Dark Choices - I. T. Lucas Page 0,4

and you can no longer access government databases.

I wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors.

Sincerely,

Director Roberts.

Son of a bitch.

So that was why he’d suggested that she take a few days off. How naive she’d been to believe that he was rewarding her for all the hard work she’d put in helping him get settled in Simmons’s position.

For two weeks, he’d been pulling the wool over her eyes, telling her how important she was to the continuation of the program and how impossible recruiting would have been without her.

The coward was afraid of her, and rightfully so.

If she’d suspected anything, Eleanor would have compelled the son of a bitch to obey her in every way, turning him into a puppet on her strings.

Damn. Why hadn’t she done it just in case?

She wasn’t a naive young woman, and if her life experience had taught her anything, it was that people were shit, users, manipulators, and liars.

While biding his time, Roberts had been playing her so well, giving her compliments and treating her as if she wasn’t only an indispensable asset but also a trusted friend.

What an actor.

He’d done it only as long as he’d needed her help to get acclimated in his new job, and once he was comfortable in the position, he’d gotten rid of her.

It also explained why he’d asked her to remove the compulsions that she had put on the trainees at Simmons’s request. The jerk had been so convincing when he’d explained that none of it had been sanctioned by the higher-ups, and that since he was much more risk-averse than Simmons, he wanted to run things by the book.

The truth was that he’d wanted them free of her compulsion, so she could no longer influence them, even at the cost of his darling breeding program.

His loss.

The trainees would no longer be compelled to have sex with each other, and as a result, they wouldn’t produce super babies for the program, not unless they did it voluntarily. They would also be free of the compulsion that had restricted their communications with the outside world.

The same methods that kept the other departments in the facility secret were now supposedly good enough for the paranormal talent department.

Except, they weren’t.

The facility’s other personnel couldn’t communicate telepathically, which was undetectable by any conventional means, and therefore unenforceable. That had been the reason that Simmons had asked her to compel their trainees to avoid contact with outsiders in the first place.

But whatever. It was no longer her problem. In fact, Eleanor wished wholeheartedly that one of those recruits would leak info out to the damn Chinese, who were supposedly also searching for paranormal talents.

Perhaps she should contact the Chinese recruiters herself and offer her services?

The question was how to find them.

Simmons had kept talking about their paranormal research, so he must have known something. Except, she no longer had access to his files.

Or did she?

Eleanor had seen Simmons making handwritten notes, but she hadn’t found them while helping Roberts get settled. Where could they be?

She doubted he’d destroyed them.

Simmons’s age hadn’t stopped him from philandering like there was no tomorrow, but he had been old-fashioned in other ways. Even though he’d been damn smart and knowledgeable, he had never fully trusted computers or the safety of information encryption.

Maybe he’d been right about that, and digital information wasn’t as safe as old-fashioned notes hidden in a safe place?

Eleanor was willing to bet that Simmons had kept paperwork in his home, probably in a safe.

She could easily get his widow to grant her access to whatever she wanted. It wouldn’t be the first time that she had compelled the old woman. Except, this time, it wouldn’t be on Simmons’s behalf to make the wife forget yet another one of his numerous transgressions.

Since the couple didn’t have children, the widow was all alone, and there would be no one to stop Eleanor from snooping around the house to her heart's content. Hell, Bella Simmons would probably be glad of the company and help her find whatever she was looking for.

Excitement bubbling in her chest, Eleanor picked up her phone, but then put it back down.

It was a burner, but she shouldn’t make phone calls like that from her apartment. She was willing to bet that Roberts had the place thoroughly bugged.

In fact, after she got what she needed from Simmons’s widow, she should disappear.

What if Roberts decided to tie up loose ends and have her killed?

After all, she knew about all the illegal