“And did you kill them?”
He laughs and sighs. Probably thinks I’m joking. I’m not. “No, they did that already. All on their own. Drugs. Makes sense, actually. They went the way they wanted to go.”
I wait for him to give me more, but he doesn’t, so I answer his initial question. “My older brothers were all treated the same… We stopped him from repeating it with our younger brothers. We couldn’t protect them from all of it, but we shielded them from as much as we could.”
“Is your dad a psycho? Where was your mom?”
My mind flashes back to a different time. It’s so foreign that it feels like it happened to someone else. A Cade who no longer exists. One who was happy. Safe. Secure. Loved. “She died long ago. Left my father with all the power and no one to stop him.”
Ansel’s nostrils flare. “I would have stopped him.”
I smile. I can’t help it—he’s so cute. If my father were alive, I wouldn’t let him within a mile of Ansel. “And how’s that?”
He turns onto his side, and I do the same, our knees touching, our hands just inches away from one another.
“I would have hacked into his computer and taken it all. Bit by bit. Enough that he wouldn’t notice at first, but when he did, he’d think he was losing it. I’d make him go crazy when he lost it all.”
Pieces fall into place. “So you’re a hacker.”
Ansel considers it. “A hacktivist, really. I do bad things for a good cause. And money, sometimes. A guy needs to eat.”
I roll that word around my lips. Does that make me something similar? I don’t know, because sometimes I do bad things purely because I want to. Because it feels good. The Firm is all about justice, but my version of it doesn’t always align with the others’.
“I didn’t want to kidnap you,” he whispers, his blue eyes fearful. “I really am a good person. But I didn’t have a choice.”
“And why’s that?” I ask, my fingers reaching out and brushing against his. I may appear relaxed, but my soul is screaming at him to tell me. To tell me who’s threatening him.
So I can make it stop.
“Whose orders are you working on, butterfly?”
He shivers. His mouth opens to tell me something.
But then his phone rings.
Ansel bolts upright and stares at the screen. All of the blood drains from his face.
Before I can say anything, he’s running for the door, phone clutched in his hand.
I want to reach out to stop him, but I can’t. I don’t.
I just watch as he rushes outside to answer the call.
This might all be over.
I have no idea what’s going to happen now.
The only thing I’m sure about is that I don’t want this to end.
9
ANSEL
The call I’ve been desperately waiting for is finally happening.
But I’m not ready to answer it.
Why do they have to be calling now? I followed the instructions to the letter. I took Brad to the right spot and texted to say we were there…only to be met with silence. That silence continued for so long that I was seriously beginning to wonder if I’d made this whole thing up in my mind.
