Rough Edges Read online

  Payton left.

  Aaron looked to be in his late twenties, with a heavy, muscular build and a body covered in thick black hair. His head had been recently shaved, leaving only the shadow of stubble beneath his olive skin. Dark brown eyes stayed fixed on Bella, completely ignoring Victor. A metal handcuff kept one of Aaron’s wrists chained to the bed. He patted the mattress beside him with his free hand. “Have a seat, sugar.”

  “No, thanks, pumpkin,” she replied. “I’ll stand.”

  He shrugged. “Suit yourself, but it’s been a long time since I’ve seen a woman as pretty as you. I could show you a really good time.”

  Bella’s body went fluid, moving with sinuous sex appeal. She leaned down close enough for Aaron to feel the warmth of her breath against his temple as she spoke. “Honey, with that hole in the back of your skull, your brains would come shooting out if I got my hands on you. We wouldn’t want that now, would we?”

  He reached for her in a move so fast there was no way he was still suffering from the effects of anesthesia. His fingers closed around her wrist in a brutal grip. In a move just as fast, she slammed the heel of her other hand into his nose, breaking it with a snap.

  Aaron instantly let go, covering his nose while he gurgled in pain.

  Bella grabbed a few paper towels from the sink and tossed them at him. “Clean up. You’re leaking blood and tears everywhere.”

  He held the paper to his nose and gave her a look that promised revenge.

  “Now that I have your attention,” she said, “let’s start with a few simple questions. Where is Dr. Stynger?”

  Aaron stared straight ahead, silent.

  “Don’t know that one? Gage Dallas seemed to think you’d know. And that you’d rat her out.”

  “That asshole doesn’t know a damn thing. He was kept in isolation.”

  Victor was impressed at the clever way she got him to answer. He’d always known she was smart, but interrogations were a fine art, and he’d always seen her as more of a force of nature than an artist.

  There was a flicker of excitement in Bella’s eyes before she covered it. At least now they knew that Gage was alive the last time this man saw him. And that he was a prisoner. That alone was more information than they’d found in the weeks since he’d gone missing.

  “Not anymore,” she said. “He’s ours now. Just like you are.”

  “I won’t be here long,” Aaron said.

  “No?” she asked. “Why’s that?”

  “Because she’ll come for me. I’m too important for her to not take me with her.”

  “She’s not taking you anywhere. We found out all about her plan. She’s on the run now, and there’s no way in hell she’s worried about a peon like you.”

  “I’m no fucking peon. I’m one of her generals. She needs me.”

  “For what? Cleaning toilets? She has other men far more skilled than you, general.”

  “You’re wrong. I’ve been specially selected. She told me so herself.”

  “To do what?” asked Bella, disbelief hanging on every word.

  “I’m in charge of upkeep at the new facility.”

  Victor chimed in. “It’s just like you thought. Upkeep is a fancy name for cleaning toilets.”

  Aaron’s face turned red. “Her new facility won’t run without me. She knows that. And when she comes here to rescue me, every one of you is going to be mowed down like weeds.”

  Bella ignored him and turned to Victor. “There’s no way she’s going to the new facility now. Everything will fall apart without General Plunger here. If we kill him, her whole operation will fail.”

  Aaron wadded the bloody paper towels in his fist. “You’re not going to kill me. That’s not the way you people work. I know the rules. You’ll hold me here until I die of old age or until I’m rescued, whichever comes first.”

  Bella crossed her arms over her chest. “That’s for people the world knows exist. You, pumpkin, are a ghost. No one knows where you are. I could strangle you with my bare hands and no one would ever know or care. We’ll incinerate your body and throw the ashes out with the rest of the trash.”

  “You won’t,” he said, but his tone screamed that he no longer believed his original stance quite so deeply.

  She shrugged. “We might. We have kept a few helpful resources alive here. The stubborn ones end up in the landfill, but you could get lucky. You might know enough for us to keep you alive for a while.”

  He shook his head. “Interrogation techniques. You’re lying.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not. The question is, do you want to risk finding out which it is?”

  Aaron stared at the wall, looking past her. “I’ll take my chances. Stynger is far more dangerous than you could ever hope to be. My money’s on her.”

  “We’re done here,” Victor said, taking Bella’s arm. “Either he doesn’t know enough to be useful, or he does and he won’t tell us. Either way this is a waste of time. We have others to question.”

  She played along, following his lead. “If you think of anything you want to tell us, let the guards know. We’ll be here for another hour. After that, you’re on your own.”

  They left the room to find Payton waiting in the hall. “What he said confirms my suspicions. Stynger is getting ready to make a move—one that will put her out of our reach.”

  “You heard?” Bella asked.

  “Of course,” Payton said. “You think I’d let you go in there without monitoring what was going on? You should know better.”

  She let out a sound of frustration worthy of any enraged teenage girl. “I can’t believe you were spying on us.”

  “I can’t believe you’d think I wouldn’t.”

  Before this got out of hand, Victor stepped between them. “We give Aaron a few minutes to digest what we said, then we go in and try again.”

