When we got you.
Maybe it was nothing. Maybe Park really was just overreacting to a misspoken word. Perhaps this wasn’t the time or place to worry about such a thing, but it was a splinter under his skin and now, he couldn’t let it go. He’d never seen Anchali pregnant. She could have faked the whole thing. But why? She’d been so upset when she discovered she was pregnant. She’d even told Park she’d considered an abortion and said she only changed her mind because she’d been shot the night he was born.
This had to be Park overthinking things, but he still couldn’t let it go. He left Gift, giving him privacy to talk to his father in the bathroom, and called Archer.
“Did you talk to Jackson?” he said in lieu of a traditional hello.
Park spoke in a low murmur, keeping his voice down. “Yeah, I did. Long story short: Kendrick might be dirty. Don’t breathe any of this to Kendrick until I know more.”
“Alright.”
Maybe it was because he’d just talked to Jackson, but he asked, “Your friend, the hacker. Do you think you could ask her for a favor?”
Archer was silent for a beat before asking, “What do you need?”
Park hesitated. “This stays between us?”
“Yeah, man. Sure.”
“I need her to look into Gift’s birth. More specifically, I need her to try to find any record of Anchali being pregnant, doctor’s notes, hospital visits, Gift’s birth certificate. Anything that proves she gave birth to him.”
“What’s going on?”
Park sighed. “It’s nothing to do with today’s…incident, just something Satja said to me isn’t sitting right. I…I’m just following a hunch.”
“You think Gift was adopted?” Archer said quietly.
“I-I really don’t know. I think it’s a possibility. Kendrick hinted as much the day he offered me the job. I just didn’t put two and two together. I don’t even want to hint at it being possible until I know for a fact. He’s been through enough.”
“How would Kendrick know that Gift was adopted?”
“He was her handler back then. He’s the one who told me Anchali had been shot and almost killed the night she gave birth to Gift. Maybe it was a diversion of some kind? Satja said something else that confused me. He said Anchali finally got what she always wanted when she got Gift. But Anchali never wanted children. She said they would interfere with her career.”
“I don’t know, man. But I’ll look into it. I’ll text you if I find something.”
“Thanks.”
Gift had killed someone. He’d killed someone and then freaked out about it...in front of a bunch of killers. Park had spent the last two hours attempting to care for him and console him, which was nice. But Gift didn’t know how to tell him that it wasn’t killing Aspen that had sent him spiraling—it was what he’d said about Gift’s mother. Surely, even trained assassins were entitled to a meltdown over their potentially dead moms…right? Would Park believe him? Would he send him home? Did he even have a home to return to? Or would it be Gift consoling his shell of a father when he realized his wife was gone? Even though his grandparents had arranged his parents’ marriage, they’d eventually grown obsessed with each other. Gift knew his mother could live well enough without his father as much as he knew the opposite wasn’t true.
Gift’s heart squeezed, like unseen hands squeezing water out of a wet washcloth.
His father would be destroyed.
“You can talk to me,dek dee.” Gift shivered at Park’s smooth voice, his words pressed into Gift’s hair. “Tell me what’s happening in that head of yours.”
Gift stared at the sliver of light coming from the barely opened bathroom door, letting the heat of Park’s near naked body warm him beneath the covers. This was all Gift needed. Park’s clothes on his body, cocooned in his scent, the steady thump of his heart beneath Gift’s ear, the calming rise and fall of his chest beneath his cheek.
He didn’t want to admit the truth. It was too embarrassing.
“I’m fine,hia.”
Park scoffed. “You’re not fine,ouen. You’re just dissociating. Your brain’s tricking you. Talk to me.”
Gift could tell him the truth. That he was fretting over his parents, his future, his relationship with Park to some extent. But none of that would make him feel better. There was really only one thing that would make Gift feel better and he was worried if he told Park, he’d think him a monster.
“There’s nothing to talk about,hia. I—This is nice. I just want to lie here with you.”
The truth was, Gift had been half-hard since they’d climbed into bed. That couldn’t be the appropriate reaction to taking someone else’s life, so he kept his mouth shut about it, curving his pelvis away from Park’s hip so he wouldn’t know even while they snuggled close. He didn’t want Park to think he was some deviant who got horny from killing people. But was he? Or was it just his proximity to Park and knowing now what it felt like to have him inside him? Gift preferred to think it was the latter.
