“I thought I was coming on too strong,” he continues, “that maybe you just didn’t feel the way I did and I got the signals all wrong…”
“You didn’t.”
“But you expected me to die. You werewaitingfor it.”
The accusation lands like a blade between my ribs.
“I was. Then I was waiting to see if I’d finally found someone who could survive me,” I explain.
Now he turns. His brow is furrowed, lines creasing on his forehead.
“And I did.”
“You did.”
Another long pause. I’m acutely aware of my own heartbeat, the way it thuds against my ribs like it’s trying to escape, knowing he can hear it too. My palms are damp. My mouth is dry. Every instinct I have is screaming at me to stop talking, to retreat, to give him nothing else.
But I’m so tired of silence.
So tired of hiding.
“I’m like you,” I say, though I know I won’t throw my parents under the bus by telling him the whole truth. “Engineered. Enhanced. Made into something more than human.” I pause. “Or less, depending on how you look at it.”
His expression changes. “What do you mean?”
“I wasn’t born this way by accident. I was modified. At a genetic level.” The words feel like pulling teeth. “Turned into a weapon.”
“By who?”
I shake my head. That door stays closed. I’m not ready—may never be ready—to talk about the people who should have protected me.
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters to me.”
“Then it matters to you.” I raise my chin. “But I’m not going there. Not tonight.”
He seems to understand that, nodding imperceptibly.
“Your team,” he says, moving on. “The ones at the safehouse.”
“Bayo and Kat,” I tell him, though I know I’m breaking a pretty sacred rule here. “Bayo’s my handler—been with SOE longer than anyone I know. Runs comms, coordinates logistics, yells at me when I go off script. Kat’s Russian. Defector. Long story. She handles extraction, cleanup, the dirty work nobody else wants.”
“SOE…”
“Special Operations Executive. British intelligence. The ones who assigned me to go after you. Our motto isReap What You SOE. It’s on our mugs.”
He processes this. I can see him filing it away, adding it to whatever mental dossier he’s building. We are way too alike.
“And the mission,” he says. “The real one. Tell me about that.”
Here’s where it gets harder.
I pick up my whiskey again, mostly for something to do with my hands. Take a sip. Let the burn steady me.
“I wasn’t lying when I said what I said in London. Other countries think you’re a weapon. That someone with all your power can’t be trusted, doubly so for the company that created you. My mission was to evaluate you. Determine if you are an actual threat to British interests, and if so, what kind. Gather intelligence on Global Dynamix and their involvement with Paragon.” I force myself to hold his gaze. “And if London decided you were too dangerous to let exist…”
“You were to take me out.”
