Free Total Surrender by Rebecca Zanetti

didn’t show any reaction. “What do you want?” Jory asked.
    “Just wanted to check in and see if my brilliant daughter has saved your ass yet.” The smile didn’t fade.
    Piper’s shoulders went back at the word
brilliant.
The woman had no clue what a complete prick her father was, and no idea that he’d fuck with her mind just to mess with Jory. So he focused on the commander and tried to forget Piper was in the room. “Do you believe in God?”
    “No.” Irritation curled the commander’s lip. “Why?”
    “Just wondering if you ever considered what happens next. You created us, you trained us, and basically you’re trying to enslave us. Don’t you think there will be repercussions?”
    “Of course not. You’re property. How can there be repercussions?”
    The words shouldn’t surprise him. Not once while Jory was growing up did the commander show any affection or concern. Jory’s entire sense of self came from his brothers and their unity as a family. “You can’t beat us.” The second he said the words, he believed them. “I won’t let you.”
    “You won’t let me?” The commander chuckled and glanced over his shoulder at Piper. “My hacker will save you, and then you’ll pay for your disloyalty. In ways you can’t even imagine right now.” Anticipatory threat rode the words.
    Piper’s head jerked.
    The sweet woman might not understand the subtext behind the threat, but she sure as hell felt it, didn’t she?
    That easily, that quickly, seeing the man screw with his daughter freed Jory. All of a sudden, he realized he had to look down to meet the commander’s gaze. Several inches, actually.
    The commander clucked his tongue. “Where’s Matt? It’s time we met back up.”
    Jory shook his head. “You’re never gonna find Matt, that I promise you.” For some reason, the commander had had a hard-on for Matt for years. Probably because he’d never been able to break the oldest Dean brother. “Matt is better than you are, stronger than you’ll ever be, and you know it.”
    Sparks flew through the commander’s eyes, and he leaned forward. “I’m going to rip the skin from his body while you watch. Inch by inch, I’ll make him bleed until he begs to die,” he whispered, his voice fierce.
    Jory’s chin lowered while his shoulders went back. “No. No, you are not.” Any fear he’d lived with, any displaced loyalty he’d tried to find for the commander, disappeared. Deep down, in a place neither the commander nor Madison had found in their tests, training, or probing, he’d still held hope that they’d do the right thing and save his brothers. For history’s sake, if nothing else. Now, he kept his voice low. “You’d really rather see us dead than out free.”
    The commander closed the distance until the tips of his boots touched the glass wall. “I created you, and I own you.” His voice lowered and probably didn’t carry across the room to Piper.
    Jory’s jaw clenched. As a kid, he’d been afraid of that look and would’ve instinctively stepped back. Now he moved forward until his battered shoes also touched the wall. “You don’t own any of us.”
    Awareness flashed in the commander’s eyes.
    Yeah. Life had just shifted. Jory glanced around, shoving all emotion down hard before focusing back on the monster who’d haunted his dreams for too long. “I may not survive the implant, but my brothers will live and live
free.
” He leaned in as close as he could without touching the glass and looked
down.
“And know this, you fucking prick. Before I die,
I
will be the one to put you into the ground.”

CHAPTER
5
    P IPER’S MIND SPUN with calculation and computer codes, the sense of failure weighing her down. The last thing she had time for was dinner, but it could be important to solving her conundrum, if she played her cards right. Something told her the commander knew more about Jory’s problem than he’d admitted, and she needed the full story to continue her