High Society (The High Stakes Saga #3)

Kael smiled. “I never claimed to be anything but brilliant and ruthless. Both were attributes you appreciated when we first began this journey.”

“And now those attributes have become the swords that stabbed me in the back. I should have you—”

“Don’t bother threatening me, Victor. We both know I’m more valuable alive than dead.”

The feed cut off.

I looked up from the screen and into Yarrow’s eyes. “I didn’t see that one coming.”

“Neither did Victor.”

“First, Kael challenged him, and now General Ticher is going to ignore his orders and command the military his way. Victor will either fold or make them pay, and my money is on the latter.”

“There are a few other things you should see.” Her thumb scrolled through the data, searching.

“What about the purple smoke Special Containment used when the clones started falling from the sky? What was that?”

She tensed. “You’re not going to like it.”

“He poisoned the witnesses?” I guessed.

She shook her head. “Sort of. The smoke is a neurological agent, developed by Kael, of course. It erases short term memory.”

“What?” I breathed.

“They used it on everyone who saw the Eve clones, but they’ve been using it for years. They’ve used it on Eve. And, Maru, they’ve used it on you.”

“On me?”

Her eyes brimmed with tears. “You… I don’t know if you want to know all the things they did to the Assets, Maru. It’s horrific. Inhumane on a level I can’t even…”

“I need to know,” I told her, steeling my voice and bracing for what she was about to show me. If she was crying, I might, too. Especially after reading Eve’s letter and knowing Kael was using her to bait Enoch, and that the two were walking into their trap together.

She handed me the second communicator and hugged her knees to her chest. “I can’t watch it again.”

With her head turned away, she cried as I played the videos she’d queued. In the first one, Eve sat in a hard, partially-reclined plastic chair. The fluorescent lighting cast a ghostly glow over her skin. She wore a hospital gown and squirmed uncomfortably in her seat. Her wrists and ankles were bound tightly in metal clamps, and there was a leather strap across her abdomen that secured her body to the chair.

Kael entered the room holding something round in the crook of his arm. “Good afternoon, Asset Eve,” he greeted cheerfully.

“Kael,” she groaned. “I’ve been in here forever.”

“I apologize for the delay.”

“What is that?” she asked, nodding to the metal device in his hand.

He brought it out from under his arm and showed her. “This is a replica of a vampire skull.”

“A stainless-steel mannequin?”

Kael smiled. “And yet so much more. You see her fangs?”

He opened the metal vampire’s mouth so Eve could see the protruding fangs. “A vampire’s teeth are about thirteen millimeters longer than a human’s canine. Can you imagine such a small measurement leading to so much destruction?”

“I had no idea…” Eve answered, testing the strap by trying to sit up in the semi-reclined seat.

Two soldiers entered the room and flanked Kael, each carrying a tranquilizer gun.

“What is this?” she asked.