My heart throbbed uncomfortably in my chest, my throat tight. I didn’t want to talk about this. “Are you done with your questions?”
Blinking, he took a sip of his coffee before meeting my gaze again. “What was the point of working for me?”
I licked my lips, my toe tapping on the floor. I set my mug on the coffee table. “Like I said, Emerson kept tabs on the beasts who left Goldenlach Ridge.”
He winced. “Shifters. They’re called shifters.”
Shifters.“Right. Okay. That makes sense.” I nodded, enjoying the fact I had a proper name for these types of people instead of the one Emerson thought up. “He liked to keep tabs on the shifters, and you were the only connection to two of them.”
“Are the people in Goldenlach Ridge in danger from him?” he asked before I was done speaking.
He probably knew more of them living there. “Not in an immediate way.” I scrunched up my face. “He has always been more concerned over those who’ve left town and those he finds in the world on their own, especially if they’re in an important position.” I grabbed my mug again and took a sip. “Ever since I told him of their existence, he’s been able to tell who were beas—I mean shifters—and who were not just by looking at them. I don’t understand it really. It doesn’t make sense to me, but he’s never wrong.”
His expression turned contemplative. “Why the collar? With everything you could have stolen from me, why did you pick the plans for the collar?”
I rubbed the space between my eyebrows, an ache forming. “I couldn’t take it anymore. I couldn’t be with you and lie to you about why I was there day after day. I lo—” I stopped talking and averted my gaze while my cheeks burned. “I cared about you too much. I’d become dead inside.”
Meeting his gaze again, I continued, hoping he hadn’t noticed my almost-confession, the words I’d refused to utter when we’d been together because of my deception. “You weren’t giving up your friends’ locations which was something Emerson really wanted. So I needed to give my brother something that would satisfy him, something which would fulfill my purpose. Because I had to get out.” I breathed in through my nose and let it out slowly. “When I found out you were working on projects not on the regular books, I figured it was my chance. I broke into the secondary lab using a keycard I’d stolen from you, and downloaded what I could from a computer.”
His expression turned steely during my explanation, but I pressed on. “And it was enough. My brother cut me loose and I went into the military soon after.”
Landon rubbed a hand over his face, and shook his head in disbelief. “Why the military?”
“It was another of my brother’s edicts.” I pressed my lips together and forged ahead. “After stealing from you, he knew I should lay low for a while because you had almost as many resources as he did. He also wanted me to keep tabs on Hayles, though it was rather hard to do when he’d been sent overseas and my battalion remained in Canada.”
I noticed the way he tensed at his friend’s name, but I kept going. “Emerson thought basic training would be a great learning experience for me. I’d toughen up, turn into one of his enforcer-type people. He was always telling me how weak I was, and this seemed like the perfect solution to him.”
“Did it work?”
I let out a harsh laugh. “No. It was the first time I’d been out from under my brother’s thumb. Working for you, there’d always been the weekly check-ins, the reminders ofwhyI was doing what I was doing. He used my fear, said shifters would hurt us if they knew we’d learned about them.”
Landon twitched in his seat, but didn’t say anything. I kept going. “I was never allowed to forget my purpose. But with the military, he didn’t have control anymore. I wasn’t force-fed whatever ideology he wanted me to believe. I realized I had to bring him down.”
Landon’s eyes never wavered from mine.
“And your two friends? How did you meet?”
“Marley enlisted the same year I did. We were together in basic training, then posted at the same base after, even though she was a cyber operator and I was in the infantry—another of my brother’s demands. We met Alina when we had American-Canadian cooperative training exercises. They’ve been together ever since. My friendship with those two was one thing Emerson couldn’t take from me.”
“They’re lucky to have you as a friend.”
“Ha!” The bark came out of me unbidden. “No, they’re not. I’ve signed them up for a life on the run, or worse, if we fail. They should have never agreed to help me.”
“They love you.”
My stomach flipped. “And I love them, but I don’t deserve them.”
“You deserve more in this life than you’ve been allowed, Jolyn.” My chest twinged. I would have tried to brush off the comment, but then he asked, “Why are you being so open with me now?”
“What have I got to lose?” I’d lost everything already thanks to my brother: my autonomy, my integrity, and the one person I’d loved. The only thing I had left was my life, and I knew my brother wanted that too.
“Are you happy?”
My stomach twitched. Of all the questions he could have asked after what I’d already told him, he went with that one?
“What is happy?” But I knew. I’d been happy once. With him.
Landon stared at me like he had more to say, but didn’t know how to voice the words. I waited, watching him sort through his thoughts.
