Perfect Ruin (Unyielding #2)(78)

She placed her hand over mine. “I’m glad your sister’s safe.”

Vic raised his voice and drew my attention away from London. “He’ll kill any of us the first chance he gets. He’s a maniac.”

“Then we need to find out everything we can about this drug,” Deck said.

Deck looked at me.

“Don’t know any more than you do. It was kept confidential. Connor was their guinea pig, but Mother said it’s almost stable. Chess says it’s not.”

“Doesn’t sound like Connor’s rage is from an ‘almost stable’ drug,” Deck said.

Vic threw his bottle of water into the sink. “So, he stays like that? Chained to a wall in a basement until he dies? He’s better off dead.”

London shifted in my arms. “It could be withdrawal from the drug.” I let go of her hand and slid my palm down until it rested on her hip. “If his body needs it, like an addict’s, that might be why he’s out of control. When he….” She paused and glanced at me before continuing, “Connor was the one who took me from Kai’s house.” Fuck. He was the reason my girl had been in Vault. “He was calm. Controlled. Almost too controlled. I remember thinking he was like a machine.”

Deck crossed his arms over his broad chest. “Okay, he’s in withdrawal. Where does that leave us?”

“If I can look at the formula, maybe I can help,” she said. “Or not. It’s possible he needs the drug or—”

Deck grunted and slammed his fist into the fridge.

She didn’t have to say it. If Connor didn’t get the drug, it was possible he’d die.

“The lab,” Vic stated.

“They’ll be watching his lab by now,” I said. “And London’s father.”

“But we need to get to my dad,” London said, looking up at me.

Fuck, I had to tell her. Soon. She had to know her dad was dying of cancer, but she’d been through so much already and telling her now didn’t seem like the time. I didn’t know if there would ever be a time.

“We need the drug for two reasons,” I said. “Dorsey will want the formula. We have something he wants, then he may give us what we want in return. And if London is right, it may be the only thing to keep Connor alive. We need to find a way into the lab.”

“I can use the old tunnels,” London said. “They were used to go from one building to the other in the winter months, but they started to collapse and so they were deemed unsafe and were closed off a decade ago.”

“How closed off?” I asked.

“They locked the doors to the stairs, but I don’t know what else they did, if anything. I don’t even know if they are even passable anymore. They could’ve collapsed. But if they aren’t, I can get into my dad’s lab from there without anyone seeing me. If the drug is there, I can find it. I need someone to come with me who can hack into his computer and get the files for the formula.” She paused. “And my father. If he’s there, we can get him out.”

This was my London. She’d been through hell and yet was volunteering to go back into a potentially dangerous situation. But she didn’t know the first thing about combat. She was a f*ckin’ scientist, and I wanted her to stay that way, not become what I was. “You’re not going.”

She tensed in my arms. “I’m the only one who can get into the lab. I have fingerprint access.”

“No.”

“Yes. And you have no say in what I do.”

Vic cleared his throat and from the corner of my eye, I saw his lip twitch.

“Oh, baby, you are way off base if you think that.” She tried to get off my lap, but I tightened my hold. “If Vault is watching the place already, which I suspect they are, they won’t hesitate at killing you,” I shot back.

Vic said, “She won’t go alone. Tyler can go with her. He’ll hack the computer.”

“Tyler and Josh will be gone for days,” Deck said. “By the looks of Connor, he doesn’t have days.”

There was no chance I’d let her go in without me and I was good with computers, but I knew one person who was better. “Chaos.”

All eyes went to Deck. The man had been protecting Georgie all her life and he wouldn’t like the idea of her going in. But Connor was his best friend, and Georgie’s brother.

Deck shook his head. “That’s not an option.”

“And this isn’t your decision. You forget who’s running this operation,” I said.

“And you forget you’re outnumbered,” Deck retorted.

I smiled. “True. But the difference between you and me is that I don’t give a f*ck if Connor dies and you do. So, I suggest if you want him to live, Chaos goes in.”

But what I said sat uneasy with me because I knew Chaos would be destroyed all over again if her brother died. I’d seen her devastation when she was sixteen; although at the time, I didn’t care. “We get the drug, the files and then we have something Dorsey wants.”

London stiffened. “And my dad?”

Deck met my eyes. There was no love lost between us, but we walked the same path now, although we’d always be on opposite sides of the fence. “It needs to be dealt with,” he said.