Nash nodded. “Yeah.”
“He was Grey’s son.”
“Paul hunted Luca.”
“And you protected him. I will be forever grateful for that.” Isaiah drank some lemonade. “But I don’t think it’s over.”
Nash flicked a look up.
“Grey stole the research, and with it, the digital pass keys to get into the donor files. We’re pretty sure that’s how they found Koda.” And Isaiah would never forgive himself.
“When you told the police what happened, what Grey Dekker stole from you?” Luca’s voice trembled. “They didn’t do anything?”
“We couldn’t call the police.”
Luca clenched his fists. “Why not?”
How could Isaiah explain just how helpless his people had been? How weak? How foolish? How vulnerable?
“We would have exposed what we’d been doing.”
Rage flared to life in Luca’s eyes. “You didn’t call because you worried about going to jail?”
“No.” Jail had been the least of Isaiah’s fears. “If we’d called, New World Genetics would have come after us.”
“Yeah, and my brother might still be alive.” Luca slammed his fist on the table hard enough to make the plastic cup in front of him jump.
“We had no idea he even existed at that time.”
“You knew your data could find him.”
“Even if we’d known he was out there, once New World had Koda, no one could have gotten to him. The Utah Facility was untouchable.”
“I don’t care—”
Nash put his hand over Luca’s fist. “He’s right. The Utah Facility wasn’t just a fortress. It was a vault for the Anubis project. And it worked. Even the government had no idea what was being done in that building.”
“That’s no excuse.”
“Luca.” Nash held Luca’s chin. “I promise you, there was nothing he could have done.”
“You don’t know that.” Luca’s voice cracked.
Nash sighed and pressed a kiss to Luca’s forehead. “Even if by some miracle the police believed him, even if by some small chance the government could have been persuaded to go in, by the time they did, they would have terminated the project.”
Luca clenched his eyes shut.
Nash tilted Luca’s head up and he opened his eyes. “They might have spared Koda and taken him somewhere else, but if it had come down to the project or New World, they would have killed him too.”
Tears ran down Luca’s cheeks.
Nash swept them away with his thumb. “In this case, inaction spared our lives.”
“I’m sorry.” Isaiah meant it more than Luca would ever know or comprehend. “I’m sorry for your brother.” He looked at Nash. “I’m sorry New World infected you with the ichor.”
Luca scrunched his eyebrows. “Why do you keep talking about the Anubis like it’s a disease?”
Isaiah traced an amber swirl of wood grain at the edge of the picnic table. “The Anubis’s nature is violence and rage. Eventually, it consumes the person it resides in, leaving the darkest parts of what they used to be.”