“I have no intention of betraying the Directorate.” Her bright gaze centered on mine briefly but oh so powerfully. “You are truly my only hope.”
Even as goose bumps trembled across my skin, her gaze dropped from mine. She rubbed a hand down her thigh, then sighed. “Starr is not a fool. The women he brings in to service his men each month are strictly watched. They never move from the compound they are placed in. If it is your intention to gain enough information about Starr to bring him down, then you are tackling it from the wrong angle.”
“All I need to do is catch his lieutenants in an unguarded moment and strip their minds of information.” It wasn’t going to be that easy—I knew that, and Jack knew that. For a start, the minute either man realized what I was doing, I was dead meat. And while I might have strong telepathy skills, I wasn’t as practiced in using them as I should be. Last night’s attacks had proven that.
“But Starr’s lieutenants do not use the women in the compound.”
Well, shit. “Why not?”
She smiled. “If the Directorate has been following me, then they would know not all the women I recruit are prostitutes.”
“Yeah, so?”
“So some of those who are not are recruited for the ring.”
“The ring? As in, boxing ring?”
She shook her head. The chandelier’s light caught the silken strips of her hair, turning them a molten silver. And in that instant, I realized just how similar she was to Misha, right down to her angular features. Odd, considering how dissimilar all the other clones were to each other.
“It is more a wrestling ring. Starr and his people enjoy watching women fight. The lucky winner gets to share beds with his lieutenants, Alden and Leo.”
“Misha told us Alden and Leo go through women like sharks—that sex is a fix they must have every day. Does that mean the fights are a feature every day?”
She nodded. “Every evening. But the women are merely the encore to the main fight—Starr, as I’m sure you know, is homosexual. He makes his security forces fight, and takes the winner.”
Something in the way she said that had my eyebrows rising. “Takes?”
She grimaced. “He prefers force. He likes the taste of fear.”
If he tried to force my brother, Rhoan would have him for breakfast. He might not mind a bit of rough, but force was not something he tolerated—on himself or on others.
“Then none of these fights are serious?”
“Oh, they’re serious. People do get hurt—broken bones and bleeding is something Starr insists on. Which is why most of those recruited for the ring are either shifters or weres. Healing is then not a problem.”Because shifters, like weres, were capable of healing when shifting. Of course, the fact that shifters generally thought themselves “superior” to weres in every way could make for some interesting times in the ring. Especially seeing most weres thought the same about shifters.
And really, the only real difference between any of us was the fact that weres were forced to shift with the full moon and shifters were not.
“You think this is the way I should go in?”
She nodded. “Those who fight in the ring have free run of the main house and grounds.”
“And why would he give the fighters freedom and not the hookers? Surely he wouldn’t trust them more?”
“No. But as a general rule, I’ve done a more intense background check on the fighters. And his halls are monitored by security twenty-four hours a day. He trusts them to keep an eye on what is going on.”
“So it’s just cameras?”
“And motion-sensing devices.”
“Infrared?”
“Not yet in the house. There is infrared around the zoo, and I know he plans to install it elsewhere.” She grimaced. “There was an attack by a rival recently that convinced him of the need. The vampire got very close.”
“What happened to the vampire?” And was it perhaps my vampire? Though I guess that made no sense—if Quinn had known about Starr, he wouldn’t have tried to ferret the information from my mind.
“The vampire was staked and left to the sun.”
Definitely not Quinn, then. “Starr has a zoo?”
“Starr keeps a collection of nonhuman freaks.” She shrugged. “It amuses his human guests.”
I just bet it did. And it was a brilliant way to hide a growing force of specially bred assassins. “Isn’t it a little dangerous to have humans around during the rising of the full moon?”
“Oh yes. But the moon dances provide good blackmail material, so Starr considers the risks well worth it.” She smiled thinly. “What politician’s family is going to raise a ruckus if their loved one dies in such a compromising position? Few, let me tell you.”
I raised my eyebrows. “So it has happened?”
“Of course.”
“Ask her if she’d be willing to name names?” Jack said. “We need to check what they might have been forced into doing before their deaths.”
I repeated the question, and Dia nodded. “I will provide a full list of everyone who goes to Starr’s dances.”
I studied her for a moment, then said, “You’re being awfully helpful, and I’d like to know why.”
Her smile was tight. “Because when Misha died, Starr did something to me he should never have done.”
I raised my eyebrows at the low fury in her voice. “And that was?”
Her gaze came to mine, and a chill ran across my skin. I’d never really understood the phrase “if looks could kill,” but it became all too clear as I stared into Dia’s unseeing eyes. The devil himself would have quailed at the depth of anger and hatred in her powerful gaze.
“Deshon Starr took my daughter away from me,” she said softly. “And I will destroy him—and destroy his whole filthy organization—if it is the last thing I ever do.”
“Has he killed her?” I asked, even as I wondered why I was feeling sorry for a woman who’d obviously allowed herself to be evil’s pawn for a very long time.
Or was that being unfair? Misha had once told me that he had no choice in some of the things he did, simply because Starr was far more powerful and could control them all. Misha had skirmished from the edges, but he’d never managed to break free of the leash. Why would Dia, for all her abilities, have any more luck?
She closed her eyes and took a shuddering breath. “No. But he only allows me to see her on the weekends, and even then, only for several hours.” Her gaze came to mine again, the vibrant depths dry but hinting at an agony I might never experience, but could certainly empathize with. “She’s only six months old. She should be with her mother, not being raised in the cold, sterile environment of a lab.”
“Like you were,” I said softly, wondering if she meant the main lab—Libraska—or another one we didn’t know about.
Her laugh was short, bitter. “Yeah, like me.”
“And this lab is on his estate’s grounds?”
She nodded. “It is a small research lab, nothing major.” She paused, studying me. “I gather the Directorate knows about Libraska?”
“Yeah. What can you tell us about it?”
She shrugged. “Not a lot. Starr keeps that lab’s location very secret. I’m not even sure Alden and Leo know.”
I had to hope she was wrong, because otherwise we were up shit’s creek. Rhoan hadn’t inherited any psychic skills, so there wasn’t a chance of him ever reading Starr’s mind. And I certainly didn’t want to try. I might have untapped depths of psi-power, but I wasn’t about to test it on someone as unhinged as Starr. “Someone beside Starr must know. The lab has been around for over forty years.”
She raised an eyebrow. “The Directorate knows more than I presumed.”
I smiled thinly. “They always do.” I crossed my arms and leaned on my knees. “So what are the chances of you drawing me a map of Starr’s estate?”
She smiled. “Already done. It’s yours the minute you agree to all my terms.”
“I thought we had?”
“Not quite.”
“Then what else do you want?” But even as I asked the question, I knew. She was a mother missing her child. It was natural she’d be top of the list.
“Before you take Starr out, I want my daughter out of there.”
“That will warn him something is happening.”
Her blue eyes bored into mine. Determined. Furious. Scared. It was the last one that got to me. Made me trust her. She needed my help, and until I got her daughter out, I could at least depend on her to keep her end of the bargain.
“That is a risk you must take, because I will not help, otherwise. He has her wired—the minute he senses anything out of the ordinary, he will kill her. I will stay and help, if you insist, but she must be taken out of there, regardless of the cost.”
“No,” Jack said. “I will not risk the mission for the sake of a clone’s child.”I didn’t say anything. Couldn’t say anything, because anger had become a block in my throat. Starr might be a bastard, but in many respects, so was Jack. For God’s sake, it was a tiny baby we were talking about. It deserved a chance of life, no matter who its mother was.
And, of course, my own dodgy future with conception only made me all the more sympathetic—and Jack should have known me well enough to guess that.