I’m positive that Adas has come up with some absolutely medieval punishment for my acts of defiance, but I couldn’t care less at this point. If he has me put to death, so be it. I don’t want to live a lie anymore.
I’m tossed into the room, hearing the door promptly slammed behind me like I’m a vicious cat being thrown into the time-out room.
Dead silence.
At first, I don’t lift my eyes to meet his. I already feel the hellfire that’s about to be rained down on me even harder than the storm.
“Look at me.”
I panic, fighting within myself. I don’t want to look at him. I don’t want to see the face of my captor, the eyes of a man with an ax to grind. He wants to punish me within the full extent of his power, which is far more than I could ever imagine.
“River. Look at me.”
I exhale deeply, lifting my eyes to see his.
Instead of wrath, he seems remorseful, almost saddened.
“Why?” I ask.
It’s all I can say. What else could I possibly want to know? What motivates something like this?
“I need you to let me tell you what happened, and you can decide for yourself if I’m really the awful person you think I am,” he says, getting up out of his office chair and approaching me as he extends his hand to help me up.
It takes me a moment to find my footing, both because of how jarring this whole experience has been as well as not being able to fully trust him anymore.
It’s not a feeling I like.
Even if he isn’t my real husband, I had someone I could rely on before all of this. I had someone in my life who wanted to help me and keep me safe so badly that it got under my skin at times. Now, all I see is the face of a liar.
Eventually, I’m back on my feet, and he leads me over to an extra chair that he has sitting in the corner of the room.
“No, I can stand,” I say stubbornly.
“I can tell you’ve been through a lot. Just let me help you,” he replies, his voice sounding wounded.
“Oh yeah? Have I been through a lot? Why don’t you tell me, Adas? What have I been through exactly? Because I don’t seem to have any fucking idea!” I shout, feeling my power coming back at his obvious lack of anger.
Now, it feels like I’m the one with all the power.
He pulls the chair away from the wall, sitting it across from his desk. “Please just sit down and let me explain all this, you really should anyway. I told them to be firm with you, but it seems they might have gotten a little overenthusiastic about that command.”
“What, are we having a parent-teacher conference?” I ask bluntly.
He sighs heavily. “River, please just let me explain.”
“Fine.”
I sit down, and he promptly takes the seat across from me. I feel like I’m about to get fired from a job, not learn about the true origins of who I am.
Adas lets out a long sigh. “The wound to your head was a bullet. I don’t think you doubt that, but I should clarify that my story hasn’t been that far from the truth.”
I don’t humor him with a reaction. I want to hear his side of the story first.
He weaves his fingers together on his lap as he speaks. “I saw you being dragged out of a car that had been hit in the crossfire of a shootout. I could see a gunshot wound to the side of your head, but you were still holding onto life somehow. I don’t know how. You were really struggling, but you pulled through.”
I wait, crossing my arms.
“When I ran over to see what was going on, I realized that you had been hit by a stray bullet from my gun when I was aiming at Marat. You were right across the street. It was an attack we had been planning for months, and I thought I had run through every logistical roadblock I could think of. Well, I was wrong. Very wrong.”