“No. My son was confused, maybe, but he wasn’t—”
“Brian was gay, and you couldn’t accept that. It didn’t fit within your perfect life or your perfect appearances. You threatened to disown him because of it.”
“No. You’re wrong.” The man shook his head, continuing on with his denial.
“Your bigotry and hatred for your son’s lifestyle is what killed him. Not Kat. The only thing she did was try to help your son. But she couldn’t give him the one thing he wanted more than anything in the world.” Matt made sure Anderson was listening before saying, “Your love and acceptance.”
“His secret lifestyle was a disgrace!” Sloane yelled the ridiculous claim. “An embarrassment to the family name.”
This guy made him sick. “He can’t embarrass anyone anymore.”
A tiny spec of emotion snuck through the ignorant man’s expression, but it was gone as quickly as it had appeared.
“Seriously, dude.” Kole spoke up for the first time. “You do realize the Dark Ages were over like…forever ago, right?”
“Explain something to me, Anderson,” Gabe jumped in again, bringing them back on topic. “If you hated Katherine so much, why didn’t you just fire her?”
“You think I didn’t want to? Icouldn’t.”
“Why not?” Matt challenged back.
“She’s the best at what she does. Her name was the reason the military commissioned my company for the formulation of the serum in the first place. If I’d fired her, I would have lost the project. My company was counting on it to pull us back into the green.”
Kole shrugged. “What would’ve happened if she’d quit? What would you have done then?”
“She was never going to quit. At least not until the project was complete.”
Matt couldn’t help but ask, “Why not?”
The older man’s eyes stared directly into his. “Because of you.”
It was Matt’s secondwhat the fuckmoment in as many minutes. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“Think about it, genius. That serum was being created for the military. To give wounded American military members a better chance at survival. You’re military, right?”
“Not anymore.”
“Katherine worked her ass off on this project. Not for me or the company. She did it for you.”
Matt didn’t know what to say to that.
“Didn’t matter to me why the hell she wanted the project to succeed. As long as she made it happen. We used each other, you see. And it was working fine until…”
“You got an even better offer than the one the military had proposed. One from Walker’s mystery buyer.”
“Yes,” he admitted begrudgingly.
“What happened, next? Todd get greedy? Cold feet? Why did he go after Kat?”
Anderson explained how if Todd took over, he’d gain access to all the information needed to make the serum. He also admitted to telling Walker about Kat’s crazy-good memory.
“Okay, that explains why Kat was taken,” Matt commented. “There’s only one more thing we need to know.”
“What?”
“Who’s the buyer?”
Anderson shook his head. “I-I don’t know.”
