Page 52 of Blood and Thorns

“You think someone got past T? You know how anal she is about shit down there.”

“Meet us in thirty,” I ordered. “We should check it out anyway.”

“What do you want me to do about Arabella? Elena’s still here.”

“Send Elena home and tell Arabella to wait for me.”

Langdon smirked, shaking his head while Caden gave a dark chuckle.

“Fine. See you fuckheads soon.”

The King’s Forest was under a conservation covenant agreement and preservation order. The status protected the entire belt from those wishing to disturb the area. One of those old British laws that had way too many hoops to jump through to change and essentially meant construction companies couldn’t get permission to dig up the earth, which was a perfect place to hide an entire drug manufacturing unit.

My feet crunched the dried leaves, critters scattering as I walked the path towards the large, ancient tree. Staring up at its great size, I brushed my hand over the bark before finding the fingerprint scanner concealed within one of the trunk’s hollows.

With a click, the forest floor opened to reveal a set of metal stairs. There was only the single access, and every person who passed the doors had to present their palm to the screen. Along with the constant camera feed throughout the forest, as well as inside the container, it allowed me to monitor who was inside at all times.

“The log’s clean,” Caden said, clicking through lists on the panel. “No one unauthorised has come in, Bas.”

Nodding, I reached towards the metal lockers, pulling out the required PPE before pulling it on. The plastic strained, but held enough as I passed the locked door into the main section of the lab.

A few heads turned, eyes widening when I stood to observe them.

Caden went off, his knowledge of the production muchbetter than mine while Langdon headed towards the office, intending to check the notes.

“Sir, you’re unexpected,” T said when she spotted me, passing Lang as he made his way to her office.

Her nervous energy would’ve indicated deceit on anyone else, but she was good at her job because she was notoriously rigid in her routine. Us showing up without warning was breaking her carefully constructed day.

“Please be careful. You’ll contaminate everything,” she called over to Caden, who’d lifted a large white bag on one of the long desks and was currently intimidating one of the packers.

“Do you think we’ve been infiltrated?” I asked Caden, not taking my eyes off the small woman in front of me. There was no point speaking French, or even signing to keep my conversation private. Not when I wanted to see her reaction.

T’s eyes rounded behind her goggles. “Ridiculous,” she exclaimed, her voice direct, even if it was slightly muffled beneath her face mask. “Nothing passes or leaves these walls without me checking.”

For a woman of barely five feet tall, she held herself with the confidence of a rugby player three times her size.

“It seems tight,” Caden commented, eyes flicking to me. “I’ll keep looking.”

“I don’t appreciate the sudden disruption.” There was a predatory gleam in her gaze that I recognised, and one of the reasons I allowed her to organise the lab in the way she saw fit. Under my authority, of course.

I looked down at her, her fear buried beneath frigid control. She’d first introduced herself as T, and I never asked for her real name, or cared. This was Caden’s domain, and I trusted him to run it. I also paid her a fucking fortune to deal with the bastard.

A whistle sounded, and holding my arm out I gestured for her to enter the office ahead of me. Back rigid, she entered to find Langdon lounging behind her desk, legs kicked up with his head cocked. A pile of paperwork was beside him, and when I entered the room he lifted his hands.

“Everything tracks,” he signed. “If she’s aware, she hasn’t noted anything down.”

I nodded but didn’t reply while T moved to the side, tugging off her mask and goggles. They left red marks across her skin, but she seemed more pissed at Langdon’s feet on her papers.

“If you’re accusing me of something, say it out loud,” she snapped, her tone absolute. Confident, with only the faintest tremble.

“There’s been evidence of tampering,” Caden said, appearing in the doorway.

“Not here there hasn’t.” Her gaze was sharp when she turned her attention to him.

I tossed her the packet found on the newly deceased Eight.

With a frown she moved towards the desk, and turning on the lamp she held it beneath the light. Her lips pursed, eyes focused and searching. “This isn’t ours. The colour is off by a shade, and the powder density is wrong,” she finally said.