It smacked too much of Star. Of the precariousness of her situation once upon a time.
Just thinking of what I’d learned about her, of what they’d put her through, was enough to make me want to kill someone.
While vengeance had always been my da’s preference and not mine, I understood his mentality at that moment.
Reinier was going to die in a shipping container, whether it was at Star’s hand or of starvation and dehydration and only God knew what else. When I thought about what he’d put Star through, I hoped he went full-throttle28 Days Lateron himself.
An hour into the flight, when I felt as if I’d managed to draw on a strong enough mask, I turned to her and, creepily enough, found her watching me.
It was like being studied by a scorpion. One wrong move and she’d sting me. The only difference was, on the outside, she was beautiful: golden-blonde hair, bright-as-a-button blue eyes, flawless skin, a neat figure that was destroyed by a bland, boxy, off-the-rack suit. If Barbie had developed a CIA agent doll, it would have looked like Temperance.
“Is your first cousin a Brother?”
“No,” she derided. Her head angled to the side. “Why?”
So, Dead To Me was a solid ally. I figured as much, to be fair.
“Why did you say ‘no’ like that?”
“Because my cousin has a side gig that wouldn’t wash in the Union.”
“Meaning?”
“Meaning that only the best are inducted into the Brotherhood.”
The best?
She was a psycho who had an in with a society of fucking nutcases.
Coming up with the ‘leave the asswipe to rot in a shipping container’ plan was something even Da wouldn’t have rolled with.
Didn’t mean I wasn’t glad about it.
I’d once watched a horror movie where a serial killer left his victims to rot like Reinier would and, back then, it had freaked me out. Enough that Aidan had gotten sick of me waking him up with my nightmares and he’d told my very young twelve-year-old ass to research what would happen to a person left like that because, in his words,to know was to control.
Looking back, it wasn’t a standard way to deal with nightmares, but what in my family was standard?
He’d probably amplified a toxic trait of never being able to leave any stone unturned, which had undoubtedly put me in my current position, but hey, every step I’d taken down this path had led me to Star.
That was something I could never regret.
“Is someone going to check in on Reinier? Make sure he doesn’t die?” I questioned. “I can’t imagine Star would be okay with him wasting away before she can get her hands on him.”
I intended on bringing her home sooner than it would take Reinier to die, but I wanted to keep our bases covered.
She nodded. “He’ll be monitored. Star would want to be involved—you reminded me of that back at Langley. I shouldn’t have acted as impulsively as I did.”
I studied her. “Wasit impulsive? You said I should be glad you were there because it stopped me from getting my ass killed, but were you there for me? Or for Reinier?”
A smile danced on her lips. “Couldn’t I have been there for both?” I watched as she accepted a drink order I hadn’t heard her make, and only when the flight attendant had left, did she continue, “Reinier had the entire building evacuated. Triggered a whole protocol as if we’d had some kind of accidental spillage in one of the labs just to make sure you and the coders were on your own there.”
“Was Riggs in on it?” I rasped.
“No.”
“Why was she there?”
That smile I detested made another reappearance. “She was your handler.”