“Ella was in on it. She was being used by them. As an agent. Our initial instincts were correct.”
Leo chews once or twice, staring into the very particular abyss that belongs only to him. Then he gets up and strides away again. A moment later, there is another sound of crashing and smashing. Two things this time.
He comes back a moment later, sits down, and resumes eating. I also resume talking.
“She’s in on it. She’s been in on it from the beginning. They arranged her initial meet with Teddy, I assume. And though she was sad about that, apparently, she drugged me and she had mepicked up by his men. And you, Leo. You got drugged, right? She left you cuffed to a bed. That’s psychotic behavior, unless…”
“Unless?” Leo lifts a brow at me.
“Unless she intended to have someone pick you up. I think if Aiden hadn’t gotten to her before she made contact with her handler, you would have woken up in the same place I did. I think she was going to go through us one by one. We all decided to chase her after we saw her at the cemetery. What if she was smart enough to bait us all in that one meeting? She found us at a vulnerable moment, and she made an impression. Then we all found her, one after the other. And we took her, or did we?”
Aiden listens to me, nodding slowly. His expression is one of calm malevolence and complete control.
“Where is she now?”
“I put her in your kinky little cage room,” I say. “I didn’t want her getting loose before we had a chance to talk. She came with me willingly, but it’s safe to say we cannot trust her. She works for the enemy. I don’t think she wants to, but I think he’s in her head.”
“Well,” Aiden says flatly. “Just as well none of us have fallen in love with her, right, Leo?”
“You think I fell in love with a woman who dosed me on psychosis-inducing meds and left me to die in a cabin in the woods?”
“I think that’s your love language.”
Leo gives me a death stare, further proving my point.
CHAPTER 11
Aiden
Killing BP is easy. Barely an inconvenience.
I do not know why the fool would have taken such a direct shot at our family. I understand even less why he thought Luke was a target for being turned. I suppose anyone looking on from the outside might have identified Teddy as being feckless, and Luke as being rebellious, but to think those qualities made it possible for them to turn against their own blood indicates a complete misunderstanding of what our family is.
BP’s murder takes less than ten minutes to arrange.
I call in a few of the men we’ve worked with before in our security division and brief them on the necessity to deal with BP. Having someone killed is surprisingly easy these days. There’s so much of it going around, billionaires being murdered by orcas half the time, that nobody will miss BP. We’ll tell them his car was overrun by orangutans or similar.
The young lady is a different matter.
She could be killed, of course, but that is not the preferred result for any of us, I think. She has been trained before, and in all likelihood, can be retrained.
Unfortunately, the small amount of time I took to arrange the assassination of our greatest enemy has also allowed Leo to try to take matters into his hands.
I find him in the room where I keep my cage. I’ve had quite a lot of fun with it over the years. Keeping someone captive behind bars is quite different from holding them loose in a room. Some people quite enjoy it after a while. They feel secure in the smaller space, and free of the burden of decision making. Some people crave helplessness. Others lose their minds the moment they are put in there and do not regain them until they are free. I enjoy both outcomes.
Ella seems calm. But that is typical for someone who has had to deal with terrible things happening over and over for the bulk of their lives. I wonder if I might not be able to cage train her so she remains both captive and contained for the rest of her days, emerging only when she is to be used.
She must be punished for her role in Teddy’s death. We cannot simply let that go. The resentment would fester and her guilt would multiply, and in the end…
“I’m sorry!” she whimpers. Very convincing performance, really. Unfortunately for her, everything she says and does now must be considered from the angle of performance.
I step into the room, where my brothers are already in session. Ella remains in the cage, looking grateful for the bars between her and Leo. Luke is at the back of the room, lounging against the wall watchfully.
I need to speak with him, uncover more information about this kidnapping. But first I will ensure that nothing too untoward happens between Leo and Ella. Leo’s pride was already stung from being bested, and now he discovers he has another reason to take some kind of vengeance on her? There is great danger afoot.
“So you were responsible for Teddy’s death,” Leo is saying.
“I wasn’t responsible,” she’s saying back. Her voice has an emotional tremor, but that could simply be from fear. Hard to tell guilt from fear sometimes. Takes a while to discern between them. But we have time. A lot of time. We have forever.
