Chapter Two
“The Bell Breeding Center ain’t any different from the places we’ve already hit.” Captain Jagger Hawthorne paced back and forth across the front of the room at a leisurely pace, uncaring of the way his body cut through the flashing images projected on the wall next to him. “If anything, it’s more remote. Given the usual clientele involved, it might be to ensure they have as much privacy as any sick fuck could ask for.”
Roman’s eyes raked in as much detail as possible as the projector clicked through the expected slideshow. The Bell Breeding Center was a crumbling brown brick structure in a thick copse of trees, the grounds shaggy and unkempt beyond a single concrete path that wound around the building, snaking through the tall grass. Each window bore a set of iron bars that would make it impossible for the omegas within to escape even if they shattered the glass. If the windows were like the ones that came before, then several layers of glass made them difficult to break at all. Every inch of those buildings was designed to keep the prisoners within secure.
Roman’s jaw twitched at the thought, and he clamped his teeth tight together as the photo of a man he’d never seen before filled the screen.
Jagger spun toward them, spine straight, hands folded behind his back. “Doctor Richard Barnes. Forty-two years old. Beta male. Began life as a promising OBGYN before being headhunted by the former head of this breeding center to join their team. He runs the place.”
“Ugly fucker,” Mal whispered next to Roman, and he bit down on the corner of his mouth to stifle a slight smile.
Jagger grinned, though, his canines too long, sharp and white in his smile. “Overnight, the center employs about twenty staff members to oversee the patients. You could almost consider this mission to be overkill on our part.”
Ghost spoke up from his corner of the room, his shock of hair blending in with the flat white plaster behind him. “Why’s the boss got us going if it’s this simple?”
“Wants to make sure we scrape the place raw. Collect every single physical file we can find.” Jager jabbed a finger in Silver’s direction. “You hit up every computer in the place before the systems go down, and go hard on Barnes’s personal network. Rip out everything you can before we hit the bricks.”
Silver raised an eyebrow in response. “Is there something about this place we need to know?”
“Boss doesn’t share that kind of information with me.” Jagger shrugged a shoulder; Roman felt the ripple of unease that rolled through the team, but he felt nothing. “Not our monkeys, not our circus. We go in, we do what we need to do, we get out. Extraction will join us after twenty minutes to escort the omegas to safety. Questions?”
Roman raised his hand, and Jagger cocked his head in response. “Is the doctor going to be in?”
“Why?” Jagger smirked. He knew Roman far too well for comfort despite the limited time the two of them had worked together, though Roman had forced himself to make peace with that. What else could he do? “You want that one to yourself, Kane?”
Mal barked a laugh, his head falling back; a casual glance in his direction revealed he stared straight into Roman’s eyes. “Getting bored, Killer?”
“A little,” Roman admitted, and the room erupted into laughter.
When the noise died down, Jagger struck the image of Barnes with a closed fist. “Do your worst. He works late nights on the weekends. You catch him, you have fun, but remember. Fifteen minutes. In and out. Once extraction finishes their work, we torch the place.”
Every mission was much the same. Cut the signal to give Silver enough time to infiltrate the system, then cut the power to cloak their movements. Infiltrate, dispose of the staff, and extract the omegas within so they could be taken to safety. Spread accelerant through as much of the building as possible, then light the place up so that by the time the first responders arrived, there was little they could do but quell the flames. No survivors. No evidence. By the time Roman joined the team, the Vipers were a well-oiled machine. All they had to do was teach him the ropes.
Seventy-two days to be brought to standard, per the boss’s orders, and Roman was more than happy to rise to the occasion.
The photo of Barnes flashed to a floor plan, each window and exit marked as Jagger turned to walk them through the step-by-step. “Standard front entrance, back entrance, and side entrance. Mal, you and Kane take the front. Ghost, I want you and Silver to take the back. Watch his back while he gets whathe needs. Locke and Keay, you two are with me on the side entrance.”
“Yes, Captain,” the room chorused.
He turned to them just as the images cut, leaving the board behind him an empty white slate. No evidence. “The boss has been up my ass about this from the moment he brought it up. Do not fuck this up, or I’ll have your knots for it. Dismissed.”
The interior of Roman’s room within the Viper’s Pit was bland, practical, and impersonal. The smooth gray walls were devoid of nails or screws, given he had no memories worth keeping to surround himself with. His nightstand bore only functional items: a single reading lamp, an alarm clock with a blaring siren-adjacent alarm, and the charger for his cell phone. The device itself was for work only; the boss did not allow any of his Vipers to be anywhere where he could not contact them.
Roman plugged his phone into its charger and sat down on the edge of the mattress, knee bouncing as he fixed his gaze on the top drawer of the nightstand. Another mission meant another chance to let his hindbrain loose, if only for a short time, and he looked forward to it.
Missions were the only acceptable place to lose control, and only if he could regain his composure when his fifteen minutes were up. But for one glorious moment, forebrain and hindbrain could meld together into a cacophony of violent efficiency, maximizing the pain of the target as much as possible. Brutality was the way of the Vipers, after all. Ouroboros trained their branch for bloodshed, and taught them to be cold-blooded killers. The occasional sadistic streak was welcomed;intelligence wasn’t one of the Vipers’ strong suits, aside from Silver, and it didn’t have to be. Their missions were short, simple, and to the point.
The Vipers had recovered the highest number of omegas, secreting them away into the safety of the Nest where they could access the resources they needed to heal. For what it was worth, it struck some pride into Roman’s heart, though very little else reached him.
A quiet knock at the door startled him from his ruminations, and he shook himself back to awareness just as the door swung open. Little privacy existed in the Pit, though he’d become used to it over the long and exhausting months. None of the alphas within Ouroboros could build a pack, all of them too damaged to manage much more than teammates, so decorum was not to be expected.
Mal stood in the entrance to Roman’s room, shoving one broad shoulder against the doorframe like he belonged there. “You up for a round of sparring, Kane? You’re restless.”
“Sure,” Roman muttered. Maybe slamming his fist into something solid and alive would help steady him.
Mal’s onyx eyes narrowed as he straightened up, his nostrils flaring as he no doubt tried to get a read on Roman’s scent. “Something’s got your blood hot. What’s going on?”
“Just thinking about the mission.” About listening to that pig of a doctor squeal while Roman peeled flesh from muscle and muscle from bone.
