I shrug. “I couldn’t get anyone to tell me who the buyer was, so I took on the search myself, primarily on the dark web. A few years ago I stumbled upon something that felt familiar and I realized I’d found the platform Derrick and Fiona built. From there, I followed the process for verification, got myself into their list of contacts, and I’ve been working for ‘the General’ ever since, hoping that eventually if I collected enough pieces of the puzzle, I’d learn who he was and I’d know who was responsible for what happened.” As if on cue, my computer fan powers off due to inactivity, making the silence in the room feel more oppressive.
“And now, after everything we’ve learned since your name came up… it seems as if someone at SmarTech was the buyer, yes. They’re using SmarTech’s database of personal information about their customers to identify targets.”
She digests that. “Mac and Dimitri… are you going to tell them?”
“I planned to. I always planned to tell them. But… after—once we killed the man responsible. I can’t predict how they’ll react. I’d much rather ask forgiveness than permission.”
“You think they’ll abandon you when they find out the truth?”
“No,” I say sadly. “But knowing about this project got everyone who worked on it killed. I couldn’t let that happen here. Until I was sure, it was safest for everyone if I didn’t say a word—especially because knowing the truth wouldn’t have altered the plan in any way. It doesn’t make it any more or less dangerous that we’ve all decided to kill the General.”
She nods, but chews at her bottom lip as if her agreement is begrudging. “Okay, but that’s…” she blows out a long breath. “That’s so crazy.”
I fight the grimace. Her reaction is better than I’d hoped for—she hasn’t looked at me in horror for what I’ve done—but it’s not forgiveness either. I can hear the gears turning as she works through the information. “So, you see now. You see why it will be my fault if you’re hurt because of this. Everything that’s happened… it’sallmy fault. Every death is on my head, even if I didn’t pull the trigger or wield the knife.”
When her head lifts, her expression is almost haunted. There’s horror—but it’s on my behalf, not directed at me. “Wesley, that’s a lot of guilt you’re holding onto.”
“Survivor’s guilt,” I agree. “But it doesn’t change the fact that it’s my responsibility to right the wrongs that wouldn’t have happened without me. This tool is much too powerful, and it’s gotten into the wrong hands. I have to destroy it.”
She’s silent for what feels like a long time, and when she speaks her voice is almost too low for me to hear. “You guys have taken a lot of really bad people off the streets. I know that saying it could have been worse doesn’t mean much when you’re carrying so much guilt, but it’s true.”
“I know,” I nod. “It’s one of the few comforts I’ve had.”
“Okay.” She stands, approaching me slowly and lifts a hand to reach out for me, but pulls back. That aborted gesture might as well have pulled my heart out with it, but it’s no more than I deserve. “I need to… um… I need some time. I need to think about this.”
“Of course.”
“I won’t say anything to anyone. I promise.”
“Thank you.”
She heads for the door. Hand on the knob, she turns. “Wesley? Thank you for telling me.”
Her tone is too sad for me to take any comfort in the words. I nod, and she nods back, then gently closes the door, leaving me in the office with all my darkest thoughts.
Some Bills headbutts my shin, demanding attention, and I smile down at him. “At least she left me some comfort,” I say, folding over to scratch behind his ears.
37
Madison
Well… my flabbers are gasted.
After I apologize profusely to Eleanor for “stealing”—her word, not mine—her car, I hole myself up in one of the guest bedrooms. There’s only one that has a full setup with a bed, and I vaguely remember Wesley telling me Dimitri slept on the same floor as him before Nicole. I grab some blankets from the linen closet, lay on the bare mattress in the unfamiliar, empty room, and wrap myself up in a burrito of emotion.
I’m trying to process the depth of everything Wesley told me, but I think I’ve reached the end of my capacity to think. I just keep turning the same things over and over in my head—that he helped make this software, that he narrowly escaped with his life, that he’s been carrying this secret for almost 10 years…
I can barely comprehend the full brunt of the guilt he’s been dealing with—the sour, poisonous emotions that he’s kept carefully hidden away. I can understand why he feels like it’s his fault—the General never would have existed without his work. But he didn’t know what would happen. I’m sure he feels like heshouldhave figured it out, but that’s hindsight.
All his overbearing tendencies make sense now—it makes sense why he’d feel like it was his fault that I was hurt. It makes sense that he’d react to potential threats by trying to shield me from them.
Frankly, I don’t even care about the software and all that. I’m stuck on the lies. I’m stuck on the fact that instead of taking my trust and giving me his, he shut me out. Secrets are part of who he is—it’s his instinct to close off instead of sharing.
Can I be with someone who’s so shaped by deceit?
If he’d done things differently, we might never have met. So nowI’mfeeling guilty because despite all the death and loss, I can’t bring myself to regret what happened or wish things had turned out differently.
Ugh, now I feel like a bad person.
