Carrington was shaking his head, slowly, almost shocked. “That was propaganda,” he wheezed. “The Breeds, they lied.”
Seth threw him back. “Is that how you salve your conscience?” he bit out, then stared at the incredulous expressions of the board members watching the scene. “Is that what the Council and their f**king puppets cutting my throat with you are telling you? Propaganda? Let me tell you propaganda. Let me tell you how they f**king destroyed babies.” His expression contorted, the images of what they had done to his Dawn, his woman, flashing through his mind. “How many of you paid for the privilege of helping? By God, let me find out one of you, just one of you, did, and I’ll destroy you. Pray to God, get on your knees and beg him not to let me find out any of you were involved so deeply, or I promise you, hell hath no fury like that which I’ll visit on you. Every last f**king one of you who dared.”
“They proved those discs were false.” Carrington was still shaking his head. “The Breeds did that themselves. They proved it. The Breeds don’t disprove it. They refuse to address it.”
“Tell you what, let some bastard rape your daughter until she’s mindless with the pain. Until her blood is flowing from her body and her eyes turn glassy, and see how many of your good buddies you want to see it, Carrington.” His chest was tight, his rage thundering through him. “Any of you. Those who survived, do you think they want you to see their pain? Do you think they care at this point what men like you believe? Those who supported those f**king monsters? Fuck you. Every damned one of you. Negotiations are off. My lawyers will contact yours next week. I don’t negotiate with pedophiles or those who defend them. Get the f**k off my island.”
He turned and stalked from the group, his body vibrating with a killing rage as Dawn stepped from the hall and stood watching him, her eyes dark with pain, her face pale. And concerned. She glanced back at the board members, and for a moment, just a moment, he thought tears glittered in her eyes before she blinked them back.
“Seth, wait.” Dane was behind him. He caught Seth’s arm and pulled him to a stop as Seth reached Dawn.
“Back off, Dane.” He jerked his arm out of the other man’s grip and turned again.
“Let me talk to them now, Seth,” Dane hissed softly. “Listen to me, you have them scared now, let me pull them in. We’d have no fight if we strike now.”
“Listen to him, Seth.” Dawn dug her heels in, her voice soft but resonating with pain. “Don’t go to war unless you have to.”
He paused, his body vibrating with the need for just that. War. All but a few of those board members had personally supported the Genetics Council over the years. A few he knew would never turn against them, but if they could get a majority, if they pulled in the right vote, then those few would have no choice but to follow them.
“I won’t back down.” He felt murderous. He wanted to tear the bastards apart, he wanted to go back, he wanted to wipe out every f**king scientist and soldier who had dared to touch Dawn or any other child in their care.
“Let me mediate this point,” Dane urged him again. “Let me work them now that you have them running scared. This, my friend, is what I’m good at.”
Seth nodded sharply. “No negotiations, Dane. Negotiating is over. I want the full concessions that I asked for. Period. Or they can get f**ked.”
With that, he pulled Dawn closer and moved her toward their room. He didn’t want them to look at her, he didn’t want them to see her or to breathe her air. They were an insult to her presence, an insult to every child breathing, Breed or not.
Dawn was his. His woman. His breath. He hadn’t realized that until she came to him. He hadn’t realized how long he had waited, how hard he had hoped that she would come to him. He’d be damned if he would back down an inch now. Dawn and her people weren’t the only ones depending on him. The children he would have with her needed him to stand for them now. If he didn’t, who would stand for them later?
Dane watched Seth and his mate disappear around the corner of the hall. He pushed his fingers through his hair and glanced back at the board members watching him in concern as he appeared undecided. Appeared, as he wasn’t in the least undecided. He had expected this to happen, he had planned for it. Anyone with an ear to the ground where the Breeds were concerned knew that Dawn was Seth’s mate. Especially anyone with Dane’s senses. Breed senses, senses made stronger by the human blood that flowed through his veins.
Dane was the worst sort of predator. He preyed on the emotional weaknesses of his enemies. Their greed. Their lust for power. He preyed upon it, helped to weaken it, then built it back as he needed it. He needed these men in place, but not at the risk of destroying the Breeds they benefited. Exhaling roughly, he played the part of concerned businessman and reluctant mediator. That role he knew very well.
Rye, Ryan Desalvo, his bodyguard and friend, met him halfway. Dane lowered his head to Rye’s ear. “Bring the discs.”
He felt Rye tense. “Seth will cut your heart out.”
“And dine on it for dinner, I’m certain,” Dane drawled. “Bring the discs.”
They had brought the discs as insurance, just in case. Just in case this happened. Just in case the votes needed didn’t appear forthcoming. Because the majority of those men didn’t know the true scope of the atrocities the Council had committed, and they clung to the hope that it was indeed Breed propaganda that claimed it had happened.
As in so many events in the past, those of evil and malicious intent twisted the truth to suit their own purposes. The discs and images of the true scope of cruelties committed against Breed females were hidden, for the most part, within the Breed strongholds. But Seth was an enterprising chap. He’d found many of them. And they were needed now.
Lawrence Industries and Vanderale Industries were the Breeds’ major supporters. If they fell, so many others would fall as well.
As Rye moved along the hallway, turned and headed for their rooms, Dane moved back to the board members.
“He’s surely not serious,” said Brian Phelps, owner and CEO of a large import/export business that
Lawrence had taken under their wing and refinanced. Phelps had been given a seat on the board, while the import/export business had become a part of Lawrence Industries at a drastically reduced amount.
“I believe he may be,” Dane admitted with a sigh. “Let’s reconvene, gentlemen, and see what we can do to draw Seth back to the table.” He glanced back in the direction Seth had gone as though worried, when in fact he was damned near gleeful that Seth had finally pushed the board members to resolve this. Now they would learn who their allies were and who was backed by the Council. Seth had been serious, and the members of the board had seen it. Seth rarely became upset; he never walked away from negotiations, preferring to fight them out instead. Dane remembered the year of hell that he had worked to get on this board. Drawing Seth in had been nearly impossible. The other man had made him sweat, and it hadn’t been pleasant.
“Let him enact the codicil,” Theodore Valere, the member that worried Dane the most, inserted arrogantly, and too smugly.
Valere owned the majority of Spain’s pharmaceutical companies; unfortunately, he had made the supreme mistake of allowing his brother a large share of those companies. The brother had sold them to Aaron Lawrence when Valere refused to bail him out of a rather large gambling debt. Hence the reason Valere was on the board to begin with. He couldn’t take the shares back; all he could do was give his input or vote on how the majority profits of Lawrence Industries were used. And then only if Aaron or Seth were willing to negotiate. The codicil to the major shareholder agreement was completely legal and enforceable.
“Theodore, if Seth enacts that codicil, we could all be shitting with our thumbs up our arses the next time we’ve a problem facing our own companies.”