Forsaken Duty (Red Team #9)(22)

“But until that time,” Owen continued, “perhaps we should focus on getting Augie back. What can you tell me about the circumstances surrounding his abduction?”

Addy tightened her hold on the blanket. Augie had been gone three years now. Three long years. It was her own fault they’d taken him. Her husband had used him as an incentive for her good behavior…and participation. But when she’d gotten pregnant a second time, she started to fight back. That had only made things worse.

Thinking of those dark days made her physically ill. “It’s my fault they took him. I wasn’t a fit mother.”

“What happened?”

“I can’t—I can’t talk about it.”

“I haven’t known you long as a mother, but the little I’ve seen tells me you’re a wonderful parent.” He paused. “It isn’t because you were unfit that they took our son away.”

“Yes, it is.”

Her fear, her fight, her resistance, her tears, her screaming, her bruises…all of those things had fed her bastard husband’s sick appetites. Even her threats against him had had their own reward for him. But her complete cessation of any sort of participation, no matter what, had cost her Augie.

At her continued silence, Owen reached for her hand, twining his fingers with hers. She should feel revulsion at his touch, but she didn’t. It felt like sunlight filling her, a warmth that seeped into her cold body from their joined hands. She pulled free. She knew who he was. What he was. He was no friend to her, nor had he ever been.

Her seven years of hell at the hands of her husband had brought other surprises. Allies she’d never expected to make. They’d tried to help her, though it was her own fear that kept her from accepting their assistance. They were enemies of her husband, incentivized by different objectives than he, but even they had confirmed what Cecil had been telling her: Tremaine is King.

That was why she’d never reached out to her brother. He and Owen were friends. Brothers, really. And since she already suspected her father was in collusion with the Omnis for the way he let them take her and keep her, having her husband’s jeers confirmed by his enemies reinforced her need to stay separate from her family.

It wasn’t until her husband had begun threatening Troy that she had reconnected with her brother. He said their father sent him. She doubted that, but better the enemy you know… Her brother had helped her. He’d negotiated her divorce and settlement. He’d gotten the bastard she’d married out of her life, but that didn’t mean he’d gotten her out of the Omni world.

Owen shifted, bringing her back to the present. “It wasn’t your fault.”

No, it wasn’t. It was his, but she wasn’t going to antagonize him by stating that. She had to play the game. She had to keep her emotions calm. “Where did they take him?” she asked, switching his focus from reliving her son’s abduction to what happened to him.

“They put him with a group of watchers that lived not far from my team’s headquarters. That group went missing, so I don’t know where they are now.”

Addy studied him. She doubted he’d had the same testing done on him that she had. Why would he? It was risky. She wasn’t yet certain she would survive it. Many of those in the clinical trials died. Her brother had told her that was why he was already looking for the prides; he didn’t want them to be Omni lab rats. He’d negotiated her ownership of this property because he wanted a location where he could build the barracks for the watchers and give them a safe place to be…and where he could observe them in case they had been subjected to the same experiments she’d undergone.

She’d survived what they’d done to her. So far. Though sometimes she wondered if hers would just be a slow death. For now, those tests meant some significant changes were occurring in her physiology. Some of the changes she appreciated. For instance, not only did she heal quickly, but her night vision was enhanced. That heightened capability now let her see Owen’s face clearly, even in the dark hallway where they sat. And what she saw was infuriating. He was so thorough in his acting, that even in the dark, when nothing was clear to normal eyes, the concern on his face looked genuine. It was all part of his act. He couldn’t sound genuinely concerned without his face reflecting the same emotion.

“You mentioned your team…what team is this?” she asked. She’d learned the hard way to tuck away little kernels of info for future use.

“Guys who were in my same unit in the Army. Some from my group, some from later groups.”

“The same unit that Wendell was in with you?”

“The same. That unit is shutting down. I’ve opened a private security company, and I’m hiring many of them as they separate from active duty. I’ve mentioned my cousin, Val Parker? He’s working for me now. As are a few dozen others.”

“I see. And what is it that your security company does?”

“A lot of things, most of which I can’t discuss. However, our main objective at the moment is to uncover—and destroy—the Omni infrastructure.”

Addy huffed a disbelieving laugh. “Why would you do that?”

“Because the Omnis are involved in international and domestic terrorism. We’re working with the FBI. We’re afraid they’re perfecting some sort of biological weapon. We’ve recovered one group of people on whom they were testing a new variant of smallpox.”