“Sabin.” She took a step toward him, but Dom held her back. “Are you okay?”
“I am functional.”
Functional. Not okay. Not fine. Functional.
Oh God. What had they done to him?
Dom slid the case forward, placing it on a crate between them and Raines. “The Lazarus Protocol. Complete and intact.”
Raines nodded, and Cade stepped forward. He opened the case without looking at either of them, running a scanner over the cylinders. He’d always been good at this — at stripping a situation down to its functional parts and ignoring everything else. Apparently, that extended to his own family.
“Cade.” Dom’s voice was flat, but underneath, she heard the barely controlled fury.
Cade didn’t look up from the scanner. “Dom.”
“That’s all you’ve got.”
“What do you want me to say? It’s done. It’s been done.” Cade finally lifted his gaze to them.
Vivi expected to find the robotic sheen that was now in Sabin’s eyes, but there was nothing like that. He wasn’t under Praetorian control. He was here by choice.
Her hand found Dom’s wrist and squeezed a warning. His pulse was running too fast under her fingers.
Would the fake pass inspection? Daphne had promised it would, but if Raines had better equipment than they anticipated...
Cade held the scanner up, showing Raines the readout. “Preliminary verification checks out.”
“Excellent.” Raines took the case from Cade. “Well done, Ms. Cavalier, Mr. Wilde. You’ve completed your mission admirably. Now, as promised, your brother returned safe and sound.”
He stepped aside, giving them a clear path to Sabin. But the gesture felt like a trap, and the smile on Raines’s face confirmed it.
Still, she couldn’t walk away. Not when Sabin was standing right there.
“Sabin?” she tried again, taking a tentative step forward. “It’s me. It’s Vivi.”
Up close, the wrongness of her brother was even more apparent—no fidgeting, no half-smile, no spark of mischief in his eyes. The scar above his eyebrow from a botched job in Madrid was still there, but the man who’d laughed about it afterward, who’d clinked glasses with her in celebration despite the blood still seeping through his bandage, was gone.
She reached out, her fingertips hovering an inch from his arm, afraid to touch him. Afraid he might feel like a stranger.
“What did they do to you?” She finally touched him, her hand closing around his wrist. His skin was warm, his pulse steady, but he didn’t react to her touch at all.
“We improved him,” Raines said, circling them like a shark scenting blood. “Dr. Cook’s conditioning program is quite remarkable.”
Dom moved closer, positioning himself where he could see both Raines and the guards. “You brainwashed him.”
“Such an imprecise term.” Raines waved a dismissive hand. “We gave him purpose. Clarity. Freedom from conflicted loyalties.” He paused beside Sabin and placed a hand on his shoulder. “He believes he’s always served Praetorian. Don’t you, Sabin?”
“I serve Praetorian,” Sabin confirmed without inflection.
No. This wasn’t her brother. This wasn’t the man who’d protected her since they were children, who’d gone to prison rather than let her take the fall, who’d spend his whole life keeping her safe. This was a shell with his face, programmed to parrot loyalty to people who had tortured him.
“The conditioning takes about a week,” Raines continued, his tone clinically detached. “First, we strip away the subject’s existing identity—their memories, their allegiances, their emotional connections. Then we rebuild them according to our specifications.” His eyes glittered with unsettling pride. “Your brother was quite resistant. Impressive, really. Most break in half the time.”
Vivi’s stomach churned. That was why Raines had given them a week to infiltrate Villa Pandora. He needed the time to break her brother down, erase who he was, and replace him with this hollow puppet. She wanted to scream. Wanted to launch herself at Raines and tear out his throat with her bare hands. Instead, she kept her voice level, kept her fingers wrapped around Sabin’s wrist.
“You’re lying,” she said. “This isn’t real. It can’t be permanent.”
“Can’t it?” Raines raised an eyebrow. “Perhaps a demonstration is in order.”
