3. Hunter

THREE

HUNTER

I ’m in what Hollywood depicts as a “war room.”

Before we arrived here, a dark-skinned woman who could only be five feet tall stopped us. She carried a bundle of clothes in her arms, and she passed them to Misha with a strange sense of reverence. Dismissing her, he tossed the clothes at me and pointed to a closed door.

“You and your woman will sleep here. Get cleaned up. You have fifteen minutes,” he said.

I didn’t waste time checking out the room. I just took a quick but thorough shower, scrubbing long enough to get the caked blood off my hands.

When he knocked exactly fifteen minutes later, I met him at the door.

My mission is to figure out what the hell is going on, and then I will make the best decision for my family.

Control. Knowledge will allow me to regain control of…everything.

Dark paneling lines the walls and ceiling of the massive conference room—likely to soundproof the space—and there’s a long table that easily sits thirty people in the center of the room. On the far wall is a digital world map and several clocks showing the time in various parts of the world. On the other side of the room, a row of computers lines the wall, and Max sits at one of the stations.

Max too? Jesus.

Misha stands at the control center, where he speaks with a thin man who is probably in his fifties. I hover a few feet from the entrance for nearly a full minute while Luna beelines for Max.

Everyone wears all black.

Luna leaves the computer station and motions for me to sit at the massive table. Just as I lower myself into a seat, a hush falls over the room, and everyone turns in unison toward the entrance I just came through.

There stands my mother.

Where she was soft-spoken, wearing her heart on her sleeve, at the time of our confrontation an hour ago, now she’s aloof. Cold.

Her eyes scan the room, and several people sit up straighter...but just as many people avoid looking at her altogether.

Leo walks in and sits next to me.

“You okay, H?” he asks under his breath. I get a flash of other times when he’s asked me the same question. When I’ve been in over my head. Leo’s always been there to save me…but I feel like this time, that’s not an option.

I inhale slowly, trying to calm myself.

When Luna walks over and closes the heavy door, silence descends among the room’s occupants. Misha takes a seat at the head of the table, and Luna moves to sit to his left. My…Amelia takes a seat on his right.

Leo and I position ourselves on the opposite side of the table, facing the hundred-inch television situated near Misha and Luna.

“First things,” Misha says. “Leo, Hunter, I’m glad you’ve decided to join us. For years, we’ve been searching for an in with The Legion, and I know with you two here, we can end this.”

I arch an eyebrow. “Don’t be so quick to thank us. We haven’t decided anything yet. Not without more information.”

Max taps on his keyboard with a rapid cadence for a few beats before slamming his finger on a key and then spinning in his chair. Regardless of the mass murder at Amelia Manor, Max is still smiling.

I return my gaze to Misha.

“In my book, the first thing is this: Why did none of you intervene in Winter’s abduction?”

Misha and I are in a stare-off, and it isn’t until Luna shifts in her seat that Misha decides to speak.

“I thought we were past this, Hunter?—”

“We’ll never be past this. I’ll never be past this,” I press. Heat radiates from my sternum as I stare Misha down. Silent. He and I are silent, as is the rest of the room.

Misha is the one to break the stand-off. “Winter’s abduction was a horrible byproduct of everything happening currently. But she also was a person of interest to us because of her parents. The Legion had her mother killed.”

He says this so dispassionately it takes me a moment to register what he’s just said in the midst of my rage.

“Winter’s parents were in a car accident,” I say.

“A car accident orchestrated by the players in The Legion who didn’t want her mother to become a senator. They’d tried to get her to fall in line, but she was an idealist. And she knew too much.” Misha shrugs again. “It was easier to get rid of her rather than hack the election systems. Plus, the ‘hanging chad’ thing from Florida during the 2000 presidential election made them antsy. In any event, that idealism got her killed.”

I hum in response, and the muscles on my forehead feel tense with how hard I’m frowning.

“What exactly is your role in all this?” This comes from Leo.

Misha grins, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “I’m the one in charge here.”

Amelia tenses, and I spare her a glance at the slight movement of her body. When my eyes land on her, I catch her staring at me.

I don’t give in to the urge to stare back.

