Beauty & The Beast (Book 1)

38. The Death of Jake Riley

Tess and Cat sat across from Jake, having told him what they found out. He wasn't believing them, telling them it's bull.

"It's not," Tess assures him. He likes her, if he was gonna believe anyone, might be her.

"Jake, I know this is hard to believe - " Cat starts.

"Yeah, 'cause it's not true."

Cat slides the manuscript she and Evan printed to him. "Miller betrayed you. He played on your trust of him." Jake shakes his head, scoffing, looking off to the side. "We don't have enough to book him, but we do have this." She taps the book. Jake looks at it. "We found it in his office. Check out the title of the last chapter."

Jake takes it and opens it to the last page. He stares at it.

"It's called Tragedy. He expected you to die in that shooting. Or at least it seems that way, which means that he arranged it."

Jake flips to some of the previous chapters, frowning, clearly upset.

"I'm guessing Tragedy isn't a chapter he's gonna wanna change and you're about to do a live radio show. A very public event. Seems like a good twist in the story to me," Tess says. "Just when I thought JR was safe," she mocks Chris's voice. Jake closes the book and blinks a couple of times, staring down at the floor.

"Jake, a hitman that didn't finish his job isn't gonna back off. He's going to finish what he started."

Jake looks at Cat. "How sure are you you're right?" She just inclines her head. He looks at Tess who nods too, and then he looks down again.

*******

JT found Vincent. Or rather Vincent found JT. When JT turned at the snarl behind him, he still had the beaker in his hand, and he tried to get through to him. But Vincent was back in the past...

He was running down the hallways of the base hospital. All hell had broken loose outside and he was looking for Doctor Chandler.
He burst through the doors of one of the stockrooms. "Doctor C?!"

He heard voices and hid behind some of the cabinets.

"Colonel, slow down, tell me what happened?" Doctor Chandler was talking to their superior officer.

"Those soldiers you created are out there tearing apart this entire compound!"

Vincent frowns. He looks down at his bloody hands and clothes. He had no idea what happened. He'd woken to chaos and then went searching.

"That's why I wanted time to test it."

"Time's up. Either you fix these side effects or the project's aborted."

"Aborted? What -?"

"Terminated."

"You can't kill your own men."

"Those aren't men. They're animals. And you can't communicate with animals."

"They're not animals. I may not be able to reverse the full transformation yet but the side effects, the lost time, the aggression...If you just contain them  instead of - "

"You want them to keep moving through the country?! To keep killing?"

Soldiers with guns in full gear pass the open doors behind her. She looks at them and says, "Aren't you going with them?" She looks back at him. "Or are you gonna leave your dirty work to someone else?" she spits. "You can't keep this locked down forever. The world will find out about them."