teammates and I refused to do it, Frasier and the men who sided with him turned on us. Frasier shot me in the back, then wiped out the rest of the team. Worse, he executed Collins, his wife, and their three children.”
Damn. Trevor had known Frasier was a piece of shit, but kids? There wasn’t a level of Hell low enough for a man like him.
“By the time I recovered,” Adam continued, “Frasier and Thorn had convinced everyone I’d gone rogue and killed the Collins family and my teammates on my own.”
“I found out what happened and helped get Adam to safety,” John said. “At the time, we had no proof Thorn was behind any of it, but I had my suspicions.”
“I wasn’t interested in proof,” Adam said, his voice almost coming out as a hiss. “I was going to hunt down Frasier and tear pieces off his body until he told me everything I wanted to know, but John convinced me to do it his way. That’s when I made the decision to start my own organization. Originally, we just intended to keep an eye on Thorn, but now, we watch over the DCO, trying to step in when they do something they shouldn’t and picking up smaller missions they can’t be bothered with. Depending on what you learned, maybe we’ve finally reached the point where we can stop Thorn once and for all.”
Trevor was silent as he let everything sink in. Adam and John had been patiently waiting for more than ten years to catch Thorn doing something that’d put the asshole in jail for life to make him pay for ordering the execution of a politician and his family. Trevor wasn’t so sure he could have been that patient. But now, they knew where Thorn’s new hybrid army was being built, and they knew what he intended to do with them. All they had to do was stop him and make sure the man didn’t weasel out from under all of this.
Leaning forward, Trevor explained everything he, Alina, and Tanner had learned, starting with the video on Thorn’s hybrids.
“They’re nothing like any hybrid we’ve ever seen before,” Trevor said. “Somehow, Thorn’s doctors have figure out how to counteract the rage. While I’m pretty sure they don’t hear and smell as well as shifters—or Tanner and Minka, for that matter—that disadvantage is more than outweighed by the increase in strength, speed, and their ability to withstand injuries. They’re damn near indestructible now.”
When Tanner went on to explain how he learned the location of the farm in North Carolina, Adam stepped in to say he already had some of his people in the area watching the place.
“It’s very well protected,” Adam added. “None of my people could get close without risking detection, but there’s a lot of activity going on. They’re mobilizing for something big.”
“They’re planning to start a war,” Trevor said, telling them everything he and Alina had learned at the warehouse earlier that day.
While everyone was stunned to hear what Thorn planned to do with his squad of hybrids, they were even more shocked when Trevor told them about Ed and Jake.
“Shit,” John muttered. “I thought Jake was perfect for the DCO when I hired him.”
Without knowing exactly how many hybrids they were up against, not to mention the other security Thorn was sure to have there, it was difficult to come up with a solid plan to raid the farm in Millers Creek. They didn’t have much of a choice, though. It was still easier to strike there than try to stop them in Ukraine.
“We’re going to be heavily outnumbered,” Landon pointed out.
“I’ve already got that covered,” John said. “I’ve contacted your former Special Forces team, Landon. They’re sending as many people as they can. I have a helicopter picking them up now.”
Trevor grinned. John was always one step ahead.
They were looking at the maps Adam’s people had made of the farm, trying to figure out how to get in and take down the hybrids when they didn’t know a damn thing about the place, when an alarm suddenly went off.
Trevor looked up to see three big TV monitors in the command center he hadn’t noticed before light up. On them, a group of men dressed in black stormed into an office, automatic weapons blazing.
Adam cursed and ran for the door of the conference room just as Trevor realized the office on the monitors was the same one he and Alina had been in a few hours ago. The people getting shot were Adam’s shifters. And one of the shooters was Frasier.
“Shit,” he said. “They found us.”
Trevor had been worried this would happen. There were too many people and cameras in this part of DC to hide from all of them.
