breath. Was Palani right? The thought that Melloni had willingly tested drugs on his own grandson was almost too absurd to consider, and yet it made total sense.
“Yes,” Sando croaked. “Yes, I can.”
Sando had thought that nothing could be worse than finding out his father wasn’t his father but his grandfather, who had not only lied to him his whole life but had secretly medicated him. But he’d been wrong. Realizing he’d used him as a test object was far, far worse.
When Palani had asked, he’d named a few examples, like his grandfather regularly taking his blood, claiming he could use it as a comparison for the gene carriers. Tons of cryptic remarks and questions about his health, all of which he had interpreted as interest in him. The fact that his grandfather had come back from his imprisonment with a much more developed concept for heat blockers than Sando would’ve thought possible in a year.
But after Palani and Bray had left—both apologizing again until Sando had said it was fine, even though Lucan’s look at him told him it wasn’t—he’d gone silent. Maz and Lucan seemed to sense he needed some time to himself, and they’d left him on his own, just stating they were there for him if he needed them. They’d settled on the couch, while Sando had gone outside to his favorite spot near the pool.
Here he sat in the shade—he’d fiddled with the umbrella until he’d gotten it right—his head so full of thoughts it felt like it would burst. How was this his life? Just over three months ago, before his grandfather had come back, he’d been happy. Clueless about Maz and Lucan maybe but happy. And then everything had changed in one single day.
He had to be the most horrible person in the world to wish that his grandfather had never come back. He’d felt guilty at the time for thinking it, for not being as happy as everyone else when they’d found him, but now it was even worse. Everything the man had told him had been a lie. He wasn’t his father, he’d never wanted to talk about his daughter—Sando’s mother—and he’d used him for his own gain.
And what bugged Sando about it most of all was that he’d even tried to pass the results of his research off as his own. The discoveries Sando had made when he was gone, the patterns he’d detected in the files from Dr. Baig’s patients, the comparisons he’d made between gene carriers and non-gene carriers and the proteins he’d isolated—it had all been him. His grandfather had done nothing, and yet whenever he’d talked to Palani, he had taken the lead.
And Palani had never noticed, even though before, he’d always talked to Sando. Was that what Lucan had meant about even Palani treating people according to status? Palani had always been so nice to him, showing him nothing but kindness. He’d been the last person Sando would’ve expected to treat him as less because he was an omega.
Even now, he wasn’t entirely sure if that was what had happened. Had Palani deferred to his grandfather because Sando was an omega? Or simply because his grandfather was much older and the established authority? But after talking to Sando himself for months, shouldn’t he at least have asked him? It didn’t sit well with him.
What did it mean that he could be so wrong about people? He’d never have guessed his grandfather capable of this, and yet here they were. And he had thought Palani pretty much infallible, and look how that had turned out. Lucan had seen it, though. He’d seen through his grandfather before anyone else, and he’d picked up on the way others had treated him. But Sando hadn’t. Was he that gullible? Or was it because he didn’t have enough experience?
Whatever it was, it didn’t bode well for his abilities to spot people who meant him harm. Lucan had said it himself. How could he ever trust people again? After the way he’d been lied to, how could he continue to believe people who said they wanted the best for him? He needed to stop trusting others and start making his own decisions. He needed to become more assertive, make up his own mind rather than blindly adopting others’ opinions. Hell, he was smart enough, so all he had to do was apply his brainpower.
“Hey, Sando.”
Sando looked up. Enar. “Hi.”
“Are you okay? I saw you sitting here and just wanted to make