27
The First Shot
The observation room was cold and dark and absolutely silent except for the voices bleeding through the intercom.
I sat in front of the monitors, my white dress pooled around me like a shroud, my hands folded in my lap, my eyes fixed on the screen that showed the central conditioning chamber. The camera angle was perfect—I could see both brothers, the empty chair between them, the pink walls peeling in the fluorescent light. I could hear every word, every breath, every heartbeat of the confrontation I'd spent months orchestrating.
The lullaby was still playing, soft and broken, the distorted Brahms winding through the speakers like asnake through tall grass. Neither brother had noticed the cameras. Neither brother had realized they were being watched. They were too focused on each other, too consumed by decades of hatred and rivalry and the woman they'd both tried to own.
Good boys get rewards,I thought, and I smiled in the darkness.
"You've been dosing her," Gabriel said, his voice cutting through the lullaby. "For months. Chemicals. Compliance drugs. The same compounds Father used on his assets in the two thousands. I recognized the markers in her blood work."
"She needed stability." Nathan's voice was cold. "After what you did to her, she needed something to keep her balanced."
"She needed to be free. Not drugged into submission."
"Free?" Nathan laughed, and the sound was ugly. "You don't get to lecture me about freedom. You kept her in a cage. You conditioned her to need permission to breathe. You made her into a pet, and then you abandoned her when it became inconvenient."
"I abandoned her to save her." Gabriel's composure was cracking. I could see it in the way his hands clenched at his sides, the way his jaw tightened. "Your people were closing in. If I'd taken her with me, they would have killed usboth. I left her behind because I believed—foolishly—that she might survive without me."
"She almost didn't." Nathan's finger was still on the trigger, the barrel of his weapon steady. "When I found her, she was falling apart. Couldn't function. Couldn't remember who she was. She spent hours on the bathroom floor, trying to remember how to exist. Your perfect creation, crumbling into nothing because you'd made her so dependent that she couldn't survive alone."
"I know what she went through. I watched the surveillance footage. Every minute of it." Gabriel's voice cracked. "I watched her fall apart, and I couldn't reach her, and it destroyed me. That's why I came back. That's why I sent the music box. I needed her to remember. Needed her to start questioning what you'd done to her."
"The music box." Nathan's expression flickered. "Of course it was you."
"Of course it was me. Who else would know her conditioning triggers? Who else would know the exact arrangement of Brahms that would bypass your compliance drugs and reach the original programming?" Gabriel stepped closer to the chair, his hand resting on its back. "I needed her to wake up. To see the cage you'd built around her."
"The cage I built?" Nathan's voice rose. "I gave her a life. A purpose. A partner who loved her."
"You gave her chemicals and lies and a wedding date designed to lock her into your control permanently." Gabriel's hand tightened on the chair. "You never loved her. You loved what she could do for you. The missions she ran. The competition she eliminated. The way she looked at you like you were her savior while you were poisoning her."
"Careful." Nathan's finger tightened on the trigger. "You're on dangerous ground, brother."
"Don't call me that." Gabriel's voice was ice. "You stopped being my brother the day you murdered our sister."
"Bunny is inventory. Just like all of them are inventory." Nathan's mask slipped, revealing the monster underneath. "You were supposed to understand that. You were supposed to be my partner. Instead, you fell in love with the product and tried to burn down the factory."
Gabriel lunged.
The movement was sudden, explosive—years of suppressed rage released in a single desperate charge. He caught Nathan around the waist, driving him backward into the wall. The gun went off, but the shot went wide, ricocheting off the concrete ceiling with a shower of dust. They crashed to the floor together, two brothers who'd been circling each other for decades, finally locked in combat.
I leaned forward in my chair, my heart hammering against my ribs. This was the moment. The pivot point. Everything I'd planned depended on what happened next.
Gabriel got in two solid hits—his fist connecting with Nathan's jaw, then his ribs—before Nathan's training took over. The older brother had always been the fighter; the younger had always been the thinker. Gabriel's strength was in his mind, his precision, his ability to break someone down without ever lifting a hand. Nathan's strength was in his body, his training, his willingness to do whatever was necessary to win.
Nathan threw Gabriel off him with a grunt of effort, sending him sprawling across the concrete floor. Before Gabriel could recover, Nathan was on his feet, weapon raised, blood dripping from a split lip.
"You always were too emotional," Nathan said, his voice cold. "Too attached. That's why Father chose me to run the business. You couldn't separate your feelings from the work."
"The work." Gabriel pushed himself up on his elbows, his breath ragged. "You call it work. I call it atrocity. We were supposed to be better than him. We were supposed to change things."
"I did change things. I built an empire. I turned Father's small-time operation into a global network. And I used your research to make the product more valuable."Nathan's smile was thin as a blade. "You should be proud, Gabriel. Everything I built was built on your foundation."
"Everything you built was built on the bones of innocent women." Gabriel's voice was raw with grief and fury. "On Monika's bones. On Bunny's bones. On the bones of every girl who passed through the Institute and came out the other side broken."
"Broken?" Nathan laughed. "They weren't broken. They were perfected. You perfected them. And then I sold them to people who appreciated their value." He stepped closer, the gun steady in his hand. "Bunny was the best of them. Your masterpiece. And now she's mine."
