Page 76 of Lethal Salvation

“Do you have any idea why I got involved with the project?”

“Greed?”

Marsha smirked. “I wish it had been but it was ambition. I wanted to prove to my father I was worthy of him. That I wasn’t the screw-up he thought I was. The project had been his but the government shut it down when they found out he was forcing women to enter it.”

“Did he force you?”

Tears glinted in her eyes but she blinked them away. “Yes. I wanted to marry Tarquin and keep my child but he dumped me. Said he wanted nothing to do with me. I found out later my father had paid him off with the promise of custody of my daughter.”

“You wanted to keep her?”

“Of course I wanted to keep her.”

“Why didn’t you fight for her?”

“Don’t be naive. You don’t fight men like my father, especially when they have men like Hansen to keep you in line. So I turned it to my advantage. I said I’d work with them, help them build something better. The clinics were my idea and they worked perfectly until Carter got cold feet.”

“So your father is in charge.”

She shook her head.

Gideon saw her open her mouth but before she could voice the name, blood exploded from the side of Marsha’s head, covering Nadia in a crimson river of death.

Chapter 21

“So that’s it?”

Duchess waited for Bás to look at her and accepted the nod when he did.

“We’ve cleared Winston Cavendish of any involvement in Project Cradle and that’s all we’re here for.”

“What about Elysian?”

“The Casinos are legitimate.”

Duchess paced the length of the warehouse. It had been two days since Marsha had been shot dead just seconds before revealing who the top man at Project Cradle was. The team had found bugs and cameras all over the house and Watchdog was still trying to trace where the footage was sent with no luck so far.

“We both know that’s not entirely true, they’re up to their necks in illegal activity.”

“Yes, but the man behind that enterprise is dead and so is his mother. Damon and Gideon can’t go undercover and take it up because we know Hansen is onto them working with us.”

She didn’t say it but she had absolutely no intention of letting them either. “So, what? We head back to Hereford and keep digging?”

“Yes. We do our jobs and this portion of it is over.”

Duchess chewed the cuticle on her pinkie until it bled and then stilled, realising Bás had stopped what he was doing and was watching her, his arms folded over his chest as he waited.

“What?”

“What’s this really about?”

“Nothing. I’m just not sure we’re done here.”

“The team or you?”

He was calling her out and she hated that she was so easy to read. “Both.”

“Hansen has left the country, Marsha is dead, Carter is dead. We have a wealth of new information to go through now we’ve seized everything from both mother and son and Winston is in protective custody.”