“You f**ker!” Jason screamed, spittle flying from his lips as the Breed chuckled behind him.
“Tell her the truth or I give you the drug. It will make you certifiably insane, but we’ll get the truth. And it is rather painful. Agonizing, from what I remember myself. You choose.”
“Fuck you.”
“I’d rather not. You stink of piss.”
Jason dropped his head.
“I can be merciful, Mr. Harte,” Gideon said softly. “Especially when I really have no desire to compound one tender young woman’s nightmares. But I’m also rather selfish. I want the truth, as does she. However bad it hurts her, or you, I’ll get it.”
Gypsy took a step forward. “Why did you betray him, Jason?”
He shook his head, his breath hitching as Gideon growled.
“I was working with the Council,” he whispered. “The Genetics Council. I was one of their spies in the Nation, had helped them identify several breeders with certain traits they were looking for, along with one of the Nation’s leaders. Mark was getting too close to me, but he was also getting very close to identifying the more important political contact within the Nation. I planted the video and audio devices at his workstations because you couldn’t put shit on that f**king computer of his without him knowing. When I saw him hacking into another spy’s cell phone records, I knew it was just a matter of time.”
“You knew what he was doing? That he was hacking the Council’s records and hadn’t turned him in before that?” she scoffed.
“God, Gypsy, he was my f**king friend,” he cried, his voice torn now, ragged. “I loved him like a brother. But he would have found out I was working with them. He would have learned things I couldn’t afford for anyone to learn.” He was crying now. It made her sick to see his tears, to see what she knew had to be false sincerity.
“You didn’t love Mark,” she whispered. “Mark benefited you, nothing more.”
“No.” He shook his head, his expression creased with pain now. “I did love him, Gypsy. But I loved my father, my life, and I loved Thea.” He inhaled raggedly. “My father worked with them as well, that’s how I ended up working for them. Dad was the one who chose Morningstar Martinez to be taken by them as well as several other young girls from other parts of the Nation. He and whoever his friend was within the Navajo Tribal Council.” His head lowered again, tears dripping to the urine stain on his pants. “I was assigned to gather information on any Breeds coming into the Nation. Just before he hacked into that covert agency officer’s cell phone files, Mark was tracking two teenage girls and two Bengals being slipped in by the Unknown. He worked with them a lot. Once I learned that, I knew I would have to keep an eye on him, so I set the audio and video at the two places I knew he worked most often.”
“How did you know who he was helping?” She had to grip Rule’s hand with all her strength to hold back, to keep from killing him now, before she ever learned the full truth.
“When I found out Mark was hacking Council files,” he said roughly. “The Council was searching for a hacker and had heard rumors of the Unknown. They were searching for him for years.” His head jerked back up. “I knew for over two years what he was doing and I never breathed a word of it,” he cried out. “Not once, Gypsy.”
“Grody’s orders were to kill both of us.” The tears didn’t faze her. He was going to die. As Gideon said, it was just a matter of how.
“I knew how close he was to you,” he said roughly, his head still lowered. “I didn’t know what you knew, and I couldn’t risk you suspecting it was me. When the Council sent out the order to take him, you weren’t included in it, even though I told them how close the two of you were. You weren’t considered a threat. I called Grody myself and gave the order.”
“Then you moved right in, took over his life, his company, his parents and his fiancée,” she laughed mockingly. “Was it worth it, Jason? Did you get what you wanted?”
He shook his head. “She never forgot him. She never loved me like she loved Mark.”
There wasn’t even a second of warning. Between one heartbeat and the next she went from holding herself back from killing him to being pulled backward, sheltered by Rule’s hard body as a gunshot rang out.
“Fuck!” Gideon cursed.
Lights flared, low, but dissipating many of the shadows as Gypsy struggled to gain enough purchase beneath Rule’s body and the recliner he’d taken shelter behind.
“Thea?” she whispered, shocked. “Let me go, Rule.”
Diane was moving toward the other woman as she stood still, silent, the handgun now held loosely in her hands as she stared at the man she’d married seven years before.
Rule let her rise slowly, holding on to her until Diane gripped the weapon and slid it slowly from Thea’s hand.
“Thea.” Gypsy rushed to the woman her brother had loved so deeply that he’d begun to try pulling back from the shadowy group he’d worked with.
“Thea?” she whispered again as the delicate blonde lifted her head, violet eyes staring back at her dully.
“The night Mark died,” Thea whispered. “I was attacked outside my dorm room.”
“I know.” Gypsy frowned back at her, hearing the ragged pain still echoing in her voice.
“I was carrying Mark’s baby.” Tears spilled from her eyes then, running in rivulets down her face as a cry tore past her lips. “I miscarried. I lost our baby and I always knew.” Thea’s fists clenched and pressed into her stomach as her expression collapsed in agony. “I knew whoever killed Mark sent someone to hurt me too.” Her gaze swung to where Jason sat limply in the chair he was tied to, the front of his shirt now soaked with blood from the bullet that had torn into his heart. “I knew, and I swore, if the chance came, I’d kill him.” Hatred filled her tone now. Her eyes were so dark they looked bruised, shattered. “He’s betrayed everything I’ve believed in my whole life and destroyed everyone I loved. If I could kill him again, I would.”