Page 136 of The Cute Psycho

"You're aware they were trying to build the perfect soldier," hestarts and I nod, "and for that they needed children who had a certain defect from birth that made them unlikely to care about right or wrong. Think a psychopath of a sort."

"The mutation in the amygdala. You have it too?"

"Yes. Everyone who was there had it. That was the baseline. After that, they tried to condition us to become killing machines, taking out the humanity from us and replacing it with bloodthirst. But they also needed something else..." he trails off, lifting his sleeve and folding the end of his shirt and trousers to show me a bionic arm and leg. "Physical prowess. They wanted someone invincible, so they were trying to eliminate pain, and to turn our bodies into weapons."

"They didthatto you?" My eyes widen, and he just shrugs.

"They implanted metal in my spine. It connects to the arm and leg. It was bad after I was rescued since I needed to have them resized, and there aren't that many engineers out there who could do it," he comments casually.

Fuck, he is half-robot.

Now that explains his posture.

"Were you also a twin?" I ask, and for the first time I see a flash of pain in his eyes.

"Yes. Although he is long gone."

"Mine too," I add, and we have a short moment of understanding.

"Why are you asking about them now? It's been over twenty years." He frowns, tilting his head and regarding me curiously.

"I've been made aware that my younger sister was sold to Miles from Project Humanitas around nine years ago."

"Why? Didshehave the mutation?"

"No. But I think he needed her for something else." Some things are becoming clearer, and while I won't stop until Project Humanitas is in the ground, I do hope to find Katya dead. Because the alternative is way more gruesome.

"Isolating the gene somehow," he shrewdly notes, and I grimly nod.

"He'd assume it runs in the family," I add.

"It would make sense. It is my understanding that it is quite rare. If Miles had an in-house factory, things would be much easier for him."

I grunt. I'd thought about it, but I hadn't wanted to admit to myselfthat my sister could have been used as a lab rat all these years, subjected to countless horrors. Hell, now that I know a fraction of what happened to Vanya and me, I can wager a guess as to what they would do to her, too.

Patrick's words in particular had led me to that reasoning, as he'd mentioned someone giving birth repeatedly.

I can only hope it's not Katya...

"I'd like to ask if you can remember anything that might be of use for me to find them," I tell Nero, surprised when he offers to send me a detailed account.

"Just let me know if you do find them. They need to pay for what they did to my brother."

"Of course," I readily agree, ready to leave.

"No, Enzo, I can't," I hear Catalina's raised voice as I make to leave. "Please get Claudia settled... I need a moment," she says, dashing up the stairs.

Odd.

Yet her presence here, distressed, must only mean one thing.

She knows.

Damn. I wonder how Marcello's doing. For a moment I'm tempted to call and ask, but I know it wouldn't be welcome. Especially at this time.

So I just hop in my car and drive home, anxious to hear back from Nero.

The pieces are coming together, and I'm not sure if I like the image I'm getting.

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