Snapping my eyes back to Misha, I say, “So you are the one who made the call that no one would intervene with Winter’s abduction.”

Silence falls upon the room as I bring the topic back to what matters the most to me .

After a moment of uncomfortable stillness, Misha releases a tired sigh. “I’m sorry for what Winter has gone through. I never want to see anyone get hurt. It’s unfortunate. However, the mission is more important than any one individual. To save everyone—everyone being the world—there will be sacrifices.”

I stare at him, and I know that if I could kill him with my glare, he’d be dead on the spot.

But when my mother looks down at the table, rubbing the glossy oak surface, I decide to close my eyes and turn away instead.

Misha leans on his armrest with one hand cradling his chin. Glancing at the tall man he spoke to earlier, the subordinate hands me and Leo a teched-out tablet.

“Let’s not waste any more time and get you up to speed,” Misha says. He shifts his gaze to Amelia, who squares her shoulders as she pushes away from the table. She walks to the screen on the wall opposite our chairs.

An organizational flowchart appears before us.

“As you now know, we are called The Resistance. We are the counter group to The Legion, which is a secret society that came about in the decades between the First and Second World Wars.”

“Clever name,” I say in reference to The Resistance’s title, putting my head on my fist as I lean on the armrest. Leo coughs and straightens in his seat.

“ The Avengers was already taken, unfortunately,” Max pipes up. Everyone looks at him for a moment before returning to Amelia.

She continues.

“The Legion’s core mission is to unify the globe under one rule. They feel it to be a divine mission and that they are ordained by God.”

Amelia flips through the images of several recognizable figures, and I wrack my brain to place them, searching through my memories of world history.

“Their core tenet is that man was created in the image of God, and therefore, anyone who is or looks ‘other’ is an abomination. ‘The Undesirables’ aren’t human. At best, they’re seen as chattel.”

She flips through more pictures, and they become more current and recognizable.

“The Legion started with a few notable members—oligarchs from the East, former royalty who saw their kingdoms demolished, and, of course, American moguls who wanted globalization. They’ve always operated underground, but even in the shadows, their power grew. Their leader is called The Architect.”

She shows pictures of several public figures I recognize and a few royals from well-known monarchies.

“They’ve amplified their mission: to bring Earth under one central rule and rid the world of those they deem less-than. Which brings us to their work over the last forty years.”

She flips the screen to show more of the images that Misha revealed in his office hours ago.

I force myself to keep my gaze on the pictures.

“The Legion began to experiment with genetic manipulation right after World War II. There was a mass of labs run by the Nazis and other parties that just ‘disappeared.’ Except they didn’t. Those research facilities were taken over by Legion scientists. Their goal was to ensure they could maintain the birthrates of ‘pure-bloods’ in the face of what they viewed as a takeover by The Undesirables.”

She clicks to another slide. It’s clearly a clandestine view of a lab, taken at an odd angle and through material that might be a lab coat. The place looks deserted, and it’s apparent that the picture was taken well after the 1940s, but not in recent years.

“Since the end of the Cold War, however, they’ve been focused on bringing about the next phases.”

Her face takes on an even more grim cast.

“Keep The Desirables alive.” She clicks to show what looks like shelves of medicines, all labeled the same.

“Ensure genetic superiority.” A picture of a mass grave with innumerable bodies piled on top of one another.

“Eradicate The Undesirables.”

When she lands on the final slide, the air grows thick, and Leo and I both freeze. The picture is of the BwP logo embossed on the door of our vault…except the vault door is open.

Fuck.

“So The Legion,” Leo starts, his fingers drumming wildly on the tabletop, “they have our product, and they’re using it to…” Leo moves his hand in the air, searching for a word.

“From the best we can tell, they’re using the products your company has created to do a few things. They’re using your technology to create clones—super soldiers and genetically superior individuals of their choosing—so they can keep the people they want alive and disease-free, and use that same technology as a kill switch.”

“Well fuck me,” Max mutters from the corner. He doesn’t look put off by the information. He’s slack-jawed, sure, but the twinkle in his eye is unmistakable. He’s geeking out while we’re talking about mass genocide and New World Order.

