His smile dims. “You’re not wrong.”
“Trust me, I know. Ma was the only one who made me feel special, but none of that feels real anymore.”
“Clover Song-Smith,” he says, not surprising me. Everyone in the criminal world knows who she is.
“Yeah.” I grin wide. “AKA Clo, the queen of biochemical brainwashing and extreme helicopter parenting.”
He studies me for a second. “You joke about these things easily.”
“If I don’t, I’ll cry. And I’m too cute for that.”
He chuckles, then glances toward the treeline. “I can relate to extreme parenting,” he says. “I’m sure you know my father, Set Adel.”
I get a full-body cringe. That man is legendary in a horrific way. A perfect match for my mom. While Ma was running the West Coast drug empire through Kys, Set’s been running operations across theworld.
“But I don’t want to spend my life following my father’s footsteps,” Idris adds. “To live a life he claims is written in our blood.”
“Yeah,sheesh, that sounds like a cult brochure.”
“Which is why I prefer a different path,” he says.
That gets my attention.
“There’s someone I work with,” Idris keeps going. “She’s refining Kys. Cleaning it. Removing the rotten parts while keeping the good parts.”
“There are good parts?”
“For some people, it heightened focus and strengthened neural pathways. It was never meant to manipulate minds.”
“Well, my mother clearly missed that memo.”
“She twisted it,” Idris says. “Em wants to untwist it.”
I watch the fire flicker. “Let me guess. You need human guinea pigs?”
Idris chuckles. “Yes, we need volunteers who were affected by Kys.”
“So me and other lucky disaster cases?”
He smiles, a little flat. “I wouldn’t say disaster, but yes, we need a dozen to board the ship.”
“A ship?”
Idris nods. “It’ll take place out on the Red Sea.”
“Ex-addicts stuck on a ship floating in international waters?” I scoff. “You know this sounds like the setup of a horror movie, right?”
“She prefers to call it research,” he says. “But yes, we’re aware of the optics.”
I take the flask back and sip. “What’s her name again?”
“Em.” His smile stretches up to pinch his eyes. “She’s gonna change the world.”
My brow lifts. “Whoa, got the hots for her, huh?”
“Is that what it seems?” Idris laughs. “If it helps you decide, Kaye and Damon have invested in our experiment.”
My eyes go big. “Seriously?”
