The Alpha Men's Secret Club 5(4)
“They are the FBI, Kate. They can do anything they like under the thinly disguised veil of national security.”
“How does Rust pose a threat to national security? He’s only one man.”
“It’s not what he poses. It’s the idea of him. Of all of us.”
“Is there anything you can do?”
Aaron smiled sadly. “Depends on which angle you look at. If you’re asking that if I have the power to free him, that answer is ‘no’.”
“Do you have the power to at least ensure he’s not maltreated?”
He gazed at her for a long while.
“I can pull a few strings,” he said.
“Thank you. That goes for his Mom and Dad.” She rubbed her belly. “I desperately want to see him, but I’m afraid they’d take me in and throw away the key.”
“You don’t know what might happen next. It’s anyone’s guess.”
“What about you guys? Isn’t there a council or something?”
“You mean the shifter council? It exists. It’s called . . . creatively . . . the Council. They’re based in London.”
There was a glimmer of deadpan in his tone.
“What are they doing about this? Aren’t they shitting their pants?”
“You mean about what Rust and Moira and Connor can possibly spill on them?”
“Well, yeah. They are lab rats in waiting. What’s happening to Rust can happen to them.”
To be honest, Kate wasn’t that concerned about what would happen to the rest of the selfish shifters in the world who were content to lie low while the O’Briens suffered for their cause. All it took was for one of them to break.
“I’m sure they are meeting even as we speak,” Aaron assured her. “Everyone in the shifter world is quite concerned about what is happening.”
“So . . . can you get back to me on what you will do to help Rust?”
Aaron laid a kind hand on her shoulder.
He said, “Leave it up to me.”
4
Aaron watched the limo pull out of his drive.
Poor girl. She had no idea what she was in for. Nor did Rust and Moira and Connor, it would appear.
He had been talking to the Council Prime before Kate showed up. As one of the richer council members, he was consulted on all things American. And this was a very, very major issue.
The whole shifter world was going to tumble down like a deck of cards, and their fates rested on three shifters.
Three fucking shifters.
It wasn’t that Aaron and the Council did not trust these people. The O’Briens would do whatever it took to hold out as long as possible. The three of them were tough, well-bred and well-trained shifters. They may have wavered on the point of discovery by people like Kate Penney, but who among the shifters hasn’t?
No. Aaron trusted the O’Briens not to spill the shifter secrets all right. As much as they could hold out. On their own.
But there were three of them to be used to play against one another.
And the FBI had other methods.
Methods the Council was not willing to risk.
5
Alyssa Foley perused her log on Rust O’Brien.
REACTION TO DIFFERENT STIMULI
PAIN (electrocution at 10 mAmp)
No change.
COLD (0 degrees Celsius)
No change.
HEAT (50 degrees Celsius)
No change.
She had not expected Rust to transform under benign circumstances, and he did not.
Now it was on to the next level, like a Playstation game.
*
Rust was strapped to a chair. His wrists and ankles were cuffed to the arms and legs of the chair. He was clothed in a hospital shift, but he still looked marvelous. He would look marvelous in an orange prison jumpsuit, she figured.
Under his shift, electrodes were connected to his chest and a blood pressure cuff was placed around his arm. A metal cap was placed upon his skull and a sensor on his right index finger. They were monitoring his vital signs and neurological activity.
The chair was in a glass chamber with a digital display on the top. The outer room was more populous today, with several scientists and behavioral psychologists in attendance. Once again, four guards trained their tranquilizer guns at the chamber.
Rust glanced at his surroundings with nonchalance.
“Why don’t you get on with it?” he said in a bored air.
Alyssa was no stranger to torture, and yet she found this part particularly discomfiting. Here was a man who had done nothing wrong against America except to exist in his state of being. He had committed no crime. He had killed no one. He had not defaulted on paying his taxes. And yet here he was, about to be tortured.
“We will,” she said to him.
To the enforcer at the dials, she muttered, “Don’t kill him, Stan.”