BirthMark (23 page)

After Tyrese confirmed the information was true. Silas walked up to Leonidas, ignoring the horrified fear in his eyes, grabbed his head and pretended to snap his neck. What he’d actually done was sent the man to sleep, but the other prisoners wouldn’t know that. He had Leonidas’ monitor turned off as he walked into the next room. Silas crossed his arms and glared at another big guy who had already wet his pants. It has been too long since he’d toyed with anyone, he had forgotten how entertaining it was.

“I am going to ask you one question, one time. Answer me truthfully.”

The man nodded so fast Silas thought he might dislocate his head or something.

“Who sent you to attack Bennett the other night?”

The man frowned.

“In the alley of the club, remember, he kicked your ass.”

“Yeah…he was a tough fighter. I don’t handle contracts or nothing like that. I was told to jump him when he came out and I did. I swear that’s all I know.”

Silas rifled through his mind and found nothing useful. “Stand up.” The man stood and Silas released his cuffs. The man frowned as he massaged his wrists.

Silas stepped back, and punched him in the face. The guy spun around and hit the ground. “Stand up,” Silas growled.

“Please, no.” The man covered his head and rolled into a fetal position. No matter what Silas said, he whimpered and remained curled in a ball. Silas sent him to sleep and stormed into the next room.

“I don’t know anything, honest, I don’t. I would tell you if I did. That’s why they never tell me anything,” the man cried before Silas spoke.

“Who is 'they’?” Silas asked before rifling through the man’s memories. There were some shadowy images but nothing concrete enough to matter. Silas punched him in the stomach on general principle and then did the same to the next guy. By the time he reached the female’s cage, he knew she had been the brains behind the entire operation. Thinking of his mate, and the human females below, he concluded too many males underestimated the ingenuity of women. They could be an angel or the devil in disguise.

Security had just contacted him that they were on their way with Davian, ETA thirty minutes. Since he was running out of time, he strode into her room and immediately searched her mind. She was the initial contact. A rebel to the core, she’d set everything up. Just as Silas was going to pull out and exterminate her, he sensed something in the corner of her mind. He poked it and she winced.

Whereas she’d been haughty up to this point, she now looked petrified. Her mouth opened and closed. “Please don’t,” she whispered with tears in her eyes.

Silas wrapped protection around the small globe and then penetrated it. He watched for her reaction and when there was none, he watched as an alternate memory unfolded. She’d been taken at an early age to some place where they'd worked on her. She was a trained assassin, they kept her family to keep her in line. All in all, the wolf in front of him had been tortured, given a new reality, and sent on this mission.

Holding onto her memory, he searched the other four and uncovered another set of memories in Leonidas. The wolf thought he was mated, and someone held his mate and pups to make him do their bidding. A blinding rage tore through Silas. Someone was experimenting with full-blooded wolves, altering their realities.

A popping sound went off in the minds of Leonidas and the unidentified female. Silas realized the balls containing the memories were set to destroy the wolves if tampered with. No wonder she had pleaded with him to stop.

Quickly he ridded their systems of the poison the mini explosion released and eliminated it. When he left the female’s mind, she frowned and then her eyes widened. “You got rid of it. They said you couldn’t help, no one could.”

Silas sat at the table in front of her. “What’s your name?”

She wet her lips as her eyes darted around the room. “Asia. Asia Montgomery.” She grinned and it made her look even younger. “That’s my real name. I remembered.”

“Who took you? Who experimented on you? Took your memories?” He prayed to the Goddess they were getting closer to solving at least one unknown piece of the puzzle, hopefully it’d lead to solving the human breeder mystery.

“I don’t know anyone’s names.” She frowned. He was still in her mind and saw the large warehouse before she mentioned it.

“They kept us in some kind of building underground, really good security. I had a small apartment. They said I had a baby.” She placed her hand on her stomach. “But that’s another lie, isn’t it?”

He scanned her body. “You have not given birth.” Since she’d opened up and started talking, Silas flowed through her memories, searching for landmarks or clues to the facility. He found it when she had been at rifle practice at an outside range. There was a sound that he recognized, and it was only found in one place. He opened up and did a memory dump to Tyrese. Finding Asia had been like finding the mother lode. A few minutes later he was done. He glanced at the clock. He had another fifteen minutes before Davian’s arrival.

“Rest. I will be back later and we will talk.”

She nodded.

The mental transfer had drained her and she should be out for a little while. He took her hand and completed another in-depth scan to make sure she wasn’t locked and loaded. After checking her restraints, he left to check on the other four men.

Three of them were dead. He called the lab and had them take the men downstairs to be checked. He wanted a report of what was used and how it worked.

He stepped into the room with Leonidas and took hold of his wolf. “Wake up, Leon.” Tawny eyes blinked and then focused. Silas waited a moment for the man to catch his breath before he sorted through his memories. Leon had a visual of the same warehouse, except there was more detail to the building. Obviously Leon had been in areas Asia had not.

“I didn’t die,” he whispered as though the idea was alien to him.

“I didn’t break your neck, I put you to sleep,” Silas said, flowing through the memories and sending them to Tyrese.

“No…no, you changed something and it was supposed to kill me.” He looked at Silas with a confused frown.

