Lawe's Justice - Lora Leigh [33]
If those three had lived, that meant the answers she needed for Amber were out there as well. That night, Diane had found the warning note in her room. A location and the warning that she was being betrayed by someone close to her. It had been signed, The Executioner. The Breed rumored to be killing the scientists and some researchers who had worked in the secretive Brandenmore labs assigned to Breed research.
“Evidently not,” Thor answered, his tone disgusted when she didn’t speak. “It’s like they dropped off the face of the earth, Diane. There’s not even a hint as to where they could be.”
Oh, there was a hint, Diane knew, but she just couldn’t share it yet. Not until she managed to check it out herself and figure out exactly what was going on.
She hated distrusting her men, but she wasn’t stupid either. There was something that simply didn’t feel right since her capture in the Middle East sixteen months before. Something that had never set just right with her.
Her uncle’s enemies should never have found her while she was in Syria. They hadn’t known what she had looked like. She had used a fake passport and credentials, and she had none of her own contacts there. She hadn’t reached out to any of her uncle’s contacts either.
So how had they known not only where she was, but also who she was pretending to be at the time?
She’d had a feeling she had been betrayed then, but only her men had known where she was that day, and what she was doing. No one else had known, and she sure as hell hadn’t given up her location herself.
Her thoughts were cut off as the elevator door opened, depositing them out into the busy lobby of the hotel.
“Too damned bad that fucker Brandenmore died,” Malcolm muttered behind her. “We could have just beaten the information out of him.”
That had been Malcolm’s suggestion from the beginning. Hell, his Christmas wish had been for two minutes with the dead man to ensure he suffered before he killed him again.
A grown man who still made Christmas wishes. It never failed to amuse her.
Just as the thought of Brandenmore never failed to piss her off.
Brandenmore had been in bed with the Genetics Council well before he’d even realized it. His father and his grandfather both had supported the Genetics Council and hoped to benefit from the experiments and creations the Council had conceived.
Through his connection to them and the revelation of the aging retardation with Breed matings, Brandenmore had been drawn in to research the phenomenon.
A phenomenon he had found reason to suspect could not only retard aging but would also cure any human diseases the human mate may have.
Once any female child given the serum hit puberty, Brandenmore had theorized, then she would possess the ability to mate with any Breed as well. That the serum would slow her aging once she hit her sexual maturity, cure any disease, and also ensure Breed hybrid conception and possibly help Brandenmore find the cure to the cancer that ran in his family
Which wasn’t exactly true, as Diane understood it. Mating heat did much more than Brandenmore’s serum, and much less, if his files and the information Rachel had given her were anything to go by.
Breeds mated for life, Rachel had told her. The Breeds known to have lost a mate and survived that loss lived sad, miserable lives. The serum wasn’t a mating. It couldn’t ease or cure a mating. And in Brandenmore’s case, it had caused a painful and horrifying death.
“Wyatt is sending a car for us,” Aaron informed her as they crossed the lobby and headed for the front exit. “It’s supposed to be waiting outside the hotel.”
Diane nodded rather than making the scathing comment she would have at any other time.
This meeting with Jonas was too important to chance any transportation other than the Bureau’s. She just hoped he had gotten the hint and found a way to distract her men before the meeting began.
“One of my contacts called last night.” Thor leaned close as the other men moved ahead. “I need to meet