Christine Feehan - Predatory Game

“I get that, Lily.” This wasn’t Lily’s fault. He had to keep reminding himself he was just pissed off and wanted a target. It couldn’t be Lily. She’d given too much of herself to helping the GhostWalkers, but damn it, he didn’t want to hear her talking as though Saber wasn’t salvageable. They were all killers. Every last one of them.

“He’s been tracking her through her radio station jobs. They’re watching her, trying to determine if by being out of the compound and away from training she’s losing her skills. But more importantly, Jess, they orchestrated her meeting you.”

He sighed and raked his hand through his hair. “Then he did arrange the car accident that killed my crew.” And his sister’s fiancé. How was he ever going to look Patsy in the eye again? And if David’s car had been shoved over the cliff, was Patsy’s accident an attempt to kill her? If so, why?

“Yes.” Lily shook her head. “I’m so sorry, Jess. It’s like a game of chess to him. We’re all pieces on his board and he moves us around to suit him.”

Jess quickly placed a call to the security force to put guards on his sister before spreading the photographs of Saber’s childhood across his desk in a surge of shimmering rage. Even the air rippled, the walls breathing as if trying to calm him. “I see his idea of intellectual amusement. Look at the things he did to her. Forced her to kill animals. Tried to make her kill children. Locked her into small dark places folded into a tiny contorted being for hours. Did you see this one, Lily?” He held up a picture of Saber lying on her stomach. She couldn’t have been more than thirteen. Several men stood around her with what looked to be glowing hot cigarettes. They had repeatedly touched the hot cigarettes to her skin.

“He didn’t want her to move or cry out,” Lily read from her copy of the file. “No matter what the discomfort-that’s the word he uses in his report-‘no matter the discomfort, the assassin must lie still and wait until that perfect moment to strike.’”

Jess wanted to pound something, preferably Whitney. “She always wears a T-shirt over her swimsuit.” He couldn’t vent his anger the way he wanted to because he was acutely aware of Lily’s tears. She was choking on them, outraged, horrified, and disgusted by the things her father was doing.

“You understand why I can’t stay in this house, don’t you, Jess?” Lily said. “I can’t take the risk that he could get his hands on my baby.”

“Of course you and the baby need to be safe, Lily. You’ve done more than your duty by the GhostWalkers and we’re all grateful to you.”

“We have to find a way to stop him. I thought it was just the girls in the laboratory where I was. But he has them scattered all over.”

“That would make sense. If one group was found-or destroyed-he’d have more to work with.”

She rubbed her head as if it ached. “I can’t find them all. I don’t even know how many I’m searching for.” She indicated the file on his desk. “Have you read it?”

“I haven’t had time yet,” Jess said. “Did he use pheromones on us?”

Lily sighed. “Yes. I’m sorry. You’ll always be physically attracted to her, Jess, but that doesn’t mean you won’t ever fall in love with someone else.”

“I’m in love with her.”

Lily shook her head and leaned forward to stare into the screen. “You’re in love with the image she’s presenting. Look at her childhood, Jess. She’s been regimented, trained, disciplined. She’s an assassin. Born and bred for it.”

“No, she wasn’t born for it, or bred for it,” Jess snapped. “She was taken as a child, essentially kidnapped, held prisoner, and subjected to torture. She learned to be what she is in order to survive, Lily. There’s a difference. And if you don’t know that difference…”

A male head leaned into the screen. “That’s enough,” Captain Ryland Miller interrupted. “She used a wrong turn of phrase, don’t read anything into it that wasn’t meant.”

Jess swallowed his anger. Yeah, Lily misspoke, and Jess’s temper was notorious. He had to keep it under control. It was just that the photographs were so heartbreaking. Whitney had documented the journey of a child into an assassin and he’d done it with obvious pride. If ever there was a man who needed killing, Peter Whitney was that man.

As if reading his mind, Lily spoke again. “You understand he could never have an operation of this magnitude-even with all of his money and the contacts and loyalties he’s built up-if he didn’t have sanction and a lot of help. He isn’t doing all this himself. There are too many projects. He may conceive the ideas, but others are taking over the experiments and carrying them out.”

Jess pushed back in his chair, this time using both hands to rake through his hair. He needed to see Saber, to touch her, to know that she was all right. He felt bruised and battered after viewing a small part of her childhood. He had been raised in a loving family, with wonderful parents and a sister who adored him. He couldn’t imagine what Saber’s childhood had been like.

“What else do you have for me, Lily?”

“You aren’t going to like it.”

“I don’t doubt that.” He hadn’t liked anything so far. Yeah, Whitney had help and whoever he had was trying to send the GhostWalkers on suicide missions. It was Jess’s job to find the leak in the chain of command and plug it up.

“He was there. When we operated on your legs, he was there.”

Jess felt his heart jump in his chest. The idea of Whitney walking into the hospital and observing his operation with security everywhere was just plain frightening. Lily had been there and Ryland always, always provided her with a guard.

“Are you certain?”

“I was able to hack into your file, and he has all the notes of his observations and conclusions there. He thought Eric and I did a brilliant job. He does say that while you work very hard at physical recovery, you’re neglecting the one thing that will make the bionics work and neither Eric nor I have managed to think of it. He wasn’t happy with either of us. He thinks we’re too focused on other things, me with the baby and Eric trying to play doctor to GhostWalkers.”

“What should you have told me?” Because the truth was, Peter Whitney was a brilliant man, and if they were missing something with the bionics, he’d know it.

“He mentioned your psychic abilities. You’re using physical capabilities to heal, but not mental. He notes that you should be doing exercises and imagery to form the neural pathways to map out the way from your brain to your legs.”

“I’ve been using visualization. You were the one who told me how to work on it. Whitney is full of crap.”

For the first time, Lily sent him a faint smile. “He says you’re a strong psychic and your brain is very developed, enough that you should be able to form the pathways quickly using visualization through that medium. And I agree with him. You’re using the normal part of your brain as well as physical therapy and we’re leaving out a vital part of what could springboard you to faster health. Also”-she hesitated and glanced at her husband-“he thought we should have used electrical current to stimulate the cells.”

“I’m not certain I like the speculation in your voice, Lily.”

Jess reached out and picked up the file on Saber, flipping through the photographs of her life. She looked so young, so innocent and vulnerable. It made no sense that she hadn’t touched Whitney’s protective streak. How could he look at her and not want to take care of her when she’d been such a beautiful child?

“Jess,” Lily said. “He may be a monster, but we should consider his medical opinion on this.”