Nalini Singh - Bonds of Justice

Max thought over what he knew of Nikita Duncan. She was an astute businesswoman, one who made money hand over fist—but unlike Councilors Ming LeBon and Kaleb Krychek, he’d never heard her name linked with a military operation, so it might be a legitimate fact that she’d found a gap in her resources once she eliminated this Arrow Squad from the mix.

“Alright,” he said, eyes narrowed. “But mental shield aside, there’s got to be some other reason the Councilor asked for me. What skills make me so special?” He was damn good at what he did, but there were excellent cops in San Francisco.

“Don’t disregard your shield so easily,” the commander responded. “It’s one of the strongest we’ve ever encountered in a human.” An implied confirmation that Psy had tried to break through it any number of times. “However, you’re correct. There is something else—you have friends in the DarkRiver leopard pack. Councilor Duncan seems to believe that that friendship will make it easier for you to run the investigation in her city.”

Ice crawled in a slow spread through Max’s veins. Clay Bennett, the changeling male Max knew best, was one cool customer. Max wouldn’t put it past the leopard pack to whittle down their enemy piece by piece—they were predators after all. But—“Isn’t Councilor Duncan’s daughter mated to Lucas Hunter, the alpha of DarkRiver?” Sascha Duncan’s defection from the Psy world had made news across the country.

“Yes, but they no longer have any kind of a personal relationship.”

Max nodded to show he’d heard, but the fact of Sascha’s existence, her relationship with Lucas, put his mind at ease. Because while they might be predators, the cats were also big on family. He couldn’t see them culling Nikita’s people on the sly. “If I do this,” he said, knowing he couldn’t let it go now, his curiosity a steel blue flame inside him, “I’m going to need full access. If Duncan has her people blocking me at every turn, it’s going to be impossible for me to do my job.”

“Councilor Duncan understands that.” Brecht picked up the data crystal and moved it in front of Max. “This has the basic background information. However, as you can imagine, there are areas of considerable sensitivity. That’s why you’ll be working with a Psy partner who’ll help you in relation to the peculiarly Psy aspects of the investigation, and who will be tasked with filtering certain data.”

Max had known he’d need a Psy advisor, but the second part of Brecht’s statement made his hand clench on the crystal. “How the fuck is he going to realize what’s relevant and what’s not?”

“ She ,” the commander said, “is to work intimately with you.”

“Makes no difference to the question—what qualifications does this ‘partner’ of mine have to make those decisions?” Max wasn’t just used to working alone, he liked it that way.

“She’s a J,” the commander said. “Has been operative since she was sixteen. She’s now twenty-eight.”

Anticipation licked along his spine. “What’s her name?”

“Sophia Russo.”

His mind reacted immediately—an image of haunting eyes in a face marked by violence, a voice that said things it shouldn’t, a body that made his own itch to thaw out all that ice. It was then, as he considered if the latter was even possible, that he was hit by the import of Brecht’s words. “Twelve years of active service? Most Js don’t last that long.”

He’d worked with at least twenty over his eleven years in Enforcement. Each had retired before the age of thirty, and, he realized, he’d never seen any of them again. It hadn’t struck him as odd before, because Psy weren’t exactly the type to send Christmas cards, but the fact that not one, not one , had ended up working in another area of Justice—either they had one hell of a retirement plan or . . . Given the cold-blooded way the Council treated its own people, the possibilities were chilling. And Sophia Russo had been a J for twelve years. She had to be reaching “retirement” age.

When the commander spoke, he didn’t address Max’s implied question, didn’t tell him what happened to Js who reached the end of their working lives. “Ms. Russo has considerable experience in interacting with humans—you should find her a satisfactory partner.” A pause. “Detective, I need an answer today.”

Max played the data crystal over his fingers. He still wasn’t sure what the hell he was doing considering working for the Psy, or the real reason why Nikita had asked for him, but if you stripped away all the bullshit, one thing remained unchanged—he was a cop. And Nikita Duncan was a citizen. “I’ll do it.”

Sophia sat across from the M-Psy in charge of her evaluation at the Pittsburgh branch of the Center, her hands placed on the table, her eyes calm.

“There’s been,” the M-Psy said, “a report of an incident at Liberty Penitentiary.”

She didn’t fall for that trick, didn’t respond. Because he hadn’t asked a question.

“Did you have anything to do with that incident?”

“What was the incident?”

The M-Psy looked down at his notes. “A pedophile mutilated himself.”

It was easy to keep her face expressionless—she’d been practicing since she was eight years old and about to be euthanized. “Was he human?”

“Yes.”

“Perhaps he felt remorse,” she suggested, knowing the creature in that cell had felt pity only for himself, for the fact that he’d been caught and locked up. “Humans have emotions after all.”

“There’s no indication he felt remorse.”

At least the man hadn’t managed to fool the prison psychiatrists. “Is he speaking?”

The M-Psy shook his head. “Not coherently.”

“Then it’s impossible to know if he felt remorse,” she responded with total equanimity. Perhaps she should’ve felt guilt, but of course, she was Silent. She felt nothing. But she knew what that prisoner had done, knew every tiny detail of the horror he’d imprinted on a young, unformed psyche. Sophia had buried the memories even as she extracted them from the child’s mind, leaving him with a week-long blank in his past that would only unlock when he was old enough and strong enough to bear it.

It was unfortunate that the trick didn’t work on children who were born with the J facility. If it had, perhaps she would have had a different life . . . Perhaps.

The M-Psy tapped something on his datapad. “This is the third such incident in the past year where you’ve been in close proximity.”

“I need to be in prisons often,” Sophia replied, though her mind was in another room in a well-appointed cabin two decades in the past. “My chances of being near an incident are higher than that of an ordinary individual.”

“The J-Psy Management Board has determined that you need to go in for reconditioning”—the M-Psy turned his datapad so she could see the authorization—“especially given your recent contact with Gerard Bonner.”

“I have no disagreement with that.” They’d poke and prod at her during the reconditioning process, but Sophia knew what they’d find. Nothing. Complete or partial memory erasure might not work on Js, but a woman who made her living retrieving the memories of others got very good at clouding her own when necessary. “Would it be possible to schedule it today? I need to appear as an expert witness in a case first thing tomorrow morning.”

Total reconditioning—known as rehabilitation—effectively turned the individual into a vegetable. But the basic reconditioning that Sophia had gone through any number of times took a bare few hours to complete. Add a full night’s sleep and she’d be functioning at peak efficiency again when the sun rose.