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“Well, I, for one, never trusted her.” Laura sits with her hands folded in her lap and shakes her head. “The things she would say and do. Wretched girl.”

“What kinds of things would she say?” Rand asks, turning his chair to face her.

“She said that Isa had stolen from me.” Laura scoffs and glances away, frowning, and I lower my gaze to keep from having to look at her.

I could tell her it’s true right now, and clear Nell’s name of at least one accusation, but when I lift my gaze to Rand, he’s shaking his head, the expression on his face a warning.

So I don’t bother. Nell is gone now. I suppose clearing her name is pointless.

Chapter 50

Lucian

The Institute is the one place on the east coast I wish I could set fire to and watch burn. Doing so would certainly spare the country of half its psychopaths. A chill settles across my nape as I walk the halls that, just a few years back, bore witness to my suffering and torment. Now, the place merely serves as somewhere for the Collective to meet, but I don’t think I’ll ever fully erase the harrowing images of my time spent here.

The idea was to prod me into an aggressive state, so they wouldn’t have to explain away a false-negative result in my DNA. By rejecting my sadistic tendencies, I essentially discredit the entire organization, since my lineage represents the most well-studied of any member. There are so many samples of my DNA, sperm, and stem cells stocked here, they could probably begin generating my clones. Unless they already have, and that’s the nature of this otherwise useless meeting.

I reach the door to Friedrich’s office. After a couple knocks, it swings open, and the man himself stands there, wearing a smile that could house a small village.

“Lucian, wonderful to see you! Thank you for making the trip up.” He ushers me inside the office, patting my shoulder as I pass. Prick wouldn’t dare lay a hand on me the way he did when I was sixteen, with as much as I’ve filled out over the years. Not to mention the funding he’d risk losing, if he did.

My unpredictable nature likely puts him on edge, too.

Good.

Nowadays, it’s only a careful placement of his hand on my shoulder. Cautious responses.

Gesturing toward one of the chairs in front of his desk, he makes his way to the other side and falls into his own.

“I’m assuming you have something important to discuss, as you’ve requested face-to-face, rather than a Skype meeting.” I lean back in the chair, wishing I had a drink to numb me from the science bullshit he’ll undoubtedly spew in the next ten minutes.

“You know I don’t trust meetings held over the computer.”

Of course I do. And I was swept over with a metal detector at the front entrance, to ensure that I didn’t have a recording device on me, including my phone. Since it’s not my first rodeo, I left that in the car with the driver I hired.

“The purpose of this is to let you know that I did look into Mr. Boyd’s family history,” he started. “And it does seem he has an incarcerated twin. But the interesting piece in all of this is who he murdered.”

“And who might that be?”

“Their biological father. Who also had a criminal record for assault and the murder of their mother, when both boys were quite young.”

“That sounds like one messed up family tree.”

“Indeed. Which makes Patrick a very curious specimen. I’d love to pick his brain about what he remembers of his childhood.”

I’m sure he would. Literally, with an ice pick. “I take it my vote no longer holds any weight.”

Hands in the air, he smiles and shakes his head. “Now, I didn’t say that. We don’t have baseline studies on him, so much of the data will be inconclusive, anyway. It’s more curiosity on my part. Was Amelia his only offspring?”

I shrug, already beyond my limits of boredom. “As far as I know.”

“We’ll verify that, of course. For now, I’m going to observe before making a decision about him.”

“And this is what you requested an in-person meeting for?”

“Of course not.” He rises up from his chair and shoves his hands into the pockets of his lab coat. “Come with me. I’d like to show you what your generous funding has provided.”

With a quiet huff, I follow him out of the office and down the hallway, toward the elevators I took to get up here. Once inside, he pushes the button to the bottom floor of the institute. A place where all the magic of this shit-show goes down.