His family sat around the table, the remains of breakfast plates piled on the side credenza. The JAG Corps representative had disappeared, her terminal locked down, but some data was still available in the table’s center holographic displays. One command window held two holopics of himself taken by the government from when he was in the CIA and when he first joined the MDF. What little the MDF had authorized to share from his personnel file was highly selective, redacted, and probably posed more questions than answers for hisfamily.
Everyone looked up at his arrival. They stared blankly at him for a couple of seconds before his mother got to her feet, one hand coming up to briefly cover hermouth.
“Sean,” Naomi said in a rawvoice.
He swallowed nervously. “Hi,Mom.”
Sean didn’t know what to do for a moment—sit, stand, beg for forgiveness—but his mother took the decision out of his hands. She came around the table, still wearing yesterday’s clothes, even if she’d washed off all her makeup last night. She looked paler than he was used to, but that could’ve been thestress.
His mother pulled him into a hug, holding onto him so tightly it hurt to breathe for a second or two. Sean’s breath hitched in his throat as he squeezed his eyes shut and huggedherback.
“I’m sorry,” he said, voice cracking alittle.
Naomi sniffed discreetly, her fingers digging hard into his back. “Why didn’t you tell us? You should havetoldus.”
“The CIA advised against it atthetime.”
“I don’t care what the damn CIA wanted. We’re your family. You should havetoldus.” Naomi pulled back, wiping at her cheeks with the back of one hand. “God, Sean. You were hit withSplice. We had a right to know what you were doing before you diedonus!”
“But Ididn’tdie.”
She shook her finger at him, the frantic look in her eyes that of grief only a mother would know. “The percentage of people who survive a Splice bomb is so small that youshouldhave. We’d have found out about your double life after you were already dead. Is that something you were okay with when you decided tojoinup?”
“I was thinking more about keepingyousafe.”
“Didn’t really work out, did it?” Zach said in a lowvoice.
Sean winced. “To be honest, none of this should havehappened.”
“So if a mistake in your mission hadn’t occurred, we would still be in the dark about your life,” Greg said. His father sounded like he did when presiding over his courtroom from the bench—serious and stern, no hint of his thoughts showing up onhisface.
“The mistake wasn’t on my end, nor the MDF’s,” Sean replied evenly, meeting hisfather’sgaze.
“We were still put indanger.”
“I know. And I’msorry. I did my best not to let what happened in my life and my job spill over intoyours.”
“Why didn’t you trust us? Like your mother said, Sean. You should havetoldus.”
Sean sighed, taking his mother’s hand and guiding her back to the seat next to his father’s. “Because most of my missions involved deep cover and there were rules governing who I could tell about my status. It seemed easier at the time to just not tell anyone. You and mom had your careers, and Zach and Caleb and Parker hadtheband.”
“Which you dropped out of,” Parker said, leaning forward. “Did the CIA make you drop outofit?”
“I couldn’t join up and be in a rock band,Parker.”
“So you didn’t believe we couldmakeit?”
Sean looked across the table at his littlest brother with tired eyes. “I believed in mycountrymore.”
It was a belief that had been quite thoroughly broken in the last twenty-four hours, and that realization had yet to completely sink in. Knowing that a faction of the government had targeted his family for reasons he still didn’t completely understand left Sean feeling numb and sick to hisstomach.
Caleb fiddled with the handle of his synthcaf mug on the table, staring at Sean. “Soyoulied.”
“I did,” Sean said whilesittingdown.
“Then why should we believe you now when you say you’resorry?”
“Caleb,” Naomi said in a sharpvoice.