“Okay so, why exactly do you need me?” I ask. “If they already have Panacea, then what are we going to do? Walk up to them—whoever ‘they’ are—and take it back?”

I join Leo in the finger-tapping.

“Obviously not, Hunter,” Misha drawls, and I roll my eyes over in his direction. He still maintains his bored expression as he leans in his chair, but Luna shifts closer to her husband. When she puts her hand on his shoulder and he reaches up to cover it with his own, I want to rub my forehead at the headache that’s forming. They’re the picture of domesticity…except they’re both wearing five guns apiece.

“They have the science. So what The Resistance needs now is a countermeasure,” Max adds.

“Which is why you needed to put Luna in the trial,” I say, piecing everything together. “Were you even sick?” My eyes narrow as I assess her.

What’s real? What’s fake?

She straightens in her seat and a strange look comes over her face.

“Yes, I was sick. Very sick. The cancer I had was aggressive and untreatable, according to our doctors and the ones we saw outside of the compound. But I didn’t have high hopes for them finding a cure because they couldn’t find one before.”

“Before?” Leo asks.

Luna nods. “Yes. When I was a teenager, I developed lung cancer. It was a rare thing and a genetic luck of the draw.” She inhales deeply, almost as if she were testing that her lungs still worked. “I was saved and cured, but it came at a great cost. It came from me being caught by The Legion and used as a live lab rat for their cure serum.”

Leo and I must stare at her dumbly, because when she pulls a switchblade from her pocket with an eye roll and cuts her forearm in one long stroke from elbow to wrist, we both jump in our seats.

“Wait a minute,” she says with a sigh. “Maybe two or three.”

The digital clock on the wall rolls over from one minute to the next, but I stare transfixed as Luna’s skin knits back together before my eyes.

“Holy,” I start to say.

“Shit,” Leo finishes.

Luna sighs. “The Legion had another push to pursue their research in the eighties and nineties because of the AIDS crisis. It was a new virus, and people were scared of it. So they needed live guinea pigs to test the first version of their biodefense system—a serum that facilitates rapid healing and acts as a prophylactic against any diseases.”

I stare for a few moments after she finishes talking.

“Okay, so let me make sure I’ve got it right. You had cancer as a teenager,” I say.

“Correct,” she confirms.

“And they—The Legion—just…took you?” I rub my top lip.

“Not quite. My mother had already died. I didn’t know my father. My aunt and uncle were my guardians, but they didn’t care about what happened to me. Especially once I got sick and started draining their time and money.”

Even though she looks tough on the outside now, a flash of softness returns to her gaze.

“When it was clear I was going to die, I was left to pass in a county hospital. Alone.” I track the movement when Misha rubs her wrist with his thumb.

“Got it,” Leo says when I don’t reply. “So they took you from the hospital and brought you to their lab.”

“Yes, I was on Isla Cara. That’s where I met Misha.” She looks at him. “He saved me.”

I blink against the immediate image of Isla Cara and all its horrors. Another memory—a dark underground room with a young blonde girl with dark tanned skin in the middle of a stage—comes up too.

I open my eyes to look at Luna. To really look at her.

She was there. I saw her.

“So, the serum…they gave you the serum?” I ask.

“Yes,” Luna says after clearing her throat. “I was apparently the first person to survive the testing. They kept me in a coma for three months. But in that time, they cured my cancer. The biggest question was how long the serum lasted.” She shrugs. “Turns out the answer is about five years. There’s a lot we don’t know about it, and when I left Isla Cara, we took a ton of serum. But we ran out. I’m a year overdue for my next dose, so I’ve been falling apart ever since.”

She gestures to the now-healed cut on her arm. “Something like this would have healed before the blade left my skin a few years ago.”

“I see,” I say. “So when you got sick again, and the cancer was aggressive….”

“I needed help to get another cure. Obviously, I wasn’t going to go back to The Legion to get it. Plus, they think I’m dead.” She shrugs.

“So Panacea did help you,” Leo says.

“Yes, it cured me.” She shrugs again.

“And now that technology is in the hands of this Knights Templar-slash-Illuminati gang?” This comes from Leo.

“Pretty much,” Misha pipes up.

“Uh huh,” Leo says.

