“How sweet,” Cash mumbled.
Lawrence returned again with the pills, and Cash bolted the water, grateful for the small amount of kindness. It wasn’t as though he had actually earned it. Lawrence took a spot next to his bodyguard, and they both looked down at him, waiting.
“Lawrence, you asked me if I only went to the dinner party to rob your father, and the answer is yes.” Lawrence winced, but Cash kept talking. “I’ve had my eye on your father for a long time. For years before I met you, I’ve been tracking him and a few other executives at Horizon. But I didn’t steal that hard drive from his office because I wanted money or power. I stole it because someone needs to stop those people, and I think you both know that’s true.”
“Stop Horizon Zed?” Lawrence asked.
Raiden put his arm around his charge, supporting him. “You better start making sense fast, asshole.”
“Lawrence, you’ve said more than once how much you distrust your father and his corporation. I know I don’t have to tell you all the pain and destruction that they’re responsible for. But no matter how many regulations are put in place, no matter how many laws they break and how many times they get caught lying to the public, they just keep growing bigger and stronger. They just keep destroying the planet and profiting off of poverty and exploiting the people who have the least. They’re killing the world, and they’ve killed the people we love.”
Raiden’s eyes got wider. “What the hell does that mean?”
If Cash’s head wasn’t throbbing, he might have better judgment, but with fire still in Raiden’s eyes, he just pushed forward. “I grew up in North Carolina, in a small town. There wasn’t much there except for a small chemical factory where everyone worked, making some shit that they’d ship away in barrels, apparently to spray on household products at some other factory in some other town. The company that ran the place was called Marilote. You ever heard of them?”
“Yeah, I’ve fucking heard of them,” Raiden growled.
“Of course you did,” Cash nodded. “Marilote polluted the river upstream from my town, and sure enough, the people paid the price. When I was fourteen, both of my parents died of kidney failure, just like so many other people would over the years. It’s a little different in every Marilote town. Some places it’s a high rate of miscarriages from the toxic sludge. Other towns, like the one where Raiden grew up, there’s a sharp spike in heart attacks from air pollution.”
Raiden lurched forward, his hands pounding into the chair on the other side of Cash’s head and his snarling face only inches away. “What the hell is your point?”
Cash swallowed. “I’m saying that Marilote Industries is a subsidiary of Horizon Zed and that the three of us have a hell lot more in common than you realize.”
“Your parents died because of Horizon?” Lawrence asked weakly. He was still standing back, his shoulders slumped. Raiden glanced at him, then pulled back from Cash, letting him breathe again.
Cash met Lawrence’s eye with a nod. “The corporation had their own studies done, and they knew what the consequences would be, but they were willing to take those lives if it meant more profit.”
Raiden pushed his hands through his hair, then started pacing back and forth. “Are you trying to fucking tell me that my father’s heart attack was because of that goddamn factory? Why in the hell would I believe you, huh? I should throw you out the window just for fucking talking about him.” He growled, then kicked the wall. “You don’t deserve to put his name in your lying mouth.”
“You know it’s true,” Cash said quickly. “I can tell that you know it’s true.”
Raiden dropped down onto the edge of his bed. “That place was his family. Those were his people. And he was a good man. He was a real good man. He put up with all my mom’s shit, and he worked his ass off, and he treated me right, too. And now you’re saying that he didn’t have to die at all? You’re saying he could still be here?”
“I know it sucks. I know it hurts to admit the truth. But I also know about you, Raiden. I know you don’t let people get away with crap like that. I know you’re driven by the same thing I am. You’re a fighter, Raiden, and you fight for what’s right.”
“You’ve both lost everything,” Lawrence said. “You’ve both lost everything, and it’s my family’s fault. No wonder you lied to me. You must hate me.”
“No, you don’t understand,” Cash said. He started to rise to his feet, but his muscles clenched in pain, and Raiden jerked his head up, so he fell back down. “Your parents might have not died, but your heart still feels the pain. The second I looked at your financial records, I knew it was true. All of your money goes to fighting the damage your father has done, from the environmental law groups you support to that food pantry you started funding when he transferred the local jobs overseas. We might go about it in really different ways, but all three of us are in the same fight, see?”
Cash looked back and forth between Lawrence and Raiden, suddenly desperate for them to see things the way he saw them, to understand how important that bond was. Then Raiden stood to his feet, narrowed his brow, and glared straight into Cash’s eyes.
“You were looking at Lawrence’s financial records?”
Cash licked his top row of teeth. Maybe he should have pretended to pass out again and saved the conversation for when his brain wasn’t imploding with pain. But in the middle of everything else that was going on, with Raiden and Lawrence still deciding if they wanted to trust him, Cash couldn’t risk bringing up Reed and revealing the job he had been originally hired for. He always had different intentions, anyway, and there were more important things to deal with.
“I get it,” he said. “I get why you don’t trust me. Hell, I wouldn’t trust me, either. Just do me one more favor, please.”
“This motherfucker,” Raiden said, shaking his head. “Asking for favors.”
“Let me see the hard drive,” Cash explained. “And you’ll see. I’m not the threat you really need to worry about.”
