Chapter Four
Guilt, rage, remorse; it had twisted Reese’s world for years after he’d left New World Genetics. Knowing he was a coward. Knowing he was weak.
Too helpless to stop any of the things happening in the Utah facility.
Too useless to save Koda.
But time away had dulled the memories until there were only nightmares, and most mornings, he no longer remembered them either.
He’d been able to pretend the world didn’t revolve around money.
That a billion-dollar company couldn’t just crush someone to keep them quiet.
That people cared about right or wrong.
Yeah, it had taken a while, but Reese managed to begin living again.
What a fool he’d been.
It was all right there the whole time, a thinning bubble waiting to pop. Seeing Koda’s broken body did just that.
Reese paced in the tight confines of the decontamination unit. Phillips and Harrington appeared from behind one of the frosted flaps creating a hall outside of the main unit. She held up papers for Reese to see before dropping them outside on a small table. “I think it’s time we talk.”
Reese balled up a fist. “I don’t feel like talking.”
“Too bad. Now tell me what was therelationshipbetween you and Koda Suarez?”
It was the way she said relationship that made Reese look at the papers held together with a paperclip. “Why ask? You already have the answer you want.”
“Unless what’s in that file is accurate, then I have nothing.” She crossed her arms. “Was Echols telling the truth in his complaint?”
“What? That I was fucking Koda?”
Voices came from beyond the tent. A motor started up. Footsteps rose and fell. Someone laughed.
“No.” Reese ran his hand through his hair. “No, I wasn’t engaged in inappropriate behavior with any of the subjects.” Fuck, how he hated that word.Inappropriate.It even sounded guilty.
“Then what happened down there? Because that was not the reaction of a man seeing the body of a science experiment.”
Reese rushed up to Phillips and jabbed a finger at her. “Don’t you ever call him that.”
One step brought Phillis right to the plastic barrier separating them. Even without the heels, she was taller than Reese, but height had nothing to do with the authority she radiated.
The lawyers, the CEO’s, they’d held a similar air about them as they lorded over Reese’s life and picked away at it one pebble at a time until he collapsed.
Until he broke.
Reese stepped back until his calves bumped against the edge of the cot. He sat and hung his head between his shoulders. “You wouldn’t understand.”
“Try me.”
Reese gave a bitter laugh.
Phillips’s expression remained blank.
Reese rested his elbows on his knees. He was so fucking tired. “Why now?”
“What?”