  “It won’t work,” Payton said. “Believe me, I’ve tried. You can’t force these men to say a word. The best you can do is trick them into saying something they don’t realize is important, just like you did.”

  “Is his implant removed?” Victor asked.

  “It is.”

  “Then you don’t know he won’t talk.”

  “You’ve seen the video recordings of Jake Staite, haven’t you?” Bella asked.

  Victor suppressed a shiver at the memory. That poor man, once a proud soldier, was now a raving maniac, determined to kill his best friend Roxanne—or Razor as she was called—in the most brutal ways imaginable. He’d been implanted with one of Stynger’s devices and given orders to kill. The implant was gone, but the compulsion to kill was still there, as strong as ever. Because of that, Jake had been detained against his will for months.

  “I have seen the tapes,” he said.

  “Then you know it’s no use. Whatever Stynger put in that poor man’s head will be there until the day he dies. It doesn’t matter if the implant was successfully removed or not,” she said.

  “That’s not necessarily true,” Payton said.

  “What do you mean?” Bella asked. “I’ve seen the recordings. He still dreams about killing Razor.”

  Payton let out a long breath and stepped down the hall, out of earshot of any of the guards. “Razor got a package a few weeks ago. It was from Jordyn Stynger, Norma’s daughter.”

  “And you’re just now telling me this?” Bella demanded.

  “You can beat the hell out of him for that later. Now isn’t the time,” Victor said. He turned to Payton. “What was in it?”

  Payton kept his voice quiet. “It was an experimental treatment—one designed to reverse the mental conditioning done to Jake.”

  “Please tell me you didn’t give it to him,” Victor said.

  “We did. With his agreement. We waited until he had a lucid period, then made sure he accepted the risks.”
/>   Bella’s voice shook with quiet rage. “The daughter of a monster sends you experimental drugs to give to a helpless man held in your custody against his will, and you use him like a lab rat? How could you? Did you not learn your lesson after what you did to all the kids like me?”

  “We took every precaution,” Payton said.

  “What does that mean?”

  “We analyzed the drug and tried to re-create it so that we’d have enough to use on lab animals for testing purposes. To make sure it was safe.”

  There was something he wasn’t saying. Victor could tell by the man’s tone and the way his gaze slid to the wall. “But?”

  Payton took a long breath—one of surrender. “But it was too complex. We couldn’t replicate it. She’d included two doses on the off chance that it worked on Jake and could be used on someone else, but we burned through one of them with testing.”

  Bella’s eyes turned a stormy gray color Victor knew meant she was furious. “So you decided to assuage your guilt at drugging a helpless captive with an unknown substance by having him take the responsibility for whatever happened? I suppose you also asked him to sign a waiver, too, didn’t you?”

  “It’s standard procedure—”

  “I can not fucking believe you, Payton! How could you do that? After all these years of pretending you were seeking forgiveness, you turned around and did the same thing all over—”

  Payton grabbed Bella by the arms, shutting her up. “It worked. Jake has been himself since the day after the drug was introduced into his system. No bouts of rage, no outbursts, no desire to kill Razor. We even showed him her picture. This time, instead of ripping it to shreds with his hands and teeth, the man wept and hugged the photo, begging for forgiveness.”

  Bella jerked out of Payton’s grasp. “Just because it worked doesn’t mean you did the right thing.”

  “Maybe we got lucky, but the fact is that the choice I made gave one man back his life. If you don’t like it, then that’s your problem. Not mine, and sure as hell not Jake’s.”

  “You should have told me,” Bella said.

  Payton shook his head. “You just don’t get it, do you?”

  “Get what?”

  “If I’d told you that Jordyn Stynger had sent a package to Roxanne containing a possible way to reverse the damage done to all those men, what would you have done?”

  “I would have hunted Jordyn down and made her take the drug herself, just to be sure she wasn’t trying to kill anyone.”

  “Exactly my point,” Payton said. “Jordyn’s not the enemy, but you would have killed her because you’re too narrow-sighted.”

  “What the hell is that supposed to mean? If Jordyn wasn’t trying to screw us, then no harm would come to her.”

  “You don’t think so? Think again. Her mother is a jealous bitch who stakes a claim on everyone she touches. Do you think she’d just let us take her daughter into custody without consequences?”

  “What consequences?”

  “If Jordyn was working against us, then her mother would stop at nothing to get her back. If she’s turned on her mother, then her mother would stop at nothing to destroy her before she could offer us too much assistance.”

  “Either way, Dr. Stynger comes out of hiding and we get her.”

  “Except she wouldn’t come out of hiding. She’d send men to do her dirty work—men we’d either have to kill or subdue, assuming we were lucky enough to do either.”

  “So, just because you’re worried about protecting Jordyn, you’re willing to let Jake assume all the risk in taking the drug she sent?”

  “No,” Victor chimed in, hoping he wasn’t going to get his head chewed off by either of them. “That’s not it at all. We have to protect our asset by keeping her in play. If Jordyn is on our side, she’s exactly where we need her to be—inside Stynger’s lab. If she’s not on our side, then we certainly don’t want her where she can find our soft spot.”