Silas met Leon’s eyes and spoke tersely. “I am the Patron, leader of all wolves. There is nothing about you, baring death, which I cannot fix. You should’ve come to me immediately,” he snapped.

The man rubbed his brow. “I know that, at least I used to know that…what the hell happened to me?” He glanced at the steel cuffs on his arms and legs. “What did I do?” he whispered.

“You were involved in a plot to overthrow the Patron, me.” Silas finished pulling the information and looked into the slack-jawed face of the man in front of him.

“No. They wanted information on your son, or is it sons?” He shook his head as if to clear it. “You have twins somewhere. You’ve been hiding them until now.” Leon closed his eyes, thinking.

Silas tried to help make sense of the scrambled information. Leon’s eyes popped open, the irises were like a translucent gold. Silas held onto the man’s wolf while hovering inside Leon’s mind on the lookout for deception.

“You had two sons, twins from a human. They wanted to see what a breed from La Patron would look like, how he thought, and fought. So when the guy claiming to be Bennett showed up, he was all wolf. But we’d been told some breeds could cloak their human side and not to be fooled. Rumors had it that your son came to that club occasionally. I think someone followed him to the condo and he never came out.”

“
You getting this Tyrese?”

“
Yes, Sir, talk about mixing things up.”

“Do you know who wanted to see him in action?” Silas asked Leon.

Leon scrunched his face. “No, I never met the two men in charge of the operation. The doctor who worked with us called them Batman and Robin under his breath.”

“
Same two who wanted mom killed?”
Tyrese asked

“
Sounds like it.”

“Tell me everything you remember about the operation. It looks big, and well-funded,” Silas said.

“Yes, Sir. They’ve been around for years. I met a couple of service wolves who lived their entire lives in that compound, some fifty plus years.”

Silas’ heart sank. How could he hope to catch up with that much lead time? “Are the men in charge human or wolves?”

“Most of the doctors were human. No wolves though, but a few other species. Like I said, I don’t know who the real leaders are.”

“How did they see the fight?”

“Asia held up her phone and captured it.” He paused, frowning. “Asia? Is she okay?”

“She’s asleep. The other men didn’t make it.” He watched as Leon scowled.

“Good riddance,” Leon spat, literally. “They were our guards, dumb as rocks, but wouldn’t veer from their instructions, not the tiniest bit.”

“They were full-bloods.”

“I know, still dumb though. All muscle, no brains. I know two of them had been born in the compound and were only taught to fight and follow instructions. When Bennett whipped them so fast, they were the first to report the wolf had to be your son to have beaten all four of us so quickly.”

“Really?”

Leon snorted. “They train everyday to fight, that’s all they do. And he whipped all four of our asses without breaking a sweat.” He glanced at Silas. “Is it true? Is he your son?”

“One of them.”

“Thank goodness. I would hate to think a regular breed whipped my ass like that.”

Before Silas could respond, security informed him Davian Bennett was in one of the holding rooms, and that they had walked in on him fighting two men who had broken into the hotel room. It was only the mention of the man’s mate that had made him come peacefully. So they were after Davian? Why? The man was reportedly dead. Too many questions and the answers were coming too slow.

Silas looked at Leon and then at the clock.
“Jasmine, Davian is here, he’s in the same room where you met Matthew. Please do not go in before I get there.”

“
I won’t.”

He exhaled, glad she hadn’t given him a hard time, and hopefully they’d be able to get through this closure session without bloodshed.

Chapter 15

Silas placed Leon and Asia in a deep sleep before leaving them. Tyrese was nearby, monitoring the pair while filtering through all the data Silas had sent.

He chuckled at the idea Tyrese and Tyrone were his sons simply because they fought so good. It must have been the Texas fight the unknown men had seen. The breeder had been taping that fight with the twins against the group of half-breeds as well. He was certain that’s when they came up with this theory.

Exiting the lift, he strode to the holding room. Jasmine stood next to the door and his heart stuttered at the sight of her. The green pants hugged her rounded hips and the matching wrap-around blouse emphasized her small waist. Her braids were pulled back from her face into a small bun on the back of her head, emphasizing her faultless facial features. A stab of jealousy hit him as he wondered who she’d dressed for. Also, knowing the man on the other side of that door was the only other male to have sex with his mate made it hard for his wolf to settle. Jasmine always dressed; even when she rolled on the floor with his pups she was neat and well-groomed. If she looked any other way, it would have been odd. He caged his beast as he approached her.

She glanced up and offered a small smile. Unable to do anything else, he took her into his arms and held her tight for several moments, inhaling her scent. Leaning back he searched her eyes and saw it, that tiny spark that was always there for him. He hadn’t realized how much he’d come to count on it until it was missing.

His lips pressed against hers. She opened her mouth, allowing him in. Her warmth soothed him. His wolf urged him to reclaim her. He soothed his beast with a promise of later, now he had to allow his woman to have closure with the man who'd left her years ago.

He place a few more kisses on her face, not wanting her to leave the circle of his arms, not yet. It had been days since he’d held her.

“Silas…Silas, I want to get this over with so I can get back to the nursery.” She pushed him back and cupped his cheek. “Dinner? Let’s have a dinner date.”

“Okay,” he said, breathing hard.