“Because you were that good with computers?” Eric asked.
Nikolett shook her head. She thought she knew where this was going because she’d worked with kids who’d been in similar situations. Tried to write and pass laws to help them. “You weren’t moving digital assets, were you? They made you into a mule.”
Gus leaned forward, looking around Eric’s big body to study her. “Yes.”
“Cash? Antiques?”
“Diamonds.”
“They had a fifteen-year-old smuggling diamonds? Fuck,” Eric said. “What if you dropped the bag?”
Nikolett and Gus shared another look.
“He wasn’t carrying them in a bag,” Nikolett said quietly. “He was bodypacking.”
Eric frowned for a moment, thinking, but a horrible understanding transformed his face as he looked at his brother.
“If I was lucky, they let me swallow them. Unlucky, I got sodomized with them. Really unlucky…” Gus shrugged. “They’d cut me open, sew the diamonds inside, then give me paperwork saying I’d just had my appendix removed or gallbladder or bowel surgery and put me on a plane with a nurse or doctor escort.”
Gus tugged up his shirt and pushed down the waist of his pants, revealing a mess of long, straight surgical scars along his lower abdomen.
“Fuck,” Eric breathed.
“How long?” Nikolett asked.
“Until I was twenty. That’s when either Nils dropped them as clients, or they dropped him as their lawyer. I didn’t realize something had changed until they tried to pack me with drugs instead of diamonds. I refused. Got beaten until I almost died. I made it out and contacted Nils. I begged him for help. I was alone, in a foreign country, no passport, no money, and in pain. I begged him to help me. He was my father, he needed to help me.
“He told me he had only one son. A son who was already a ‘knight of Kalmar,’ though I didn’t know what that meant. He made it clear that he had one perfect son, and I meant nothing to him.”
“If I’d known, I would have come and gotten you,” Eric said quietly.
“Maybe I’m a fool,” Gus said, “because I believe you. And maybe if I’d known your name, known about you before that night he threw you in my face and made sure I knew you were the reason he didn’t need me, and therefore was happy to let me die in a filthy alley, I would have called you.”
“Instead, hating them—Nils and Eric—became a reason to live,” Nikolett guessed.
“And the Masters’ Admiralty. It took me a long time to figure out what ‘knight of Kalmar’ meant, but I found the information eventually.
“Hate will keep someone alive longer than love, I think,” Gus said, and he sounded unimaginably weary. “The fact that you liked me—or at least some version of me—enough to think I was worthy…”
This man had terrorized her. Tried to kill Vadisk. Almost killed Colum. Had, most likely, caused the plane crash that killed Tobias and the pilot.
And yet Nikolett found herself stretching an arm across Eric to take Gus’ hand.
“You were worthy.” Nikolett looked at Eric. “Maybe you still?—”
Gus was no longer holding the control. It sat quiet and forgotten on the cold stone by his knee.
Until it beeped. A small screen she hadn’t noticed lit up showing a five-minute timer.
As Nikolett watched in horror, it flipped from 5:00, to 4:59.
CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE
“You armed the bomb,” Eric snarled, grabbing Gus by the shirt front and twisting it until the asshole was choking. “You fucking son of a bitch.”
“It was always armed.” Gus’ voice was choked and tight, but he didn’t fight Eric. “I started the countdown before the other bomb ever went off. That switch is just a backup. In case the timer fails.”
“It’s been on the whole time we’ve been sitting here?” Nikolett’s voice tipped up in alarm. She leapt to her feet, then pulled on Eric’s shoulder.
