Perfect Ruin (Unyielding #2)(2)

She was talking about killing Deck. I took my time answering; a hasty reply would be ruled as suspicious. “No. I think that would be foolish when we may be able to use him yet.”

She pursed her red, drawn-on lips together. “Yes. True. I hate to eliminate potential operatives. Once the drug is stable, then we can reconsider our options. Connor has become very… reliable and we need more like him.”

I laughed to myself. Operatives? It was a kind way of saying killers.

“What about the farm?” The compound where I’d grown up. Where kids were conditioned to be like me—cold killers. We needed the f*ckin’ location. We didn’t even know what country it was in.

I waited while she toyed with me by remaining quiet. The bitch liked to constantly test me, but the handlers at the farm had trained me to be patient, emotionless, a machine that had no attachments and no feelings.

The pits were the worst. Thrown in a deep hole in the ground for days with no food, or water, freezing at night, sweltering during the day, never knowing how long you’d be there. I’d learned to escape into my mind and not return until the ladder lowered and I was taken out. The ‘pit’ was worse than any physical torture, and the faster you conquered the test, the less time you spent there.

“The farm is none of your concern.”

But it was. She just didn’t know it.

Only three board members knew its location: Mother, a Las Vegas hotel mogul, Peter Dorsey, and one other I didn’t know. He’d remained anonymous, and I was betting he was responsible for overseeing the farm.

The man had been at my sister’s public torture a few years earlier when she tried to disappear after an assignment. He’d kept in the shadows with a hat low over his face, but I recognized the two gold necklaces he wore. One had a cross on it and the other a large emerald. I’d seen a man wearing the exact same necklaces when I was eight or nine years old while living at the farm.

He’d stood looking into the pit, hat low to shield his identity. I remember his hand at his side, index finger and thumb rubbing together the entire time he watched me. I also remember the necklaces swaying side to side as he leaned over the pit. I’d been pretty delusional after three days in the pit, hot as hell, barely able to stand. But when I saw the same necklaces years later, I knew it was him.

“We won’t need the farm if we have the drug,” I said.

“We will utilize both.” Fuck. “Children are easy for him to acquire and he uses them for another purpose. The arrangement works nicely. The farm will remain.”

“And who is him, Mother? Don’t you think it’s time I know who all the board members are?”

She licked her lower lip, eyes narrowed as she contemplated. “That’s not my decision. It’s his.”

“So, he calls the shots. Not you.” Her back straightened. I knew she wouldn’t like that. Mother always wanted to be the most powerful.

“Of course not. But he runs the farm and other rather delicate activities. It is better he remains anonymous for everyone. We’d rather not have to relocate the farm again after the last breach.”

Tristan had been the breach. The fifteen-year-old kid who escaped the farm was now the multi-billionaire owner of Mason Developments, who had worked his entire life to get to this point and take Vault down. It was his jet that waited at the airport in France, pilots on standby to get us back to Toronto as soon as I was done here.

I couldn’t press the issue. I needed something more important from her.

She pushed back her wooden chair with the plush, blue velvet backing, and, in a slow, elegant glide, she crossed her legs. I learned her movements and I was a lot like her, playing the cool unaffected person with genuine charm. Except, I did have charm. She was just a bitch playing the part.

Finally, she said, “You’re here because of the girl.”

It was a statement and the correct one. I was here because of London. I’d never willingly see Mother unless I had to and she knew it.

I’d still be the numb, unemotional killer the farm made me if I hadn’t met London. Mother thought we were more dangerous if we had no attachments, no feelings toward anything or anyone.

She was wrong. I was a lot more dangerous now because I had something to lose.

“Yes. It’s time we get this out in the open, Mother.” Because it may be our last opportunity. “I clearly remember telling you a few years ago that I’d look after the situation and I did. She wasn’t going to the police. But you had to go behind my back and make it your situation. I gave her father two months.”

“He knew the deadline and he was delaying. And Kai, that was years ago. It no longer matters.”

Oh, it f*ckin’ mattered. “We needed the drug. He needed two more months. You agreed to give him that.” She didn’t say anything. “Then after a week, you took his daughter and shipped her off to Raul. In f*ckin’ Mexico. Dr. Westbrook was under control.”

The corners of her lips curved upward and despite the urge to smack her across the face, I met her with a smile of my own.

“I didn’t realize you knew where we sent her. Interesting.” She full-out smiled, flashing her pearl-white teeth that matched her choker necklace. “Did you go see her, Kai? Fuck her as a slave?”

I did go to Mexico and try to get her out, but shit went wrong and I lost her then spent the next two f*ckin’ years searching for her again. Of course, Vault didn’t know that. “We don’t deal with men like Raul. And you don’t interfere with my work.”