Page 23 of Gluttony
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, yes. Now you go off to your salon day with your sister and enjoy yourself. I have to get to work. Actually, maybe you should stay with her for a while. I’m going to be tied up here for a bit.”
He cut the call just as two men in white overalls and face masks entered the lab. The taller man gestured at his companion, and they made moves to begin cleaning up the biological mess.
“Wait!” Wayne shouted. He scuttled over. “Please don’t start. I have to secure the samples.”
“That won’t be necessary, Mr. Bosch.”
Wayne’s blood turned to ice at the sound of his boss’s cultured and confident voice. Standing in the doorway to the lab was Julius Allcott, the man who ran the Syndicate show, and the man who had Wayne’s fate in his hands. Behind him was the infamous Falcon, the Syndicate’s enforcer.
“M-Mr. Allcott,” Wayne mumbled. “I was just telling the crew I need to collect some samples before they—”
“Like I said. Not necessary. We’re shutting this little disaster down.”
“B-but…” He couldn’t lose it all, not now. Not when he was so close to having everything he wanted.
Julius held up his hand and sneered. “You’ve accomplished nothing here, except failure.”
“My plant has achieved the impossible. The inconceivable! It’s not a failure.”
“And where is it now, hmm?”
“Um.”
“You have achieved nothing if we have nothing to show for it.” Julius stepped into the laboratory and sneered. “Nothing except dead bodies and bleeding funds. I cannot afford to keep this division open any longer. Our focus lies elsewhere.”
Wayne skirted around the central lab bench to get closer to the man. “Give me another chance. I’ll find it. I’m the only one who can.”
Julius’s fist hit the lab bench, rattling the wayward tools on top. Wayne startled.
“How did this happen?” Julius roared, fury protruding the veins in his neck.
The entire room stilled. No one breathed. This was the first time Wayne had ever heard of the boss losing his temper. Even his always-collected enforcer flinched at Julius’s outburst, and if she was rattled...
Wayne gulped. “It was the plant. Its diet was never meant to be carnivorous. It was meant to sense out sinners and poison them surreptitiously. It somehow got out of its cage.” He hesitated. “It ate a rat.”
“How long ago,” Julius demanded.
“Um. Maybe about two months ago.”
“After the infiltration to extract the betrayer from us?” Julius turned to his enforcer. “Do you think it was them? Was this the next stage of their attack and we missed it? Have they contaminated everything?”
She ran her tongue over her perfect teeth as she considered, then she looked away from her father. “It wasn’t them. It was me.”
Wayne blinked. Julius gasped. The two-man clean-up crew slowly edged out of the room.
“What are you talking about?” Julius asked her.
“I only wanted the plant to be free, unbound from its cage. I sensed its despair. I didn’t expect this to happen. I apologize. I will fix it.”
Despair?
Odd, Wayne thought, that a plant could feel any emotion at all. Odd even more that the woman could sense the sin. Who was she really?
Julius stared at her for long hard seconds, and then he turned back to Wayne. “No,” he said. “You will both fix it.”
Wayne released the air he’d held in his lungs. Thank God.
