Blood and Fire (McClouds & Friends #8)(139)

“Seed . . . what?” It took him a few tries to get his throat calm enough to choke the words out. “P-p-programming?”

The hand on his cheek petted him. He couldn’t stop shaking his head no, even though memory was flooding back. “You’re the guy Zia Rosa told me about. The one who kidnapped me from Mamma when I was seven. And then Tony leaned on Michael Ranieri to get me loose.”

The man’s face tightened. “I will always regret that,” he said. “I should never have given in to pressure. At the time, the Ranieris were a vital source of my research funding. But this is no longer the case.”

“But what the hell did you want with me?” he exploded.

“Oh, Bruno. You were my inspiration,” the guy said, patting him on the shoulder. “You sparked a new line of research that has yielded fantastic results. You are my shining star, Bruno. My sine qua non.”

“What in the flying f*ck are you talking about?”

Smack, the guy whapped him again, on the temple. “Don’t be vulgar,” the guy lectured. “I don’t like it.”

“I don’t care what you like,” Bruno said.

The man pinched Bruno’s cheek until his thumbnail sliced into flesh, stinging. “You will learn to care,” he said. “It’s time you learned.”

Bruno sucked in a ragged breath at the pain. “Who are you?”

“Oh, Bruno.” The man sounded peevish. “I tested your intelligence when you were a child. I don’t know how much of that potential you’ve realized in adulthood—probably a fraction—but I know you’re capable of answering that question unassisted.” He released Bruno’s cheek, his thumbnail smeared with blood. “If you need a name, call me King. Now put it together. What do you see?” He gestured at Julian. “Addhat to what you learned from Petrie, about the genetic makeup of my lost operatives.” He clucked his tongue. “Terrible waste. You can’t imagine the time, training, and money I invested in those young people.”

But Bruno was still fixated on Julian. “How old is that kid?”

King turned to the boy. “Tell him, Julian.”

“I’ll be seventeen in two weeks,” the young man announced.

Mamma had been cold in her grave a year before this kid was born. Bruno shook his head again. It was data he was afraid to crunch. Conclusions he didn’t want to face. But the mental process ground along without his conscious volition. He fidgeted against his bonds and felt the crackle of paper in his jacket pocket. The autopsy report.

It popped out at him, like a fun house goblin in the dark. “The ovary,” he blurted. “You stole my mamma’s eggs! You pervert!”

“Ah!” King began to clap. “Here’s a glimpse of the Bruno I saw twenty-two years ago. All that potential. Like a nuclear furnace. It broke my heart to see how you turned out. All that potential down the sewer. All that was left of my pride and joy was a foul-mouthed punk with no aspirations that I could see other than seducing as many women as possible. No guidance, no discipline, no vision!”

Bruno listened to the guy’s bitching, searching frantically for connections. “What the f*ck?”

King cut himself off with a wave of his hand. “Excuse my rant,” he said. “It’s been a sore subject for me for decades, and I—”

“Oh, God.” The realization burst painfully in his head, like popping flashbulbs. “Lily’s dad. That’s the connection! He was an IVF researcher, right? He made embryos for you. Out of Mamma’s eggs!”

“Excellent, excellent!” The man beamed. “Yes, that’s what Howard did for me. He harvested the ovum and made me dozens of viable embryos. I paid him very well for the service. He was brilliant, you know. He’d developed preservation techniques ahead of his time. Those embryos are still viable to this day. Amazing.”

Bruno stared at Julian. This boy was his brother, his mother’s son, with that blank stare. Born after she died, twisted and deformed. Never knowing Magda Ranieri’s love or protection.

“You bastard. You cut open my mamma and stole her children,” Bruno said. “How did you get away with that?”

“It was easy. At the time, your mother was too busy worrying about you to worry about her ovary. But she got worried, at the end, when she figured out what I wanted to do with it. She even convinced Howard to be worried. She was so worried, she had to be, well, taken care of.”

“You son of a bitch. I’ll kill you for that,” Bruno said.

The guy was unperturbed. He folded his arms and waited, lips twisted in a half smile. Tapping his foot.

“What?” Bruno exploded. “What do you want?”

“Go on,” King said. “And the rest?”

“With what?” Bruno snarled. “Stealing her organs, kidnapping her potential children, that’s not enough? Aside from murdering her?”

“You’re not tracking,” King scolded. “Don’t tell me you skipped so many eighth-grade biology classes that you have no real grasp of the mechanics of human reproduction.”

Bruno grunted. “Haven’t gotten any complaints so far.”

Smack. The slap rocked his head back. “Focus.” King’s voice cracked like a whip. “I do not appreciate crude sexual humor.”