Caped and Dangerous - Isabel Jordan Page 0,38
from that.
He loved the way she sang off-key show tunes in the shower when she thought he couldn’t hear. He loved that bringing her a blueberry cake doughnut from Jim’s Doughnuts made her happier than a five-star lobster dinner. He loved how she put her whole heart into everything she did, and had given up nearly every penny she had to make sure her mum had the best care possible. He loved the way she curled into him while she slept, unconsciously seeking his warmth and comfort in a way no one before her ever had.
He loved her, damn it.
Losing her wasn’t an option.
“Where are all the subjects now?” Killian asked.
“They’re in a safe house outside the city,” Tony answered. “No one—not even the general—knows where. But he wants them back. We won’t be able to keep them hidden for long.”
“If I can’t figure out how to fix this, they’ll need new identities,” Killian murmured. “Papers, records…everything. They’ll need to take their new lives and leave their old ones in the dust.”
Tony nodded. “Already on it. Another twenty-four hours and they’ll have everything they need to start fresh if they have to. They’ve already been instructed to hide whatever new powers they have.”
Killian dropped into a chair and leaned forward to rest his forehead in his palm. “Jesus, what a mess. If this all goes south, we’ll basically be disappearing twenty people, all at the same time.”
“I don’t see any other way.” After a brief pause, Tony asked, “And what will you tell the general?”
“First, we find Declan and Ellie Rhoades. Then I’ll deal with the general.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
GREER LISTENED in stunned (and appalled and pissed off) silence as Declan laid everything out for her. His time in prison. The threat against his sister’s life if he didn’t agree to participate in the program. The experiments—nothing more than torture in the name of science, really. Ellie figuring the whole thing out and staging a rescue that got her wounded. (She’d posed as a lab tech to get Declan out, hacked security, and broke her wrist during the escape. Which was why Declan had broken into the hospital and stolen those drugs and supplies. Bringing her in to see a doctor just wasn’t an option.) And the icing on the crap cake of it all?
Killian’s involvement.
No, involvement was the wrong word. Killian had been running the whole damn thing.
If what Declan was saying was true, Killian actually was trying to build superheroes. She’d considered the possibility that the government had been trying to do that, but not Killian. She never would’ve guessed that.
And what was the endgame here? To put her and other natural-born superheroes like her out of work? To keep getting money from the military in exchange for an endless supply of genetically engineered cannon fodder? What possible explanation could there be for him to do something like this?
Greer rubbed her aching temples. “Is it true, Rio? Does anything he’s saying check out?”
Please say no. Please say no. Please say no…
The sympathy in his expression was a punch to the gut. “I’m so sorry, G. It all checks out. I tied it all together about an hour ago. Right before he,” Rio jerked his thumb in Declan’s direction, “showed up and shoved a gun in my face.”
“Nothing personal,” Declan said with a shrug. “I needed to get her attention and the one I really want to point a gun at is always surrounded by security in a building with bulletproof glass.”
The thought of a gun being aimed at Killian turned her stomach as badly as seeing one aimed at Rio.
Even if Killian was guilty, (which, it really looked like he was) she couldn’t let him die. She wouldn’t let Declan kill him.
“What do you want from me?” she asked Declan, fully expecting him to demand a helicopter and a new passport or something. What he demanded instead was a surprise.
“I want to be left alone,” he said slowly, carefully enunciating every syllable. “I want my sister to be left alone. Stop hunting us. Call off your boys. Both of them. And convince the police to drop all charges.”
She really wished he would’ve asked for the helicopter.
“I have no control over the police,” she said. “I can’t even get a parking ticket fixed, let alone get them to drop charges against someone who threw an officer out a window! I can call Rio off, but I have no control over Killian or the government or anyone else, for that matter.”
I’m not