Page 23 of Lethal Salvation

His venom proved Hurricane’s theory right. He was being used as the fall guy just as he had with the trail of men leading back to Gideon that had attacked the house resulting in Charlie getting shot.

“We have pictures and files with your signature on them.”

She needed to push just to make sure, but her gut was telling her she was right, and so was Hurricane.

“I don’t give a fuck if you have a confession signed in my blood, they’re wrong.”

Gideon looked angry, and a little rattled and she realised she didn’t like seeing him that way. Making a decision, she decided to give Gideon and Damon her trust and hoped it didn’t come back to bite her in the ass. Bás wouldn’t like it, but her intuition and ability to adapt on the fly was one of the reasons they worked well together. “What do you know of Project Cradle?”

Gideon wrinkled his nose in confusion. “Project what?”

Duchess sat on the coffee table and faced the brothers, ignoring her attraction to Gideon and the residual lust coursing through her veins. “Project Cradle was set up by the CIA in the nineties. It took volunteers of pregnant women who felt that they had no other choices. The CIA took the babies and trained and educated them from birth to be fighters and assets for the CIA. But they only took female babies and, after a while, it stopped being voluntary.”

“Jesus Christ.”

Damon looked shocked and it made her pause that she didn’t find it shocking. This was her world, the one she inhabited anyway.

“I know, it’s bad.”

“It was later shut down but before that, the then director of the CIA, a man named Mills, signed his daughter up. The story is she’d got in with a bad lot and got pregnant and although the details are sketchy, we think her father didn’t approve of the baby’s father. Her name was Molly Mills but after her falling out with her father, she changed her name.”

Duchess paused, wondering how this would go down, but knowing they needed to know the truth. Gideon met her eyes and she saw he knew whatever she said next would change everything.

“What did she change it to?”

“Marsha Morales.”

Gideon sat forward as if someone had punched him in the gut, and winded him. “Holy fucking hell.”

“We don’t know if she had the child, and if she did what happened to it. But we do know she was involved with Project Cradle after it was allegedly shut down.”

“You mean it wasn’t shut down?”

“Officially, yes. But a few rogue agents got together with some private businessmen and a new Project Cradle was born. Now it’s privately funded, and the children are hand-picked from either already pregnant women, where the father is known and approved, or from young girls that the members have impregnated.”

“You think our father is involved?”

“Not directly but we know Carter is up to his eyeballs in it. He’s one of the major players and moneymen. He’s also involved in getting the girls pregnant. We recently rescued a group of women from one of his properties and one was carrying his child. She was the sister of one of our operators.”

Damon slapped a hand over his mouth. “I’m gonna be sick.”

He rushed from the room and Duchess looked at him with sympathy. It was a lot for anyone to take in and Damon had a soft heart.

Her gaze drifted to Gideon who looked pale and shaken. “Are you okay?”

His haunted eyes lifted to her face. “I don’t know.”

“I’m sorry.”

He cocked his head. “What for? You didn’t do any of this.”

“Still, I’m sorry you’re having to learn all of this.”

“Yeah? Well, I’m sorry I’ve been such an asshole when you’re just trying to fix such a mess.”

Duchess smirked. “Well, seeing as you did hold my hair while I puked my guts out, I’ll forgive you.”

His grin made her belly tumble over and she wished she could go to him and make him feel better. But as much as she wanted to, it wasn’t her job to make him feel better.