I resist the urge to rub my temples. “Okay, so bring it back around to what the hell it is you want me to do,” I say.

Silence falls over the room.

“You were on Isla Cara the most out of any of us. You have to know where your father hides his deepest secrets on that island.”

Nausea blooms in my stomach.

“I was a kid when I was there, and he certainly didn’t tell me anything. Certainly not anything that resembles the shit you’re talking about.”

Misha turns his sharp gaze toward Leo as my friend resumes tapping his fingers on the table.

“Do you remember something, Polanco? You were on Isla Cara fairly often too,” Misha says. I don’t miss the twitch in Leo’s shoulder as Misha’s words land.

“Listen, you’re going to have to give us more direction than this. But even still, I doubt I have anything helpful,” I say.

Misha stares at me hard, his face impassive, for several seconds. When he speaks, his voice is calm.

“We know from our intel that Benjamin documented significant information about The Legion in a black journal. Our informant saw him writing in the journal shortly before they were killed, but they didn’t have it in their possession long enough to decipher the code except for two words: Elysium and Panacea.” This comes from Amelia.

That information lands in my stomach like lead.

“So that’s what you had me go on a wild goose chase all around Isla Cara to look for? Or do you think I actually have this book?” I say, thinking back to Misha’s accusations right before the raid. “If my father wrote anything down, I’ve never seen it. In general, whenever I was in his presence, he was too busy doing other shit.” Or other people.

“Fair enough,” Misha grinds out.

“The book wasn’t in the places you searched on Isla Cara. You only went to the vault and to his office. So there are two options here, really. It’s either hidden somewhere else or someone else took it,” Amelia says.

“Or it doesn’t exist anymore,” Leo replies.

“That could also be the case. But we should keep searching for it or for any other clues that might lead us to The Architect.”

The Architect, The Legion’s leader.

“Is that what you think is in the book?” I ask.

Amelia and Misha nod before the Ukrainian speaks. “There were at least a hundred pages of documentation, all written in code. Anagrams, we think. Elysium is what they are calling their new utopia. Panacea, as you can deduce is?—”

“Is our technology and their means of access to this new utopia. Yeah, got it,” I grumble, cutting Misha off.

“Okay, so we need to find the book,” I say, and I try not to stress about the fact that I just said “we.” Why do I feel like I’m about to pick the wrong pill in The Matrix ?

Misha smiles. “Yes, we do.”

“But before anything, what we really need is to find and eliminate Morris Winthrope,” I say. Misha, Luna, and Amelia go quiet.

“That’s the first order of business. We get rid of the person who just tried to abduct and kill my family. Let’s give him the same treatment he gave us.”

Rage fills me as I visualize Winter and August on the ground in my hangar.

No, that would be too good for the fucker.

“In fact,” I add, “why don’t you tell me how the fuck they got into Amelia Manor? Rio was head of security, I thought, and apparently he’s your guy too.”

A drumbeat increases in my left temple, making my eye throb.

Misha makes a short sound in his throat as he cracks his knuckles before answering my question. “We were made aware of Winthrope’s plan to make a move against you all. That’s why I wanted you to leave for Isla Cara earlier. I’d hoped you’d be able to provide me with something, anything valuable.”

His voice has an edge to it, and I don’t fucking appreciate it.

“We had our eye on Carlos Medina, and we knew that Rodrigo Lopez was a wild card.” He shifts in his chair—a small movement. “I was…overconfident in what we had set up at Amelia Manor. So when we received intel that you did have the journal, I got distracted and fell into the trap.”

I blink at the man. Who told him that? And why?

“Where did you hear that?” I reply.

Misha waves his hand in the air and mutters, “Unimportant.”

When I tilt my head to the side to assess him, he raises his eyebrow and shrugs.

“I don’t have the journal,” I say, feeling very tired.

“I see that now,” Misha replies. Not only is he taking all the responsibility for what just happened at Amelia Manor, he’s showing his cards. That they—he—fucked up.

I don’t have anything to say to that because the fact is, since he decided to take up the mantle of protecting my family, the failure does fall on him.

But it falls on me more.

I won’t let them get hurt again. I’ll give my life to ensure it.

