Braden found a way to give his soldiers more armor, but their speed and their thinking abilities were greatly impaired, Trap answered. He’s probably judging us the same way.

Go easy, Wyatt, could be an ambush, Ezekiel cautioned again. He paused for a moment. I got a bad vibe off your woman as well when we went in to secure the house.

Wyatt sighed, checked the laboratory. It was empty. The entire compound seemed abandoned. Even the civilians and the dog. He pushed open the door and walked boldly in, scanning the dark room. He sighed. Yeah. I caught that, Zeke. Whitney can definitely find psychics even when they’re babies, but he can’t tell who is goin’ to make a good soldier. She isn’ so good at handlin’ the killin’ part.

She’ll get over it, Trap declared.

No, Trap. She isn’ like us, Wyatt contradicted. She won’. She’s goin’ to have a difficult time with this one. All of you keep an eye on her.

She’s yours, Ezekiel said. And ours. She’s one of us. We’ll watch her.

They dropped down, one by one, and entered the laboratory.

Somethin’s lyin’ right out in the open. North side. On the table there, Wyatt said. It looks like a man.

He moved quickly between the rows of tables and desks to get to the one where the body lay spread out right on top of smashed beakers. Glass was everywhere, but Whitney had made a statement and it was a big one. Wyatt knew it was Whitney before he took the note off Braden’s chest and glanced at the signature.

Four folders sat beside Braden’s dead hand. The top one simply said Pepper in bold letters.

“He cleared everyone from this place. Any dead he must have had burned in the crematorium. He doesn’t like anyone to go against him, and Braden must have branched out on his own.” Wyatt frowned down at the paper in his hand, shaking his head.

“Braden died hard,” Trap said. “They made certain he lived awhile before they gave him death.”

“Whitney likes to make statements,” Wyatt said. “He probably sent videos to his other little helpers to warn them what happens when someone messes with him.”

“What’s the note say?” Trap asked.

Wyatt handed it to him and looked at the others. “He says I owe him.”

Ezekiel shook his head. “You don’t owe that bastard anything.”

Wyatt smiled at him and picked up Pepper’s file, flipping it open. Yeah. He’d been right about her parents. They were famous in the field of studying snakes. Both had been killed in India, a break-in at their home. The newspaper articles were included in the file. Missing was their two-year-old daughter.

He closed his eyes. Whitney. He’d taken her. Killed her parents and taken her from a home filled with love straight into a nightmare. Wyatt flipped through his daughters’ files. Pepper was definitely their mother, according to the file, and he was their father. They all had been split from the same egg. Whitney had wanted three of them exactly alike.

Pepper’s parents had been highly intelligent, and Whitney had chosen her as the girls’ mother and Wyatt as the father, hoping for superior intelligence. He had achieved that goal. He wasn’t happy with the fact that Pepper demonstrated repeatedly that she didn’t follow orders as well as he would have liked. She clashed with Braden and repeatedly refused assignments given to her. He’d ordered Braden to put her in charge of the three girls with the idea they could use the babies to keep her in line.

Whitney’s notes were thorough. Everything. Including her training to be a sexual predator, taking her victims down with ease. Wyatt’s stomach turned when he read what they’d done to train her. A girl not yet out of her teens with no protection from the men who refused to think of her as human – only as a weapon.

He found himself angry, and then it dissolved and he felt like putting his head down and crying. Around him, his men began the work of going through the laboratory, checking every floor and room for soldiers, but the place was deserted.

He sat and read Pepper’s file, his heart aching for her. It disgusted him that Whitney felt no compunction about “sacrificing” her parents for the greater good. They had made the mistake of documenting their daughter’s encounter with a cobra and how she seemed to have some kind of natural immunity. That had drawn Whitney’s attention immediately. When he’d discovered Pepper’s intelligence and her psychic abilities, there was no question in his mind the parents had to go so he could acquire her.

Wyatt pressed his fingers to his eyes. Whitney had coldly killed her parents and taken her, and then began his psychic enhancements of her. Pepper’s mother had been a uniquely beautiful woman, and he was certain Pepper would be even more so. From the beginning he had the idea of using her as an assassin.

He turned over the typewritten note Trap had handed to him when the team went to take the bodies down to the crematorium. Whitney had left the keys and the handprints of the men who could open the elevators for his team. He’d thought of everything. Wyatt smoothed the note out and reread it.

Wyatt, you owe me for this. You have the woman and your daughters, although you don’t get to keep them. You and Trap come up with the formula I need for our soldiers. Braden couldn’t get the job done. He was so blinded by his need of Pepper he couldn’t see straight. The fool lost sight of what we were trying to do. Stop our soldiers from being killed. Give them every advantage. This is a small thing I’m asking in return. I know the two of you will figure it out. When you do, contact me at this address.