“And you’re the lucky winner that has it.”
“Me?” I shook with disbelief, before anger at Tav’s clever plan to set me up to fail shook through me. “I don’t even know anything.”
“They have assets on you, Freya. They’re waiting for you to go to the bank and collect the USB drives with the encrypted seed codes to his cryptocurrency wallet.”
“I—I don’t have any of that. I didn’t even know he left me a house until…”
“Until they told you.”
I clamped down on my lip, softening my muscles. “I still don’t know if Tav was the good guy or the bad guy. If I could trust him or not.”
“Both.” Bradley wrapped me in his embrace again. “I think he was both.”
“W-why did they tell you and not me?” I finally thought to ask.
“They said they tried to warn you at the chalet, something about photos in a locked room?”
I groaned. “Unbelievable. Everything was so carefully orchestrated to reveal itself slowly to me in the most indirect way possible.”
“Because if nobody tells you directly, no one implicates themselves.”
“But then why you, why now? How can I even trust you? Or that the message you received was real? Did you have a conversation? I don’t know what or who to believe anymore.” Tears burned in my eyes. “Even my own memories.”
“That’s the point, Freya, to scramble your world and keep you scared.”
“And controlled.”
“Maybe.” He shrugged like it didn’t matter.
“I just need to get some sleep, I can’t take this in and try to make a decision about where to go or what to do tomorrow. I can’t even call the police and report this, how could they believe me?”
“I’m not leaving you.” Bradley faced me, features stern. “That’s why they called me Frey, because they knew I’d come right up here and defend you with my life if that’s what it takes. You and I are forever, remember?”
“But how...how could they know?”
“They’ve been watching us for a long time...they know everything. They’ve seen everything. Even the things we didn’t say out loud…” he lowered his tone again, “they know aboutthe baby.”
Anxiety rocketed through me. Nobody knew about the baby. “I never told a soul about that night, Bradley.”
His eyes darkened. The memory of our one elicit night together selectively lost to the recesses of my memory.
“They’re probably listening to this conversation now, they have audio and visual capabilities on every power pole and streetlight throughout every city in America, that’s why it’s safer if we stay in the cities.” Bradley finally grit.
I shook my head, more determined than ever to gather my thoughtsalone.
“I need to think and then sleep. I’ll catch up with you in a few days, Bradley, just go home. I’ll be fine.”
“No way.”
“Yes,” I pushed him away gently, “seriously, I’ll call you.”
His brow furrowed, but he began backing away. “Text me on that encrypted app we talked about if you need anything.”
I nodded, taking the phone out of my bag and going to the app store right then to download the app he’d spoken of.
“Are you sure you want me to leave, I can rent a hotel room next door if you need me—”
“I won’t.” I hit download on the app store and watched as the status bar indicated its download to my device. “Here you are.” I searched his phone number easily, pulled up a new message in the app, typed out a quickhiinto the blank space. When the front box asked for my name, I typed Shelly instead of Freya, and then hit send. “See?”
