“They were monitoring shipments. He wouldn’t give me details, but they were counting on something big coming in this week.”
“We’ll get the information to him,” Bash tells Cato, who nods. When his focus returns to me, the anger has faded into concern.
“What happened at the office?" he asks. "Did someone recognize you? Does anyone know you’re alive?”
“No, that was… unrelated. One of the workers there had been at the gate when I entered, and I kind of… flirted with his boyfriend to distract from the fake ID.”
“Of course you did,” Bash mutters.
“It was just to get through.”
“It isn’t my business who you fuck, Xenesis.”
“Stop calling me that,” I say as I hold his eyes. “No one mentioned fucking until you did.”
His satisfaction falters as he purses his lips once more, chewing on the inside of his cheek.
“Finish your story,” he says.
I lift my shoulder in a shrug. “Not much left to tell. The boyfriend looked me up afterward, realized the ID was fake, and called it in. By the time I figured out he had reported me, I had to run, and I barely made it out before backup arrived. Your…friendsfound me, and here we are.”
“What did you expect?” Bash asks. “You came looking for me after breaking my heart. What did you think was going to happen?”
“I thought…” My voice weakens, and I swallow past my nerves. “I thought you might hear the story and want to continue your research. It’s what you spent all those years studying in theory, but now it’sreal. It’s tangible, and we could figure it out…youcould figure it out, and I thought…”
“Thought what?” he presses.
I stare unseeing at the tray as I shake my head. “That you might be willing to hear my side.”
“Yourside?” he asks, his voice climbing.
My gaze moves up to his, hating the fury I find there.
“Gods you are just so fuckingarrogant, aren’t you?!” Bash shouts as he loses control of his temper, and his face flushesdark. “There are no sides, Xeni. There were never any sides. There was you and me, and that was it.Thatwas my side. That was my forever, and I thought it was yours, too.”
“I was… I am…”
“Youleftme!”
Shame and mourning close my throat, and I shake my head, desperate for him to see my truth. “I understand you’re angry—” I say, and it comes out pleading. His eyes bore into mine, and I know it was the wrong thing to say.
“Angry? You think I’m fucking angry?”
“Aren’t you?” I counter.
“I’m not angry, I’mhurt!” The raw fracture in his tone slices through me, and my first tear slips free, tracing a path down my cheek.
“I amdevastated,” he continues, the confession torn from him, “and I have never been the same since that morning. I amdone, Xeni!”
He charges forward, fisting my shirt and bunching the fabric until it strains. For the first time since I met him, I believe he might abandon logic for fists. That his fury might unleash in blows instead of words.
I wish he would.
The thought rises unbidden… that I deserve whatever comes next.
That Iwantit.
I’ve earned every ounce of pain he needs to inflict to balance the scales. Let him strike me, throw me to the ground, take from my flesh what I stole from his heart.
