They fell silent. “Someone go get Q,” Papa finally said. “Right now. We need to talk to him about that.”
Alpha went to do it. The other two men stared at him.
“I’m no doctor,” Uncle said, “but stranger things have happened. I know statistics, and there’s always statistically going to be at least one person that has some sort of natural immunity to this shit.”
“One person who managed to get her ass into Silo’s program?”
“If she’s alive,” Zed slowly said, “and she is immune, then she might be the vaccine.”
“She also might be the living proof we need to take down Silo’s church. If she tells us they were all told Silo was behind the program, that might be enough for us to make a video of her saying it, and Bubba can make it public, along with the other stuff.”
Papa thought about it. Dirty tricks had certainly become a vital part of the strategy. That was Bubba’s domain, but it seemed to be working based on what Nick Edison’s mom had said.
“Then gentlemen, if that turns out to be the case, it looks like we might have one hell of an Easter egg hunt ahead of us. With a golden egg as the goal.”
Chapter Thirty-Five
Mary Silo sat in her guest bathroom on the closed toilet lid while the nurse prepared her dinner in the kitchen. On her phone, Mary frantically paged through the results of her Internet search for blogs exposing religious frauds.
What she needed was someone who’d run with this story, hard and fast, even in these times. She didn’t dare try to approach anyone from the regular media outlets. She knew for a fact Hannibal had at least two well-known TV reporters from the networks in his pocket. It would take nothing for them to squelch or discount the story.
She needed to follow a page from Hannibal’s own playbook. Get the news spread out through the lower levels first, so that once big media did notice it, it had reached a tipping point where it could no longer be ignored, nor covered up.
Then, she found one she thought might meet her needs nicely. It looked like the site had even reported on Hannibal in the past.
Smiling, she called up the e-mail function and created a new message, using the free online account she’d created for just this purpose.
I can provide you audio recordings of Hannibal Silo actively plotting to spread the Kite virus around, among other things. Interested in negotiating? Not looking for money so much as I’m looking for assistance.
Send.
She smiled and turned the phone off, then slipped it into her pocket. Just in time, too, because the nurse knocked on her bathroom door.
“Dinner’s ready, Mrs. Silo.”
“Thank you,” she finally replied. “I’ll be right there.”
She stood, waited a moment, then flushed the toilet for effect before washing her hands. When she glanced in the mirror, it startled her.
She wore a wide, beaming smile.
Oh, that won’t do at all.
It took her a moment to finally compose her expression into one of bland, doped-up indifference.
When she unlocked the door and slowly opened it, her nurse stood, waiting for her.
“Are you all right, ma’am?”
Mary slowly nodded. “Just thinking about my husband, that’s all. He’s been gone for so long.” Thank god.
The nurse brightened. “He called a little bit ago to check on you. Asked how you were doing.”
“Oh.” Her heart started racing, hoping he wasn’t going to cut his trip short the way he sometimes did to throw her off. “He did?”
“Yes. Would you like me to call him back for you?”
He never asked to speak with her personally. That would be too much trouble for the man.
Not that she wanted to speak with him.
“No, I’m sure he’s busy. Did you say dinner was ready?”
“Yes, I made your favorite.”
“Thank you.” At least with the nurses she had a little respite. They asked her preference on things and tried to abide by them within Hannibal’s strict rules regarding her care. Things like food choices. Hannibal approved them and let Mary know damn well the only reason she was able to eat them was because he said she could.
It didn’t matter. For right now, Hannibal was somewhere else. And in a fairly short amount of time, he was going to be in very hot water.
Scalding hot.
Mary sat at the table and concealed her smile behind a very wide yawn. As the nurse returned to the kitchen to get Mary’s food, she watched her. The nursing staff was clueless about Hannibal’s true nature. As always, he’d taken great pains to project the image he wanted them to see. They never knew what their employer was capable of.
Maybe tomorrow I should pay another visit to Hannibal’s study and download copies of some of our sex tapes.
It would be worth it, to have the world see the kind of man he really was, even at the expense of her own pride.
Keeping her smile at bay proved more difficult than she’d planned. She had money. She had means.
Now all she needed was a method to carry out her revenge.
THE END
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tymber Dalton lives in the Tampa Bay region of Florida with her husband (aka “The World’s Best Husband™”) and too many pets. Active in the BDSM lifestyle, the two-time EPIC winner is also the bestselling author of over sixty books, including The Reluctant Dom, The Denim Dom, Cardinal’s Rule, the Suncoast Society series, the Love Slave for Two series, the Triple Trouble series, the Coffeeshop Coven series, the Good Will Ghost Hunting series, the Drunk Monkeys series, and many more.
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