“Maybe.” Matt leaned back, stretching his neck. “It’s more likely they fucked up our DNA so that we can’t reproduce.” Anger filtered through his quiet words. “Something to think about.”
He would. “Besides, we’re not exactly safe right now, Matt. Won’t be until the commander and his top scientists are in the ground.” That was if they figured out a way to deactivate the kill chips. If Shane were a better person, he’d think about sending those people to jail. But he wasn’t. The only way his family would be safe was if the people who’d created him died. Period.
“True.” Matt eyed Josie. “I spent the day hacking into the local police database. Apparently, the bugs in Josie’s house were planted by Max’s men.”
“Yeah, I know.” Shane took a deep breath. “I found the bugs, figured the commander had found Josie, and bugged her place myself. Then when I figured out it had nothing to do with me, I went after the morons lying in wait for her.” Of course, he hadn’t planned on getting hit in the head with a bat.
“Then you conducted Internet searches that could’ve brought us down. Thank goodness they didn’t. We got lucky this time. From now on, we check in with Nathan once a week so nothing like this happens again.” Footsteps sounded and Matt stiffened, his shoulders relaxing when a nurse passed by the doorway. “Though to be safe, we need to get out of town.”
“Yeah. I need to get Josie to the ranch—just for the next three months. If we figure out the code for the kill chip, I’ll take her somewhere else to keep everyone safe.” The ranch was one hundred acres in the Montana mountains where Nate had set up a protected space for them all to live if necessary.
“We need to stick together, Shane.”
“Not if it puts us all in more danger.” Shane shook his head.
“We’re not separating.”
“Leaving her again is impossible, and I won’t let my choices put you in the ground.” Shane winced as his abs protested. “I’m so sorry, Matt.”
“Don’t be.” His older brother leaned back, his gaze serious. “All I ever wanted was a good life for you. If you think it’s possible, I’ll do whatever I have to do in order to help.”
Gratitude and love choked Shane. “I can’t let you take the risk.”
“That’s a fight you’re not going to win—a fight for another day.” Matt steepled his fingers under his chin. “So your memory is coming back?”
“Yeah.” Shane searched deep in his head where something echoed. “I’m almost there. I can feel it.” Maybe he didn’t want to know what happened to his brother. “Tell me what you know.”
Matt’s jaw tightened. “We put Jory deep into a company called Millennia Investments.”
“I remember. The company has its fingers in everything from military contracts to genetic laboratories and drug manufacturing.” Shane had posed as a researcher to get in quickly. “Jory was beyond a genius with computers, wasn’t he?”
“Yes.” Matt sighed, dropping his hands to his lap and stretching his legs out. “Jory’s IQ kept him alive when he was a kid.”
Memories of a scrawny kid with huge feet filtered through Shane’s mind. “I remember. You kept him alive as a kid. It was you.”
“No.” Matt shook his head. “Jory’s IQ was incredibly high. Too high to measure, in fact. That kept him alive until he grew into those feet.” He chuckled. “Then he became downright deadly, remember?”
“Yes.” Shane nodded. Jory fought with cold, hard logic. No emotion, no anger. His well-trained limbs did what that powerful brain dictated. He usually won. “What if he hadn’t? I mean, did you ever wonder what really happened to the kids who left the camp?”
Matt stilled. “You’ve never asked me that before.”
Maybe Shane hadn’t wanted to know. “Do you know?”
“No. I assume they went to a different camp.” Raw pain flashed through Matt’s eyes to be quickly veiled. He was lying. There was no question he was hiding something. “Either way, right now we need to figure out what happened to Jory.”
Shane could let it go. For now. “So Jory went undercover to filter out whether the commander and his scientists had fingers in Millennia.”
“No. We already knew they did. Jory went in to find the commander and the names of the other investors. The people playing God.” Matt snapped his jaw shut.
Shane breathed out. “That’s right. What did he find?”
Matt lowered his tone, his gaze on Josie. “Don’t know. Six months later we received an urgent message from him that he’d been discovered and was heading out.”
Something hurt in Shane’s gut. Bad. And it wasn’t the bullet holes. “What then, Mattie?”
Matt dropped his gaze. Lines dug into his face. “Nate hacked into the computer system, and we found a video file showing Jory being tortured.”
“The commander?”
“I don’t know. Just saw Jory.”
Shane didn’t remember the tape. “I saw the video?”