“What did you say?”
“We argued about that a bit.”
Sasha chuckles.
“But turns out, he did know me. At least, of me, OK? And then he says, ‘Nick Tate,’ Sasha. Nick Tate used my name as a threat back when Cabal Island was going down.”
Sasha makes a face. “What the hell is Cabal Island?”
I point at her. “That’s what I said. And he said that while you were doing Kansas, they—like thousands of ‘thems’—were all down in the Caribbean fucking shit up for the Company elites and they call this operation Cabal Island.”
“So Nick was there?”
“He was there.”
“But he was with me—” She stops. Because of course, Nick was not with her.
“That was his brother, Santos.”
“His brother?” Her voice is low now. Almost a whisper. And then she’s silent for a moment and I can almost hear all the wheels inside her head spinning around as she puts this all together. “I knew that wasn’t him.” She looks up at me. “I fucking knew. That wasn’t him. I told Jax that when he took me to that FBI safehouse. I know you never saw it, but he had thousands of pictures, Merc. Of this guy who looked just like Nick if you erased all the crazy drug-lord tattoos and facial scars. I fucking knew that wasn’t him.”
“It wasn’t him.”
“Then what happened?”
“Well, this Zach guy was actually pretty helpful. He said I was a legend, that he’d been dying to meet me—”
“Merc. No one cares about your legendary status. What happened next?”
“He knew Creepy Wendy and after I promised not to hurt her, he told me about her stomping grounds so I could go look for her.”
“So you lied to him.”
“I didn’t hurt her.”
“You kidnapped her.”
“And drugged her. And… got inside her mind. But I was on a new mission now, right?”
“Find Nick Tate.”
“And here we are.”
“Why am I here again?”
“I need your advice. Because OK, I found Nick. That’s cool, I guess. I can get over the betrayal if you can. But”—I point at her—“if you want to stay angry, I’m on your side. I will hate that fucker until the day he dies.”
She waves a hand at me. “Whatever. What do you want to ask me, Merc? I want to go home.”
“This Donovan thing.”
“You’re gonna do it?”
“I think I have to—”
“You don’t have to, Merc. If you’re not comfortable getting involved, then just say no. I will tell Adam that I did my best.”
“It’s not quite that simple anymore.”
“Why not?”
“Because I have since learned, from both Creepy Wendy—”
“Don’t call her that. She’s a grown woman. No grown woman wants to be called Creepy Wendy.”
“Sorry. I have since learned from both Gwendolyn and Nicholas”—she scoffs at me—“that there is... could be… maybe a problem.”
“What kind of problem?”
“With the girls.”
Sasha sits up. “What do you mean?”
“I would like to preface this with the disclaimer that we don’t actually know if any of this shit is true—”
“What shit, Merc?”
“That guy Donovan? He’s… twisted.”
“Yeah, I know. Carter.”
“Right. Carter. Well, according to Nicholas Tate—” She smiles. She can’t help it. I’m quite funny when I want to be. “He says that Carter had some breeding program going and that he’s been making Zero girls for the last fifteen years.”
“OK.”
“And Nicholas says that Carter is the father of my girls and has placed a trigger inside them. That he made them like Indie, Sasha. That one day my sweet girls will go off the rails the way that girl did. Which can’t be true, right? I mean, Daphne is such a good kid. She is, Sash. You know her. You’ve seen her. None of my girls are a problem. They’re perfect. And Daphne is almost sixteen and this Donovan guy is what? Thirty?”
“Hmm.”
I expect Sasha to agree with me immediately. Surely this asshole has not been fathering children since he was a teenager. Even for the Company, that’s fucked up. But she dithers. “What do you mean, hmm? I’m right, right? There’s no way some stupid teenager took over this bizarre sci-fi breeding program and started making assassins.”
“Well. I can’t say for sure, and here’s why. Donovan, and Carter by proxy, was not a normal kid. He was some kind of child genius. He went to medical school when he was fifteen. Medical school, Merc. Which means he was in regular university when he was like twelve. So yeah. It’s unlikely that what Nick said is entirely true. He claims he never lied to me, and if I had any leftover fucks to hand out to him and wanted to think this over thoroughly, I’d probably have to agree with that. But I think we have to assume that there is some nugget of truth in what Nick told you. Even if most of what he said ends up being flawed information.”
I let out a long breath and look out the window. “So it’s entirely possible that my girls came from this psycho’s program and he put a trigger inside them?”