Page 89 of Sloth
He stared at her while he unpacked his thoughts. She’d been on a roll until the talk of sex. It made her awkward. Daisy’s fingers twitched at her side.
“You’ve never been with a man, have you?” he asked, curious.
The flicker in her eyes told him, perhaps no. Perhaps she’d been too busy, doing her master’s bidding. Perhaps she was too deep in the pits of despair to want love, or maybe, she’d couldn’t feel desire at all.
But that twitch, that hesitation, that tremble of emotion and pink tinge to her cheeks. She longed for that human connection as much as anyone.
Stained. Unwanted.
His heart went out to her, and it must have shown on his face because her expression morphed into disgust, then anger. “You answermyquestions, not the other way around. Tell me exactly what Sloth can do.”
“She talks about you all the time,” he replied, resting his head back on the wall behind him. “I don’t see why. They should just give up on you. That’s what I would do. But that entire family is determined to bring you back into their fold.” He paused. “Do you know they set a place for you at their table every time they have a family meal?”
This time, her attack sent white stars and black dots clashing behind his eyelids. She hit him on the face, kicked him on the body. She was relentless, unforgiving. He had to lift his arms as well as he could to protect himself, but with the cable-tie around his wrists, he left his sides open.
“That’s enough, my darling.” A deep masculine voice rumbled from somewhere.
“God?” Max said, laughing and spluttering through his bloody mouth. “Is that you?”
“You jest, but as far as you’re concerned, IamGod.” The man who stepped into view was tall, pale-haired, and square jawed. You could tell he was used to having orders obeyed from the set of his physique and lift of his chin. His luxury tailored suit complimented his broad shoulders. He was sickeningly handsome.
And he looked like…holy shit.Max could see Tony Lazarus in this man. And the moment he saw that connection, he saw the familiarity with the woman standing next to him. Then Sloan. The rest of her siblings…
This man was their biological father. This was the man behind the Syndicate machine.
“Let’s get this straight, Mr. Johnson.” The man put his hands behind his back. “You’re only alive because we say so. When we decide you’ve outlived your purpose, you’re gone.”
“Exactly,” Max said. “Why would I give you anything, when you’ll just kill me afterward?”
“As long as you keep feeding us information, we will keep you alive.”
“Nah. Think I’m good.”
“We have ways of making people talk.”
“Yeah? How’s that working for you?”
The man leaned forward. It was enough to make Max want to shrink back, but he had nowhere else to go.
“We’ve barely begun to use our ways.”
A coldness seeped into Max at the sight of him pulling out a syringe filled with liquid. “Truth serum?” he scorned. “Hate to break it to you, mate, but that shit don’t work.”
“It’s not truth serum.”
Max’s jaw clicked shut.
The man stared at Max for a long time, but Max refused to say anything else. Eventually, the man sighed and held out the syringe in Daisy’s direction.
To Max’s surprise, she hesitated.
When the man turned to her with a questioning eyebrow lifted, she frowned. “You didn’t discuss this with me.”
Both the man’s eyebrows lifted, incredulously.
Daisy shifted her boots. “I thought we would keep trying to flush her out, test the effect of her missing mate on the public.”
“We tried that. You know this. Sloth came out once and hasn’t returned. She’s not taking the bait.”
