He watched her from the doorway for a few moments. His thugs were standing behind him in case Margo gave him any trouble, but he highly doubted she would. Light from the hallway streamed around him and poured into the darkened holding room blinding her for a moment. He waited patiently for her to register who he was.
Her hands and ankles were bound and she must still feel nauseous and dizzy from the chloroform they’d used to sedate her. Since he was a detail man, he also noted that she hadn’t eaten in at least twenty-four hours. Nor had she been given water to drink. Her lip was swollen, her right eye blackened and her hair was matted with dried blood.
From his report, his collection agent had a bit of a surprise when she attacked him a few hours into her transport here. Apparently, he hadn’t taken the file on Dr. Margaret Winter seriously when warned of her military training. It was a shame to see such a beautiful face marred.
She stared at the man in the doorway with a hatred only a woman could feel. He watched her with calculated amusement for another moment. Out came the silver marbles and, without thinking, he began rolling them in his hand.
“Ms. Winter, is it?” Dr. Williams baited. “Well, well, young lady. I’ve been looking for you for quite some time. Been enjoying your Texas ranch, have you? And the children, how are they? I imagine the female is about fifteen, the oldest male is fourteen? And the youngest male is merely twelve. Typical teenagers, are they?
“I am truly curious, you see, because they hold the most successful of all the serums we ever created. They were the answers we needed to stay on the right path of future advancements. Once you stole them and destroyed their documentation, especially the male infant, our scientists had to start from scratch.
“You see, the formula delivered to the children had a unique factor my scientists have been unable to replicate. Something about the exact formula created a different reaction in the DNA—a “sleeper-like” effect. The metahumans are all very intelligent, very strong and quick to heal, but M57, 61 and 74 showed evidence of this sleeper gene. They were enhanced somehow. Heightened.
Nothing Dr. Williams was saying was new to Margo. She read every note made on her children when she confiscated them then destroyed them. Yes, the case studies were quite impossible to replace.”
She sat completely still, only half listening to the rantings of this crazed man. She was, however, very much focused on the thugs standing stupidly behind him. There were two of them flanked on either side of the monologue-ing idiot. The men had thick physiques and even thicker skulls. Outwitting them wouldn’t be a problem. But the demon doctor over here was another story. He was a wimp, but he was definitely not standing here without several alternate plans to maintain control over this conversation.
She was determined to get one answer. So she played her part as the beat-down hostage. “Where are the children?” Margo almost whispered her one question, exaggerating her exhaustion. “Just please tell me. Where are my children?”
Chapter 25 Road Trip
Okay, I have been in an SUV before. That wasn’t the problem. The problem was that I had never been in an SUV with my two brothers, Cole, Dr. Andrews and Maze. It was a little cramped, and I was drowning in testosterone.
We had decided to drive to California not because we were masochistic, though now I have to wonder about that, but because we had items that would not pass security at an airport.
Leave it to the Midwesterners to be avid hunters who were determined to protect the metahumans with their big burly guns. (read: I’ll be saving their butts before this is all over.)
We had stocked up on healthy snacks and drinks before we left. Michelle was no help whatsoever. She got dressed for work, wearing something called Prada strappies and Dolce and Gabbana suit and headed into the office that Monday morning. (I only know the names because she kept barking at Maze to stay away from her “gorgeous Prada strappies and Dolce and Gabbana suit that cost more than his pelt could get on the black market!”)
She barely waved good-bye to Cole and gave her husband a brief and lipstick stained kiss on the side of his mouth. I promise you, I will someday knock that woman senseless. I could just feel my blood boil every time she walked in the room.
It was probably a very good thing that she never even offered to come with us. Being stuck in the SUV with that she-witch for the twenty-three-hour drive would have been horrible! What did Dr. Andrews see in that woman?