Page 20 of The Brotherhood

She eyed her captor’s cold face, then regarded the man. “Why don’t you have a last name? Tell me why,” she adjusted. “Look at me. Please,” she added, hating how mean she sounded.

He turned a pair of brown eyes to her. “I don’t know that answer.”

Her anger shot up and finding a smile hinting on his arrogant lips was the last straw. “Tell me why he doesn’t have a last name.”

“Because he doesn’tneeda last name,” he answered smoothly.

She remembered Morgue and the strange way his eyes had behaved. “What did you do to these men? Tell me,” she ordered.

“They’re enhanced,” he said smoothly, as though he were talking about some tool. “Their cognitive responses are sharpened, but unnecessary distractions—like personal history or a sense of identity—have been removed. They’re conditioned to respond to commands efficiently and without question.”

“You… you brainwashed them? Turned them into… emotionless humans? Why?” she demanded, unable to breathe. “Put the gun down. And free me,” she ordered.

He slid his gaze to her as he slowly lowered the weapon. “Release her,” he ordered the tech, staring right at her, like somebody discovering a new toy he couldn’t wait to play with.

The restraints loosened and she made her way up, body shaking with more anger than she knew what to do with. She regarded the tech again. “Malik. Is my baby healthy?” she asked, only caring about that.

“The baby’s readings indicate his health is at one hundred percent.”

“My name is Beth, Malik. Call me by my name.”

“Beth,” he added, his robotic response saddening her.

Her heart skipped a beat at realizing what he’d said. “You said he. Do you know the sex?”

“Yes, Beth. The baby is male.”

She let out a breath, unable to stop her smile. “I knew that,” she whispered right as the room spun too quickly, bringing her angry captor’s face before hers as darkness snatched her up.

****

Cat’s fury was burning her as she stomped toward Ethan’s control center, breaths coming too fast, pulse ringing in her ears. She marched straight into the center of the room, looking around at all the screens and lines of code then stalked to the main computer and slammed her palms on the glass surface of the desk.

“Unlock the dungeon, G.”

She was on her third heaving breath when Big G answered. “No.”

His calm and cool tone lit her up. “I wasn’tasking.”

The machines hummed in the silence as she envisioned his aloof digital form, ever present, ever waiting in the shadows of reality for his human counterpart to exist through. She used tofeel sorry for him and AL, being stuck in that form while seeming so damn real, but in that second, she felt nothing but fury and maybe… jealousy. What she wouldn’t give to escape the biting loneliness she’d been suffering ever since Big G had locked the dungeon for Ethan’s ultimate safety and hers. Oh, he’d sure done that, he’d shown them who was the boss. And nobody could unlock it, not Ethan or AL.

“What’s troubling you, Cat?”

A sharp, bitter laugh flew from her lips at his compassion. “What’s troubling me? Are you serious?”

He didn’t answer. He didn’t need to. He was trying to level her out, that’s how he was. But she didn’t want to belevel. She wanted him to see and feel the full measure of what he’d done whether he’d calculated it or not—and she was more convinced than ever that he had. Of course he had. He was ageniuscomputer.

“You’ve seen what this has done to Ethan,” she shot out, pushing off the desk and crossing her arms tight as she paced. “This isn’t protecting him, it’s making it worse!” She stalked around the room, waiting for his response. “You see he’s hardly ever home now. And when he is—” She stopped pacing as her breaths burned in her chest. “He’s a block of ice.”

She covered her face, hating how wounded she sounded. But damn it. She was. She'd tried to reach him. Tried to be patient. But he was slipping away, piece by piece, and she was just standing there, watching it happen.

The silence in the room thickened around her chest and ribs, squeezing.

“And you really believe giving him back access to the dungeon will change that?”

Cat clenched her jaw, dropping her hands. “At least in there, I can… partake without partaking,” she shoved from her chest. “I can at least… give him what he wants without—”

She exhaled hard.

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