Page 96 of Pride
“And I’m surprised to see you had the balls to come,” she replied. “I mean, I thought you’d have been licking your wounds after what Daisy did to you.”
Anger fired in Julius’s eyes. He tapped his hair entwined finger to his chest and mumbled something she couldn’t quite catch. Then he darted a glance to the other Syndicate members and calmed himself. Alice inwardly smiled. Once again, Parker had been right. They’d thought this man had more influence with the organization than he did.
A warm hand slid over Alice’s nape, and then a brazen kiss below her ear. Parker leveled his stare at Julius. Seeing them side by side, Alice could tell they were biologically related.
“Julius Allcott,” Parker stated. “I don’t remember putting your name on the guest list.”
Julius visibly prickled, but held his tongue, preferring the language of ego and entitlement. The derangement melted away and was replaced with a shadow of the formidable man he used to be. Alice saw how this man had convinced investors to take a chance on his dream. With a simple look, he seemed to suck all the air out of the room.
Just as she’d thought about his influence, he proved her wrong by tapping his chest again as he mumbled something like a madman. Hadn’t Daisy snatched a locket containing his wife and daughter’s hair? Was he still so obsessed with bringing them back?
More alarm bells rang in Alice’s head. It was one thing to battle a sane psychopath, but one without logic would be unpredictable. Parker must have known this, Alice realized, and she felt foolish for not picking up this nuance sooner. It made sense now why he knew Julius would take the bait. Not just pride, but obsession.
“You’ve aged since I last saw you, Julius,” Parker noted.
“You can thank your incompetent sister for that,” Julius quipped.
Parker’s fingers tightened around Alice’s nape.
“Where is she?” he demanded.
Julius smirked until Parker grabbed his arm, bionic fingers tightening. The movement exposed metallic workings beneath Parker’s sleeve. The bodyguard intercepted, but Julius halted him, and instead pried off Parker’s fingers himself. His strength shocked Alice, and when she looked at Parker, she found him with the same expression.
“You didn’t think you were the only ones to receive gene therapy, did you?” Julius taunted, then gave Parker a dismissive look. “At least your sister has been good for something.”
“You bastard,” Parker said. “You treated your own daughter like a pet, no, worse than one. Torturing her and then parading her around like some kind of exhibit. Her cells won’t get you where you need to be. You know that. Not while they’re in the state they—”
He cut himself off, as though he’d spoken too much. Turning to the bar, Parker took another flute of champagne and guzzled it down.
“I’ll swap Despair for Gloria’s research,” Julius offered, taking the bait.
Only Alice caught Parker’s small smile before he removed it and returned to face Julius. Parker narrowed his eyes, pretending to consider the proposal.
“I want proof of life,” he demanded.
Julius nodded to his companion, who pulled a smart phone from his pocket and thumbed the screen. He showed Parker the live video feed, bumping rudely into Alice as he moved.
Alice’s body went on high alert, ready to retaliate if necessary, but then she felt something strange. He shoved paper into her hand.Odd.Holding her breath, she curled her fist around the note, and then made a show of looking at the screen as though nothing had happened.
Could this be a message?
The bodyguard continued to ignore her and looked at the video of a dirty, silver-haired woman prone on the ground against a curved concrete wall, and then the phone was put away.
“That doesn’t prove she’s alive,” Parker said. “I want to speak with her.”
“First, I need to see the laptop, and that it’s been decrypted.” Julius shrugged.
“It’s all in here.” Parker tapped his temple. “The laptop has degraded too much to be of use. So you take me to Daisy, and I’ll write everything down.”
Julius glanced around the room with the same bored expression Alice had seen on Parker so many times. “I know what you’re doing here, and it won’t work.”
“And what’s that?” Parker folded his arms.
“Cut the heads off the snake and it will all disappear. The Syndicate is bigger than these people.”
“I know,” Parker replied. “It’s worldwide. Norway, Columbia, Ireland, Australia, Japan, Africa and here.”
The two men stared at each other, neither willing to give an inch but both knowing Parker had revealed every single Syndicate location. The paper burned a hole in Alice’s hand and she itched to read what it said. She glanced at the bodyguard, but he kept his hard gaze on Parker, as did Julius. Something flickered in Julius’s expression. Recognition.
