Page 70 of Haunted Prey

“You really were only going to knock her out, Lez?” Cassidy said, arching a brow. “That’s not like you.”

“He wasn’t going to knock me out; he was ready to kill me!” Lena snapped.

“It was complicated,” Lez said, mockingly.

“Enough!” Micheal barked. “Forget I asked, because it doesn’t matter, anyway. They’re here now and they are involved, no thanks to you.” He pointed at Emery. “If you compromise this for us, I will send you back to the river myself, this time in a body bag. The only reason I’m not more pissed off than I already am is because Dom made sure to inform me of everything before Igot here. I’m not happy he was involved either but at least his reasoning has some fucking logic to it.”

“And what’s that exactly?” Cassidy asked.

Micheal brushed his hand through his hair again, letting out a deep breath. “As we’d discussed, Eve being at Severfalls means she has access to how things work on the inside. We found a map, yes, but she can give us more details on vulnerable areas, how much security and what their routine was. Giving us a visual of the place that we have yet to gain. I allowed Dom to follow her after her escape so we could make a decision on whether to make contact while also making sure she wasn’t being followed by anyone. Based on what Dom told me this morning, it was likely some of Kennedy’s men were tracking her. And they were closing in fast. Dom made a quick decision to go with Emery and grab her for this reason. I’m not happy with it but what’s done is done.”

“It was still stupid,” Cassidy remarked. “I could have gone and found her myself and brought her into the station, gotten what we needed, then sent her off.”

“And have her end up back in Severfalls,” Emery growled. “I think the fuck not. Not over my dead body.”

She waved him off. “She compromises us here, or did you not hear that part?”

“And I guess you forgot about the part where I said I didn’t give a fuck. I told you before, she stays with me. She isn’t going to give you away because she’ll stay here.”

“Because you trust her?” she said.

“Yes, I do.”

“And what about her friend?” she asked. “Maybe your girl is too blindsided by your dick to say anything but this chick looks like she’d run her mouth with a fucking smile on her face.”

Lena looked more offended than I did. “I can keep a secret just fine,” she said defensively. “But not one that involves mebeing kidnapped! I’m not going to keep quiet when my family and friends freak out and ask where I’ve been.”

Micheal moved over to the computer desk and leaned against it beside Dom. “We aren’t looking to harm innocent lives if we can help it. Taking you was a mistake. A big one. We can’t let you back out on your own. Not until we are finished here.”

“Finished with what exactly? You all talk about Severfalls and getting in there, but for what? What exactly is going on there? And what do you plan to do?” Lena voiced her concern.

I’d thought the same thing. But I hadn’t cared to think about it. Until now. “I’d like to know too,” I said, turning to Emery.

Emery led me over to a seat beside Lena. Then he grabbed another and pulled it over, sinking into it so we were almost knee to knee. “I don’t know what better way to tell you so I’ll say it straight. They are testing there again. Just like before.”

“Testing?”

“The drugs,” he said. “The ones we were all subjected to.”

My heart dropped, and my blood turned cold. The experiments Emery and the others had gone through already. They were testing again.

“On unborn kids,” I said, barely hearing myself, seeing images of Jonsei and her bad eye, and Adrien being wheeled away into the dark of the medical wing.

Emery nodded.

“The women there…Oh my god.”

“H-how do you guys know this?” Lena asked.

“We have been tracking those coming out of Severfalls, women who were later found dead,” Micheal explained. “Kennedy and his family own the place and they were one of Martel’s biggest backers. We got a hold of information about some of the tests done in Severfalls and determined what Kennedy was doing when we put it all together.”

“I knew there were others involved from the start,” Andrea commented. “Roman Martel would never mention them by name, only as a man called Mr. Mercury.”

I remembered the night of the banquet seeing the Kennedy name on the list. Tyler had been right there in front of me and I would have never guessed. “It doesn’t make sense, he’s too young,” I said. “All my father’s backers were around his age, if not older.”

“Tyler is the son,” Micheal said. “His father had started the project.”

The real Mr. Mercury. “And where is he?”

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