  “So you agree with him?” Bella asked. “He should have let Jake take experimental drugs?”

  “I think that the only way to know whether or not Payton made the right call is to ask Jake. See if he’s lucid, if he agreed to take the drug while he was in his right mind.”

  “I can’t believe you two. There’s no way in hell the man in those videos was capable of making up his mind about anything more complicated than what he wanted for lunch.”

  Payton shot Bella a hard stare. “Just ask yourself this: If I’d come to you when we first met and told you that I could undo the damage done to you with a drug, but that it might kill you, what would you have done?”

  Victor could see the answer plain on her face. She would have taken it.

  Payton gave a slow nod. “Now maybe you can understand how Jake felt. I offered him hope. He took it knowing the risks. Just as you would have.” He turned and stalked off with a curt “Watch them” to the nearest guard.

  The guard did as he was told, turning his complete attention on them.

  Bella fell to a crouch, hugging her knees. A series of ragged, angry breaths fell from her lips. Victor knelt beside her, hating to see her in such distress.

  He put his hand on her shoulder. “Easy, Bella. Just breathe.”

  She took several deep breaths. He saw her relax, but only a little. She was still brittle with tension.

  “How can he do this?” she asked. “How can he pretend to want forgiveness for experimenting on people all those years ago when he’s still doing the same thing now?”

  He kept his tone gentle. “What would you have done differently?”

  “I wouldn’t have given an unknown drug to a captive man, that’s for damn sure.”

  “Even if he wanted it?”

  “He’s not in his right mind. How can he even know what he wants?”

  “You haven’t watched all the videos of Jake, have you?”

  She looked at him, fury still shining in her eyes. “What’s that supposed to mean? Are you telling me that you agree with Payton?”

  “Jake isn’t always deranged. Sometimes he’s perfectly calm, completely sane.”

  “How do you know?”

  “Because he begs for us to kill him before he can hurt anyone else. Especially Razor.”

  Bella fell silent. Victor could feel the guard lurking nearby, but decided not to let that stop him from offering her what comfort he could.

  He wrapped his arms around her and hugged her against his chest. She curled into him for a brief, beautiful second before pulling herself together and drawing away, back under her own strength.

  “I don’t know how to do this,” she whispered.

  “Do what?”

  “Forgive Payton for playing with the lives of others—risking their safety—when I do the same thing all the time.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “If not for me, Gage would be safe right now, rather than the captive of a maniac. I made him go. It’s my job to bring him home.”

  “You didn’t make him do anything. He volunteered, remember?”

  “I could have said no.”

  “To Gage? Have you met him? Come on, Bella. You know you can’t control other people. All you can do is help them when they step into trouble.”

  She pushed to her feet, straightened her clothes with purpose. “I’m going back in to talk to Aaron. He’s going to give me the answers I want about where to find Gage.”

  “No, he’s not. Not when you’re so all over the place. You need to calm down. Control yourself. Be smart. It’s the only way we’re ever going to get anything out of him.”

  Victor addressed the guard. “Is there a place we can get some coffee?”

  The guard nodded. “Break room is this way.”

  Victor took Bella’s elbow, nudging her into motion. What she really needed was a good night’s
sleep, but not in this place. A lot of people came to this facility and never walked out again. He didn’t want himself and Bella upping that number by two.

  The sooner they got out of here, the better.

  A few minutes after they sat down with their coffee, some kind of alarm went off, accompanied by flashing lights. Guards rushed past, but the one assigned to them stayed nearby, shifting anxiously from one foot to the other.

  “What happened?” Victor asked.

  “No idea, sir,” the guard said. “Please stay seated.”

  Bella straightened in her chair. “We need to know what’s going on. Fire? Attack? Escape?”

  The guard didn’t sway from his assignment. “You’ll be told what you need to know, ma’am. Until then, please stay calm and stay seated.”

  “I’ll show you calm,” she said, rising to her feet.

  Victor grabbed her arm and pulled her back down. “That’s not going to win you any favors. He’s just doing his job. He’s been with us the whole time. Chances are he knows no more than we do.”

  “We can’t just sit around like this, waiting for them to lock this place down, pretending there’s some kind of emergency. There’s no telling how long we’ll have to stay here. I can’t be locked away—not when Gage is still out there, missing.”

  “I understand your concerns, but there’s no way they’re going to deal with us right now. Let the incident pass, then we’ll find Payton and figure out our next move.”

  The sirens and flashing lights stopped.

  Bella still looked more nervous than he’d ever seen her. “I wish I was armed.”

  “So do I, but we’re not. Warm up your coffee?”

  She looked down at her full cup and frowned. He saw the moment it dawned on her what he meant. A steaming cup of coffee could be a useful improvised weapon if things got ugly.

  “Yes. Thank you,” she said.

  Victor got them both fresh cups of coffee and sat back down under the watchful gaze of the guard.

  Her anxiety was clear in the tension around her eyes and the way she held her cup so tightly that dark rings shimmered in the surface of the steaming liquid. She was an intense woman, brimming with power and energy, but this was different. Darker.