The handler scanned the monitors. "What about the other original? Johnny?"
"You must remember the first two years he was with us." He cocked his brow, finding Johnny one of their biggest achievements. "Working with Keenan has shown us that substance abuse is easier to overcome than the addictive qualities of our biological makeup when it has to do with our sexual tendencies. Poor Johnny was born in a whorehouse, and he was trained by the best women from an early age. He equated sex with love. In return, he stepped into the role of proprietor and teacher at an all-adult club until his cravings had no limit and his desires became darker. His habits were the hardest to break."
"I remember those early days," murmured the handler.
He flipped the screens to the next group of cameras. Melancholy settled over him as he watched the youngest participant sitting in her classroom. Bringing Trina into the project had rejuvenated his enthusiasm for the program.
During the process, he wasn't sure if someone so young would be trainable. But he found her easily brainwashed. An innocent, she soaked up attention and approval more than adults. As a child who would go through the foster system without finding a family of her own, she tried hard to please him at every step.
"What will become of the girl?" asked the handler. "She's not programmed like the others to be a killer."
"No, she's much more important for the immediate future." He zoomed the camera up to the boy next to Trina. "As long as she keeps her focus on studies and not young Zach."
"Studies?"
"Yes, Trina will be graduating soon and receiving a scholarship to Harvard University where she will be studying in an elite program offered to one person, guided by me, and will eventually join the organization." He glanced at the handler. "Because even with the advancements of science, I will not live forever and will need someone to take over where I stop."
The handler turned away from the screens. "But these men have completed the project."
"Have they?" Satisfaction rolled over his face, and he smiled. "Please tell me what our objective is for the Alpha Bio Project."
"We integrated experimental drugs into each of them to desensitize them from their emotions while creating actions to stimulate their reactions on demand. Once we had them at a base level, we started the enhancement phase—something that hadn't been done to success and where the military had failed many times over. We guided them into being self-sufficient by giving them Avery Falls, which they developed, commercialized, and made profitable by letting them govern their area to how they saw fit. Essentially, the project developed unproductive men who were a menace to society and programmed them into obedient killers, able to be activated with a mere switch from afar." The handler cleared his throat. "But, sir, the participants regained their memories and emotions. They know about the project and what we've done to them. Aren't you afraid the information will get out and put us in jeopardy?"
"They're incapable of turning against us."
"How can you be sure?" The handler inhaled deeply. "The other handler and I have been with these men since the beginning. We know what they are capable of doing."
He stood and walked away from the control desk. "We've succeeded in turning the program around. These men are now able to live independently. They can love and be loved. That's something they would've never received on their own. Each of them had chosen a life with a dead-end. They were unredeemable in the eyes of the world." He pointed up at the screens. "Now look at them and tell me if their lives are better thanks to the Alpha Bio Project."
"Surely, we haven't spent years and billions of dollars only saving society's derelicts." The handler gawked. "We're just going to walk away from Avery Falls and the men?"
"Of course not," he said.
"Then, what was the purpose?"
The controller approached the handler and put his hands on the other man's shoulders and looked him straight in the eyes. "The purpose of the project—"
He grabbed the handler's head and, with a quick snap, broke his neck. The handler's body fell to the ground in a heap at his feet.
The controller squatted over him, looking in the lifeless eyes staring up at the ceiling. Using two fingers, he closed the handler's eyelids and whispered, "The purpose of the project is to create programmed killers. Bringing them back to us is as simple as flipping a switch."
He straightened, took off his white lab coat, and hung it on the hook by the door. With one last look around the control center, he walked out of the room.
Sixty seconds later, the room imploded.
Dear readers —
Thank you for reading the Avery Falls Motorcycle Club series!
If you'd like to keep up on my book releases, chat with me, and see pictures of my life in the Bitterroot Mountains, I would love to have you follow me on social media. I'm on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and have a website with links to a huge backlist of books.
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LOVE,
Debra Kayn
Author Bio
Debra Kayn is published by Grand Central Publishing, Simon & Schuster Publishing, Carina Press - Harlequin Enterprises Limited, and repped by agent Stephany Evans of FinePrint Literary Management.
Believing everyone deserves to love and be loved, she takes the most unlikely characters and turns them into heroes and heroines.
She lives with her family in the Bitterroot Mountains of beautiful North Idaho, where she enjoys the outdoors, the four seasons, and the wild animals that gather in her yard.
Website: www.debrakayn.com
Twitter: www.twitter.com/DebraKayn
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Debra Kayn's Backlist
Avery Falls Motorcycle Club
The Switch
The Intuition
The Implosion
The Four Stages of Loving Dutch Owen
Patches: Tarkio MC
His Road Dog
His Old Lady
His Other Half
His Loyal Rebel
Choices: Tarkio MC
Chasing His Fox
Burning Hot Rumors
Two Hearts Born to Love
All of His Secrets
Slag Motorcycle Club series
Roar & Lizzy – A Forever Kind of Love
Brage & Dinah – A Perfectly Captive Love
Elling & Jackie – A War of Forbidden Love
Peer & Coco – A Runaway For Love
Escape to the Bitterroot Mountains series
Every Little Piece of Him
Every Girl Needs a Hero
Every Second in his Arms
A Brikken Motorcycle Club Saga series
Chief
Jett
Olin
Thorn
Notus Motorcycle Club series
Hard Reality
Hard Mistake
Hard Drifter
Hard Escape
Hard Proof
RONACKS MOTORCYCLE Club series
...or something
Don't Say It