“We will take care of the clean-up at Amelia Manor, get rid of the bodies,” he adds.

“Any of ours will be treated with respect,” I throw back at him, my voice low. A rasp.

So many fucking deaths.

“You have my word,” the pakhan says.

We’re all silent around the room until I break it.

“Fine. Morris Winthrope,” I say, changing the subject. “We get rid of him before anything else.”

Misha places his right hand flat on the table as if he were evaluating the surface, and then he taps his index finger on the woodgrain to a slow cadence.

“Let me ask you this, Hunter,” Luna says, leaning forward in her chair and steepling her hands beneath her chin. “Why do you think we haven’t gone after Morris Winthrope already?” Her flinty gaze seems a little unhinged, but I shrug anyway.

“Does it matter? It’s what we’re going to do now,” I reply, going for an unaffected tone.

“But it does fucking matter,” Luna grinds out. She drops her hands to the table, using her fingers to emphasize her next words. “Time, opportunity, and mass impact. We have one shot to do this, and failure is not an option. If we fail, we’re all fucked. So no, we’re not making a wave by offing someone as public and important to The Legion as Morris Winthrope. Not without having the rest of them, namely The Architect, in our grasp,” Luna says, hot emotion lacing each word.

“So you’re going to just let Morris Winthrope walk?” I spit each word at her.

Misha sighs. “No, Hunter. We will bring every Legion member down—including Winthrope. But we have to be smart about this. This is bigger than any one man.”

Every word he and Luna say serves to further enrage me, but I try to access some semblance of patience.

The reality is that if I plan on doing anything to keep my family safe, I need the people sitting at the table across from me.

“Okay, so again, what’s your plan for getting them, then?” I close my eyes as I speak, pinching the bridge of my nose.

“Hunter,” Misha says with a sigh. “You are a pain in my ass, you know that?”

I look up and frown at him. “What, for asking questions? You want me to work with you. Not the other way around.”

“Well, Brigham, if it weren’t for me—for us—saving you and giving you our resources, you and your woman would be a blood stain on the ground, your son would be a lab experiment, and your sister would be getting gang raped by Winthrope’s colleagues.”

I stand up so quickly that the chair tips over. Leo gets up as soon as I burst from the seat and places a hand on my chest.

“Easy, H,” he mumbles.

I can’t breathe through my fury. Taking in all the meditation tools Winter’s taught me, I breathe in to the count of three and exhale to the same cadence.

“Fuck off, Hroshko,” I grind out.

Good. I didn’t launch myself over the table to strangle him.

Out of my periphery, I note that Max sets my chair upright, and I grab it to sit back down.

But as soon as I land in the seat, my phone rings.

Unknown number

“Who the hell is that?” Leo asks, leaning over to glance at my phone screen. Misha moves to hover over my shoulder, but because I hate the fact that he lords over me, I stand to match his height.

“I think I know,” Misha mutters, and he gives a long glance to Luna. “Answer it.”

I press the button to pick up the call. I don’t greet the person on the other end, but I don’t have to. As soon as the call connects, Morris Winthrope’s voice echoes over the speakerphone.

“Hunter Brigham, you’ve surprised me,” he says. His tone is eerie, mechanical.

Evil.

“Winthrope, to what do I owe the pleasure?”

Morris pauses a beat. “Blair knew what she was getting into when she went to Amelia Manor. But, you know, it was personal to her,” he says.

It must have been personal. Personal because of Winter.

“She wanted to play, so she was the one who dragged your mistake out. She knew that your whore wouldn’t be able to resist saving him.”

And fuck him for being right. As soon as Winter found that August was gone, she put herself in total danger to save him. She’s protective of August because she loves him like her own.

And while every part of me needed Winter to stay in the safe room, I understand why she didn’t.

Yet another thing to apologize to her for.

“I figured I’d give you some time. Let you see what’s at stake. I thought finding your father would help you see the bigger picture.”

The bigger picture. Those words echo in my memory.

Winthrope releases a dark chuckle.

“You’re as hard-headed as he’d warned me you’d be.” He exhales audibly. “That rebellious streak might get you killed if you’re not careful.”

