Phillips swallowed hard, his eyes darting toward Adam.
Adam leaned back in his chair cocking an eyebrow at him. “Don’t start lying now.”
Phillips’s shoulders shook as his eyes shifted back to Slade. “It wasn’t cyst removal.”
“No shit,” Slade snapped. “Do I look like a fucking idiot? I want to know exactly what was supposed to be done and how.”
“Embryo transfer,” Phillips whispered, then his head fell into his hands as if the shame of what he was doing finally hit him.
Slade’s jaw tightened. “Embryo transfer?”
Phillips nodded, his breathing picking up again. “They weren’t eggs anymore. Not by the time they came to me.”
Sloan’s fangs ached to tear the motherfucker apart, but he refrained giving Slade time to get all the information first.
Slade’s eyes flashed black. “Explain.”
“Mercer’s people handled all of it,” Phillips rushed out as he raised his head from his hands. “The lab work. The fertilization. Everything. I only had access to her records, the clinic, and the procedure room. They told me the embryos would be ready. All I had to do was prep her and transfer them.”
“Fertilized with whose sperm?” Slade asked, each word sharp.
“I don’t know.” Phillips shook his head fast. “I swear I don’t know. They never told me anything about that.”
Adam’s eyes narrowed. “Truth.”
Sloan’s hands curled into fists at his sides.
“Why Becky?” Slade asked, his voice low. “Why go after her?”
Phillips’s mouth opened, but nothing came out.
Slade leaned closer. “Answer the question?” he growled, his eyes growing black again.
“Because of her husband's blood,” Phillips whispered, his eyes going to the door, then toward the large two-way mirror knowing that Sloan was behind it listening to it all.
Slade glanced at the window, then back to Phillips. “You’re right to be scared shitless because Sloan is behind that two-way just waiting for me to give him the signal.” Slade’s expression went cold. “So you best explain that right fucking now.”
Phillips wiped at his face with shaking hands. “They said she had taken his blood and that it was in her system. His DNA changed her somehow and prepared her. My job was to get her body ready to accept the eggs which I did with medication like a normal egg transfer. They believed if the embryos were implanted while his blood was active in her body, the fetus would be exposed to it as it developed.”
“Through Becky,” Slade said, his voice rough.
Phillips nodded, crying harder. “Yes. His blood was key to what they were trying to do.”
A deadly silence filled the room, but Sloan barely heard it. All he heard was they wanted his blood. Not his title. Not his position. Not even revenge. His fucking blood. The blood Becky had taken from him in trust, the blood tied to their bond. Those sickbastards had looked at that bond and saw a way to use her, to turn his mate into breeding something to benefit them.
They wanted his blood...did they? Now they had the full attention of every deadly thing that came with it...his fury.
“They thought it would make the child stronger,” Phillips rushed on, as if he couldn’t stop now that the words were out. “Powerful. They talked about blood exposure, bonding, activation and something about a Demon Slayer 2.0. I didn’t understand half of it.”
“But you understood the money you would get for completing this horrific tragedy on an unsuspecting woman, didn't you?” Slade hissed, then slammed his hand down hard on the table.
Phillips jumped, then dropped his head. “Yes.”
“Disgustingly true." Adam spat, his eyes narrowed on Phillips.
Slade stared at him for a long second. "You were going to implant another man’s child into Becky without her consent because of fucking money. How much?”
"A half a million dollars," Phillips shook his head, sobbing. “I didn’t do it.”
