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The one where he took the weapon and killed Hayes, only to spend the rest of his life knowing he'd deliberately taken a man's life.
Another where he handed Hayes over to OSI and the FBI, then spent years wondering whether prison and disgrace had been enough.
And the last where he hesitated too long and Jordan took the decision out of his hands.
Only one of those endings was something he could live with.
“Let OSI have him.” The relief that sluiced through his body as he said the words told him he’d made the correct choice.
Davenport slowly lowered his weapon.
“I want to know they broke him until he's nothing more than a brittle shell. I want him discredited. I want everything he's ever done throughout his career questioned. I want him to live long enough to watch his name become synonymous with this.” Benny spread his arms wide, encompassing the facility. “With the torture of an American citizen.” Benny held Hayes's gaze as he spoke and watched despair fill the doctor's eyes.
Satisfaction surged through him. Overlander might have done the torturing, but Hayes had known what she was capable of. Despite all his protestations of ignorance, he'd let her continue because he wanted results.
He'd been willing to let Benny be tortured to death just to learn what the human body could survive. Now he could live with the consequences.
Behind him, Jordan made a small sound, and Benny turned. One look at her face told him he'd been right about what she'd wanted to do.
He moved to her and cupped her cheek. “It's the right thing,” he said softly. “For us. For whatever comes next.”
Her gaze shifted past him to Hayes. If she could have killed the man with a look, he'd have been a smoking crater on the floor.
“We're out of time,” Davenport said. “There's another exit past the lab,” he rattled off a five-digit keypad combination. “Use it. I'll doctor the surveillance footage afterward. Beck and I will stay and deal with the authorities.”
“No.” Dev shook his head. “You go with them. I'm the one who brought in OSI and the FBI. I'll hand him over and we'll reconnoiter afterward.”
Davenport looked torn for a moment, then nodded, leading the way down the corridor, the rest of them filing behind him in quick time.
They were nearing the side exit when Benny passed a closed door and felt everything in him go ice cold.
He stopped and turned as if in slow motion, then just stared as dread slithered through his body and his throat began to close, his heart slamming against his ribs as darkness began creeping around the edges of his vision.
It was an unremarkable door, just like half a dozen others they’d passed, but he knew what waited behind it. He saw his fingers closing around the doorknob as if they were someone else’s, then stepped into an acoustically padded room, staring at the stainless steel table centered beneath surgical lights. Saw the long table behind it with so, so many tools of pain. Physically recoiled when his gaze landed on the restraints before dropping to the pristine drain in the floor.
Jordan was beside him in an instant and reached for him, then let her hand fall as if she were afraid of what a human touch might do to him within this place of pain.
“Benito?” she whispered, her voice aching. “What can I do?”
He flailed an arm out, searching for her, and she linked her fingers in his and squeezed, centering him, grounding him, pulling him out of the past and into the present.
Everything that’d happened in this room might terrify him beyond imagining, but he knew just as instinctually that his safe place had always been, would always be, with her.
Behind them he could hear their friends, could feel their concern for his well being as it warred with their need to get out of the building. But he stood for a long moment, and in that moment he saw her face. Overlander. Hovering over him, just those pale blue eyes showing above her surgical mask. “Let’s see how long it takes this time,” she said into a voice recorder hanging from a retractable arm. “Alpha-01, complete kidney removal procedure.”
He staggered and Jordan caught him, pulling him around so his back was to the table. When she caught his gaze, she flinched and he wondered what she saw.
“You remembered her,” she said, and if anything, her voice became more jagged. Because he’d remembered Overlander, but not Jordan, despite all their moments of passion.
With his back to the table, he saw his friends, knew he’d needed to step into this room, so when he walked out, it was behind him forever. He moved forward and she followed until they were in the hallway.
He framed Jordan’s face in his hands just like he had moments ago in the entryway. “I saw her, Jordan, but I reached for you.”
Chapter Fourteen
Jordan would have sworn someone behind her said “aww,” which was, of course, silly considering where they were. But she soaked in the look on Benny’s face and held it close to her heart.
Behind them, voices echoed through the long hallway as the OSI and FBI agents announced themselves entering the building. Dev's voice came through their earpieces as he greeted them.
