Page 23 of Pride
Evan poked a replicate with his finger. It had zero response, so Evan poked it again. Then zapped it. When nothing happened, he grinned and looked at his brothers as though this was some kind of game. Both Griffin and Parker ignored him.
“So tell me,” Parker said. “What value does the Sisterhood have for a family they once tried to assassinate as children?”
“Oh, give it up, already,” Thea moaned. “We get it. You’re holding a grudge.”
Alice gave her sister a look. “He is right. Even though it wasn’t us in this very room, the Sisterhood does have a legacy of brutality and ruthlessness. We can admit that.”
Thea clenched her jaw. “It was before our time. Why should we keep being punished for something we never did?”
“Do you deny you’re an assassin?” Griffin asked.
Thea’s lips clamped shut, and she looked away.
Alice took a deep breath and focused on Parker. “Even though my mission was to gather intel on your family, there is another reason my sisters are here. And if you were paying attention to the whiteboard, instead of seeing only what you wanted to see, you might have noticed a few things.”
She righted the board. Most of the items had fallen to the floor, so she hunted through them until she found the articles she needed.
“This one,” she said, lifting a news report of a disturbance in the Quadrant a month or so ago. “This one was at Sloan’s wedding, correct?”
Evan nodded cautiously while Parker perfected his poker face.
Griffin took the paper from Alice. “How did you know that? The wedding isn’t in the article.”
She shrugged. “I had to help organize the bridal party gifts and pay for the catering.”
Griffin scowled at Parker. “You made your assistant order the gifts?”
Parker snatched the article off Griffin. “Not that it’s your business but I was busy programming a virtually sentient computer.”
“Anyway,” Alice continued. “What you may not know is that we were watching, too. The replicate that attacked didn’t seem to be controlled, and it had no real directive.”
“Its directive was to ruin Sloan’s and Max’s wedding,” Evan pointed out.
“That’s what you think,” she said, then picked up another scrap of paper. This was a handwritten field report from one of the Sinners after the warehouse attack where Parker lost his arm. “When their control was taken away, the escaped replicates went in one direction—south.” She found another piece of paper detailing another attack, handed it to Parker, and stood back. “This is a separate incident that we only know about because we have an agent on the inside at the Syndicate. You can see the replicate moved south, far into another state. He arrived at a particular spot and tried to dig with his bare hands.”
“What are you getting at?” Parker asked.
“Each time a replicate was loosened, it went south. Each went to a different location. We plotted them out and found a link.”
Alice put her hand out. His eyes darkened, but he put the device in her hand. Alice forced the triumph down and switched it off.
“What are you doing!” Parker’s eyes widened.
“Trust me,” she said.
The instant the device powered down, the control over the replicates dissipated. The three figures in the center of the room awoke, but they didn’t attack. They didn’t even notice the onlookers. Instead, like mindless zombies, they ambled southward in the room until they hit the wall and started scratching through the wallpaper.
“What are they doing?” Griffin asked as Evan followed them, watching curiously.
“Heading south,” Alice reminded them.
Of course, it was Parker who asked the million dollar question. “Why south?”
The three Sinners smirked at each other. When Alice returned her gaze to the tall, arrogant man, she only said. “That’s where our value lies.”
They stared at each other for long seconds. It obviously drove him nuts not to know something and, for a moment, she thought he’d pull the same shit as he always did, but a twinkle lit up his eyes.
“Fine,” he said. “I agree we should talk about this more.”
