Broken Communication Read Free Page A

her gifts. More to the point—she seemed to excel at magikal mishaps. At least most of the incidents were in her past. With her father’s money, he’d been able to cover up the majority of them.
    Harmony exhaled slowly, thinking about her father. He threw money at everything. It was how he showed affection, how he handled problems and how he shouldered the guilt of what he’d done—aligned himself with bad men all so he and his wife could conceive a child. A daughter born from a science that was anything but ethical, and from everything Harmony could gather, had left her father a pawn in his associates’ sick and twisted world. He owed them and they’d never allow him to forget as much.
    The shame she felt knowing her father had ties to groups who experimented on supernaturals and humans was epic. She’d been trying to funnel information about them out to the proper channels, but she’d hit a snag.
    Mainly, Laney. Her best friend in all the world.
    Moisture welled in Harmony’s eyes, but she refused to cry. Refused to allow the dirtbags sitting on the other side of the bars to see her show any weakness. Her family didn’t show weakness and she wasn’t about to start now. Didn’t matter that she’d been held prisoner for so many days that she’d lost track of the exact number.  
    Didn’t matter that she was battered and slightly bruised or that, despite being granted bathroom privileges and two showers since her arrival, she still felt dirty, as if the grime of the cell might never wash off.
    “Going to cry yet, bitch?” the man asked, making mocking gestures with his hands before acting as if he was jacking off.
    “Call her a bitch again,” came a shockingly deep voice from the cell next to her.  
    Harmony froze in place, her eyes wide as she stared over at the cinder block wall, kind of expecting a half-man, half-beast creature to burst through it. What she’d not expected was the man to sound…like a man. She leaned some, trying to get a better view of him. The wall still blocked him from full sight, but she did catch a glimpse of his hands once more. This time they were not covered in fur with long dagger-like claws. They seemed normal. They were also big. Like him.
    Shifter, she thought, unsure if he was the kind that came out of the womb that way or if he’d been manufactured like a number of them had. A pang of guilt swept over her. If the man had been tested on and made the way he was, had her father played a part in it?
    The two men standing guard shared a look that said they too were concerned. The smaller of the men, who was slightly less disgusting than the first and whom she’d taken to thinking of as Shorty, since he was considerably smaller in stature than Jerk Off, nudged the bigger one and shook his head. Harmony didn’t need to be psychic to know the little guy wanted the big one to keep his mouth shut and avoid taunting Hulk.
    Jerk Off squared his shoulders and Harmony expected the dumbass to actually try to pick a fight with her new fellow detainee. Instead, Jerk Off rubbed his jaw line and then looked to Shorty. “Why the hell is Krauss so bent on us housing this guy? He’s got better places than this to hold the thing.”
    Notwithstanding Harmony’s fears of the newcomer, she disliked hearing him referred to as “the thing” by the guards.  
    “No clue, man.” Shorty leaned and kept his gaze on whoever was behind the partial wall. The small man paled.
    Harmony gulped again and took a small step in the other direction, feeling the need for some space between her and the new arrival. Her gut said the chains weren’t as strong as everyone was banking on.
    “Nothing else to add? Done with referring to the woman as anything other than lady?” the prisoner next to her asked. This time his voice wasn’t quite as deep, but still heavily masculine all the same. Oddly, his voice made her think of Casey, and she had to push the thought aside to avoid crying. She’d never see