Gemma stared at the screen in time to see a massive grin spread across her sister’s face. Nadine’s joy poured over Gemma like acid on her heart.
“Uh, thank you, sir, for the personal call. I look forward to seeing her,” Nadine replied with a nod of her head.
Rami pulled his thumb off his comm and stared Gemma straight in the eye. “Enough proof for you?” He grabbed the electropad, turning off its power before shoving it back under the table.
Unable to speak or form a coherent thought, Gemma shook her head. She wanted so desperately to keep fighting the battle she’d been warring for so long.
But she nodded once, giving into the reality that she’d been nothing but a pawn in a much bigger game. She’d let Reymond use her loneliness to manipulate her into the pathetic fool she’d become.
The frustration in Rami’s face morphed into sympathy. He frowned, bending forward so his elbows were on the table. “Now, are you sure Reymond told you nothing of his true intentions for Zion?”
Gemma shook her head and cleared her throat. “No, sir.” She couldn’t meet his stare with her own. The shame was too much.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Rami nod. “Then there’s only one way I can think of to help you. I need you to spy for me.”
Gemma’s gaze shot up. “What?” After being used as a pawn by Reymond, now Rami wanted to use her? “No. I’d rather go to prison. I’m done playing these stupid games.”
Rami stared at her like a third arm stuck out of her head. “The penalty for murder, Gemma—intended or not—is death. Not prison.”
All the heat from her body left in a millisecond.Death?Her chin trembled as she looked away from Rami once again. Reymond had sent her to her doom on a blasted lie?
Rami sat back in his chair and let out a deep sigh. “Look. We knew before you all arrived this year that the Dissent was sending an operative. Phoebe—or the Kaizen, as you like to call her—thought it was either you or Moriah, based on the intelligence we received.
“But now, it’s clear you were a decoy. Murdering me is not serious enough to warrant the level of intelligence we’ve been receiving. So, I need your help to figure out who the true operative is. And in return, I will make sure Lieutenant Commander Mehnkof’s death isn’t pinned on you.”
Gemma’s pulse spiked. “How could I possibly help? They know I failed.”
“True. But if they think you gave up valuable information to be released, I believe they’ll begin to unravel a bit.”
Gemma’s brows furrowed. “How do you know they’re even still here?”
Rami shrugged. “I don’t. But do you think the Dissent would send just anyone? Odds are, they sent someone very well-trained. If that person did get eliminated, however, we will discern that when no one reacts to your reappearance. It’s a win-win situation.”
Gemma pressed her lips together, fighting the urge to tell him to go throw himself off the top of Zion. She was not going to be manipulated again simply because she didn’t want to die. In fact, she’d rather die, considering all the people she’d hurt on her failed mission.
But part of her also wanted to get back at Reymond for using her as a decoy. For taking advantage of her seventeen-year-old self, pretending to be her friend then ripping out her soul and causing her to nearly take her own life.
He deserved to be punished.
“What aren’t you telling me?” Gemma asked Rami. If she was going to agree to this, she wanted every detail. She would not go in blind this time.
Rami ground his teeth before pinching the bridge of his nose. “If I tell you everything, you must swear to me—on your sister’s life—that what I share stays between us.” He glared at her. “And if I find out you have broken that promise, I will have you executed.”
Gemma swallowed. The warning in his eyes sent a shiver down her spine. “I swear.”
He sighed, running a hand down his face. “I already know why Reymond sent you to kill me: I know too well how they think. I’m the one who founded the Dissent.”
Gemma’s eyes couldn’t open any wider. “What do you meanyoufounded the Dissent?”
Rami shook his head, the lines on his face deepening. His hands balled into fists. “It was only a few years after I passed the Trials myself. So this was—I don’t know—a little over twenty years ago. I’d met my wife during the Trials. They didn’t do teams back then, but we’d still struck up a friendship, and it turned into something more before our Trials were even over.”
He shifted in his seat, pulling at the throat of his dress shirt. “Stars—I shouldn’t be telling you any of this.” Rami sighed. “She got pregnant. They didn’t do the sterilization back then either, but what they did do was force women to either return to Perileos if they were pregnant or send the baby back the moment it was born to be raised by another family.”
Gemma frowned. The cruelty of the Systems’ government continued to shock her. The Gallowood family made their own choices when they left their children behind, but to be forced to separate from their child if they didn’t want to return to Perileos?
Hatred for her overlords burned deep in her gut again.
“I was willing to go back with her,” Rami continued, “but she refused. So, when our child was born, he was sent to Perileos, and we remained on Oranos.” He swallowed, his eyes reddening. “It wasn’t long after, however, that my wife couldn’t cope with her decision. And so she...”
