“Totally. Sure, I had some feelings for him, but sometimes things just don’t work out. It’s no big deal, I'm just glad this woman came to me so I could warn him, but it didn't bother me talking to him,” she lied.
What was another lie between family?
They already didn't know she felt like she was dying inside, so they certainly didn't need to know that it felt like sticking a knife through her chest to know that while she was grieving a relationship that never even got off the ground, Dragon didn't miss her at all.
Chapter
Three
January 3rd
10:19 P.M.
So many things were running through his head that Dragon didn't even remember ending the call to Cassandra. The next thing he knew, he was barreling into the living room where the others were all strewn about, watching Rose get her tattoo.
“It’s Cassandra,” he blurted out. “She just called me. Something’s wrong.”
That immediately captured everyone’s attention, and all eyes turned on him.
“What happened?” Steel asked as he sat up from where he’d been lying tucked against the back of the couch, his head resting on Rose’s bare stomach as Lion worked on the tattoo.
Worried as he was about Cassandra and someone knowing of her connection to them, he still had a moment of surprise that possessive, obsessive Steel was allowing everyone in the room to see Rose half-naked. They’d seen the woman completely naked already when they first abducted her and locked her in one of the cells in the basement. To try to torture her into cracking sothey could send a video of her to her brother, Dr. Ridge Gardner, they’d pumped hot air into the room, unprepared to see their captive just strip and suck it up without complaint.
Even back then, it had been obvious that Steel was affected by his little ladybug, but the man had always been a good team leader. Always tried to put them first, even if he blamed himself for not figuring out sooner that Dr. Gardner wasn't being completely honest with them about the experimental program they’d signed up for.
But none of them had seen it.
They’d all been too excited about the prospect of getting enhanced skills that would make them better than everybody else. They’d been cocky young men only seeing the small picture, not the big one. Because if they’d been looking closer, they would have seen that Dr. Gardner was nothing more than a crazed scientist with delusions of grandeur.
“Someone approached Cassandra when she was going out on her nightly run.” There was no point in pretending that he hadn't been stalking the hell out of the woman he’d been drawn to when she was staying with them.
“Approached her?” Blade asked.
“Because of us. About us,” he explained, hardly able to put anything into words because emotion was throbbing inside him. More emotion than he’d felt in the last ten years combined. Anger had been a constant companion, a result of the drugs they’d been given that were meant to erase their consciences, but that was about the extent of what he’d felt.
Now fear, worry, and regret, all tangled together, making it hard to think.
“About us?” Thunder asked, confusion marring his features was echoed in the others’ expressions.
“How would anybody even know that we were connected to Cassandra? To Prey?” Voodoo asked.
“Oh no!” Rose suddenly gasped, shoving to her feet, looking at him with horror and a tiny hint of trepidation. She knew he’d been the one campaigning to continue torturing her to try to get her to break, and then to kill her once they knew she was of no use, so she couldn’t go to the cops or her brother, but he never really would have killed her even if Steel hadn't threatened him. He’d just been working out his anger at turning his back on Cassandra, taking it out on an innocent woman instead of aiming at himself, where it should have gone.
“What’s wrong, little ladybug?” Steel asked, immediately turning his attention to his girl as he drew Rose into his arms.
“It’s my fault,” she said, guilt heavy in her tone.
“How is someone connecting Cassandra to us, your fault?” Steel asked her.
“Because I told my brother that you work for Prey,” she said, her voice shaking, and given that this woman was all but impervious to torture, given the abuse she’d suffered at her brother’s hands while she was growing up, seeing her distressed hit hard.
“You told him what?” Dragon growled, but he wasn't really angry, just afraid for Cassandra, who now had a massive target on her back.
Sensing his rage, Steel shot him a warning glare before returning his attention to Rose. “It’s okay, you couldn’t have known that he’d get away.”
“But you didn't want him to know that because now he has a way to find you. I'm so sorry, Dragon. I wasn't thinking. I believed you guys were coming after him, and we were going to bring him back here so you could torture him and then kill him. If I’d known, I never would have said anything, but that wasn't my intel to share, and I should have kept my mouth shut. I just wanted to not silently take his abuse anymore like I did whenI was a kid. I'm really sorry,” she said, turning imploring green eyes on him.
Rose’s eyes were a darker shade of green than Cassandra’s, but still, staring into them reminded him of the woman he’d just spoken to on the phone. The little rabbit’s fear for him had come through loud and clear. She hadn't been upset that she was accosted by a stranger while alone after dark at the park, she was just worried for him and what the revelation meant for his team.
