Chapter 26 The Under Cover

Chapter 26 The Under Cover
Maya Pov

But my mind kept drifting back to Leo, to the desperation in his eyes, to the word brother that had shattered everything I thought I knew about my family. Marcus had shown me a birth certificate listing different parents, scientists who'd allegedly experimented on me. If that was true, if my whole life had been built on lies, then who was I really? Where did I come from? And why had Leo been raised by Marcus while I'd been hidden away?

At eleven forty-five, I changed into dark clothes suitable for a midnight meeting in a garden. Ryker armed himself with a knife hidden in his boot, insurance against the worst-case scenario. Kade and Owen would stay in the room, monitoring security cameras they'd hacked earlier to track our movements.

"If anything goes wrong, if I signal for help, you run." Ryker's voice was firm as he checked his knife one final time. "Don't try to fight, don't try to be brave. Just run back here and let Kade call for Council intervention."

"I'm not leaving you to face danger alone."

"And I'm not watching you die because of my pride." He cupped my face in his hands, his eyes intense and filled with emotions I couldn't name. "Promise me, Maya. Promise you'll run if I tell you to."

I wanted to argue, wanted to insist I was strong enough to stand and fight beside him. But the raw fear in his voice, the genuine terror of losing me, made me pause. This wasn't about strength or courage. This was about trust, about believing he'd protect me even if it cost him everything.

"I promise."

We slipped out of the guest wing through a side door Kade had unlocked remotely. The packhouse halls were dark and empty, most pack members already asleep or at least in their private quarters. Our footsteps made no sound on the polished wood floors as we made our way toward the garden entrance.

The garden sprawled behind the packhouse, a carefully maintained space of flowering plants and stone pathways illuminated by strategically placed lights. In daylight, it was probably beautiful. At midnight, it looked like a stage set for tragedy, shadows pooling between bushes and trees creating perfect hiding spots for threats.

I saw Leo immediately. He stood in the center of a circular courtyard, surrounded by rose bushes that had gone dormant for winter. Moonlight painted him in shades of silver and shadow, making him look almost ghostly. He was alone, no guards lurking in the darkness, no obvious signs of a trap.

"Maya." He breathed my name like a prayer when I stepped into the courtyard. "You came. I wasn't sure you would."

"You said you were my brother." I kept my distance, acutely aware of Ryker hidden somewhere in the shadows behind me. "I need to know if that's true."

"It's true." Leo's voice cracked with emotion. "We were born together, raised together for the first five years of our lives. Our parents—our real parents—were genetic researchers studying wolf modifications. They experimented on both of us, gave us abilities that no natural wolf should have."

My legs almost gave out. Born together. Raised together. I had a twin brother I didn't remember, a whole childhood that had been stolen from me.

"Why don't I remember you? Why don't I remember anything before age seven?"

"Because of what happened." Leo stepped closer, and I saw tears streaming down his face. "The night our parents died, something went wrong with your modifications. You had a seizure, a complete mental break. You started screaming about voices in your head, about pain that wouldn't stop. Our parents tried to sedate you, but you were too strong. You fought them, and in the struggle..." He choked on the words. "The lab caught fire. Our parents died in the flames."

The confession letter's words echoed in my mind. The voices told me to do it. I didn't mean for them to die. Marcus hadn't fabricated the letter. I'd actually written it, actually confessed to killing my parents because it was true.

"I killed them." The words fell from my lips like stones. "I murdered our parents."

"You were having a psychotic episode caused by unstable genetic modifications." Leo reached out but stopped himself from touching me. "You were five years old, Maya. You didn't know what you were doing. The fire department found us both unconscious in the wreckage. Marcus—he was a friend of our parents, someone they'd consulted about the modifications. He took custody of both of us."

"Then why were we separated? Why was I told you were his biological son?"

Leo's expression darkened. "Because Marcus saw an opportunity. He knew we were special, that our modifications made us valuable for his research. But he also knew that together, we were too strong to control. So he split us up. He raised me as his son, gave me a normal life while keeping me under observation. But you—you he kept isolated, experimented on, studied like a lab animal."

The pieces clicked into place with horrifying clarity. Marcus hadn't saved me out of kindness. He'd taken two modified children and used them for his own purposes, raising one publicly while torturing the other in secret. And he'd used my guilt over my parents' deaths as a weapon to keep me compliant.

"I've seen you before. In dreams." Leo's voice dropped to barely above a whisper. "Ever since we were separated, I've had these dreams of a girl who looks exactly like me, who screams in pain while I watch helplessly. I never understood them until I saw you yesterday. Then everything clicked into place. You were real. My twin was real. And Marcus had been lying to me for twenty years."

Suddenly, Leo's expression changed. His eyes widened in horror, looking at something behind me. "Maya, RUN!"

I spun around just as figures emerged from the shadows—Marcus's guards, at least a dozen of them, surrounding the courtyard with weapons drawn. And in front of them stood Marcus himself, smiling like a predator who'd just cornered his prey.

"Thank you, Leo." Marcus's voice dripped with satisfaction. "Your performance was excellent. Maya actually believed you cared about her."

Leo's face went pale. "Father, what—"

"Did you really think I didn't know about your little meeting?" Marcus laughed, cold and cruel. "I've been monitoring every conversation, every whispered word, every note passed under tables. You played your role perfectly, convincing Maya to come out here alone so my guards could apprehend her without witnesses."

"That's not—I didn't—" Leo turned to me, desperation in his eyes. "Maya, I swear I didn't know. I thought we were just talking. I thought—"

But I barely heard him. Because I was watching Ryker emerge from the shadows behind Marcus, knife in hand, ready to fight a dozen armed guards to protect me. And I knew with terrible certainty that if he tried to fight them all, he would die.

The trap had been perfect. Marcus had used Leo to lure me out, used the promise of family and truth to make me vulnerable. And now we were surrounded, outmatched, with no way to escape.

Marcus pulled out a syringe filled with clear liquid. "Council investigators arrive tomorrow, Maya. But tonight, you're going back into my laboratory where
you belong. We have so much unfinished research to complete."