I stare at the phone, still not uttering a word. He knows I’m hearing everything he’s saying. And I know he assumes that I’ll follow whatever order he gives me.

Just like I always followed my father’s orders—until I ran away. Until I met Winter.

“You have twenty-four hours to release Ella Brigham to me.” The tenor of his voice shifts and the menace in it is unmistakable.

But in the silence, I harness all the rage within me. Rage at this current situation. Rage at my mother. My father. All the fucked-up shit that’s happened to me.

And I harness the love I have for my sister. For my family that includes her, August, Leo, and Winter. Hell, even Veronica and Summer, even though Veronica seems more than happy to see me roasting on a spit by the balls right now.

The fact is, there’s nothing I wouldn’t do to protect my family.

“Fuck you and fuck your demands, Winthrope,” I say, my voice calm.

Misha closes his eyes against my declaration. My mother’s face lights up, her cheeks turning rosy.

Winthrope doesn’t respond. Instead, the line goes dead.

Leo shifts in his seat, opening his mouth to say something, but Luna holds a hand out, silencing him. Leo’s face turns grave.

“Well,” Max says. “That was comforting.”

Returning to his seat, Misha says, “We’re going to give them your sister.”

The pressure behind my eyes grows as one second bleeds into the next.

Because what the fuck is he even saying right now?

I look at Amelia, acknowledging her in full for the first time in this conversation.

“You want to give Ella to these people?” My voice is low.

Her face hardens, and I get a flash of the defiance she showed my father as she faced her “death” on that damn veranda on Isla Cara. She swings her head toward Misha.

“Absolutely not,” she grinds out.

“Think about it. We’ve been running around with our heads up our assholes for the better part of two years trying to find The Architect. Now we’ve got an opportunity to place a high-value plant in The Legion’s midst. We know they won’t hurt her—she means too much to them.”

I want to strangle him.

“She’s not a ‘plant,’ she’s a human. My sister. Yours too, if all this is to be believed,” I say.

Misha’s eyebrow goes up. “And why is our being related unbelievable?”

My face hardens and my…Amelia shifts in her seat, clearly uncomfortable.

“Besides the fact that they want and need her alive and whole, we can make sure that we have fail safes in place to extract her as soon as possible. We need her to draw them out. Winthrope is desperate to get her, and if he could do so without contacting you, he would have already done it, Brigham,” Misha says.

“Mishko, I’ve just got your sister and brother back. There’s no way I’m letting them go again.”

I turn away from her defense of Ella and me, focusing all my energy on the man at the head of the table. Because the fact that my mother has a nickname—a term of endearment for this man, her eldest son—makes me want to hurl.

While Misha’s statements make my blood boil, I don’t attack him. I don’t jump across the table.

I hold his gaze in silence for several uncomfortable seconds. Max fidgets in his chair, popping his knee up and down for the first half of our stare-off before resorting to a full 360-degree spin.

When I decide to speak, I command my body to remain casual and keep my words slow and low.

Friendly.

“If you think,” I say to the room, plucking lint off my pant leg, “that I’m going to allow you to use my sister for anything, you have lost your goddamn mind.”

“Hunter, as you can see—” Luna begins.

“There’s no fucking way you’re taking Ella,” Leo grinds out.

Luna’s eyes swing to Leo. “We’ll make sure she stays safe.”

Her eyes get a little glittery as she makes her case. “This is the closest we’ve gotten to them—to The Architect. If we can figure out where The Architect is, we’ll be able to end this once and for all. Taking out The Architect takes out The Legion. Morris Winthrope included.”

Silence descends in the room again. After a few seconds, Luna runs her fingers through her hair and Amelia stands, her back straight.

“No,” Amelia commands, and all of us look at my mother in the wake of her statement.

A vice clenches my heart, and it’s from a blend of confusion and anger toward this whole fucked situation.

Toward her.

“The only way you will do anything to or with Ella is if I’m lying dead in a pool of blood,” I say in a measured cadence.

And with that, I rise from the expensive office chair and exit the room.

In that moment, I am everything Benjamin Brigham taught me to be.

And I’ll be a bastard from the pits of Hell if it means that no one will take another fucking thing from me.