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Hayes considered me for a moment, then dipped his head in acknowledgment. “That’s true,” he said. “You let your little FBI pet do it for you.”
I gritted my teeth. “Adrian isn’t a dog.”
“Let’s agree to disagree about that,” he said and gestured for me to get up. “Come,” he said. “Sit with me. We need to talk.” I climbed to my feet and toddled on shaky legs to the armchair that he was pointing me to. “Do you need anything?” he asked. “Are you hungry? Do you need a drink?”
I shook my head. “I just want to go home.”
“Yes, to your son. Elias, right?”
I went cold. “Please don’t bring my son into this.”
Again, Hayes dipped his head. It was like we were in some kind of negotiation, but he was the only one who knew the terms. “You’ve been creating identities for yourself, haven’t you? Since you left the custody of the US Marshals.”
I nodded. There was no point in trying to deny it. “I’m good with computers.”
“I know. I looked up your records.” He reached over and held up a folder. “You have some impressive credentials. It’s a shame you ended up in a diner in the middle of a swamp.” He opened the folder and flicked through the pages. “And before that, you were a cocktail waitress in Las Vegas.” He glanced at me and clicked his tongue against his teeth. “You’ve wasted so much of your potential since you moved to the United States, Nataliya. It really is a shame.”
“Thank you,” I said. The words felt misshapen and wrong in my mouth—making nice with the man who was responsible for my brother’s death felt like a betrayal of the worst sort—but if playing polite kept me alive long enough for Adrian to find me, I would do it with a smile. “I hope to go back to working in my field someday when things are more settled.”
“Why wait?” Hayes asked. “I could always use someone on my team with skills like yours.”
Here we go, I thought. I had been waiting for the sales pitch. “I’ve seen what you do, Mr. Hayes,” I said. “I’m not impressed.”
“Oh, I think you’d find me very impressive, Nataliya. What evidence did you really get against me, huh? A handful of damning emails with no context, maybe? A voicemail?”
He has no idea what we have, I thought. He’s guessing so I’ll tell him. “My brother is dead because of you,” I said instead of answering his question.
Anger cracked through his charming, neutral mask. It was only for an instant, but I saw the man beneath the designer clothes and veneer-bright smile. “Your brother is dead because he didn’t stick to what he did best: follow orders. Instead, he ran to Interpol with his tail tucked between his legs.”
“He was trying to do right by his nephew.”
Hayes chuckled, and it was a mean sound. “He could have done so much more if he’d come to me,” he said. “Do you know the resources I could have gotten for you? Instead, you’re allowing a researcher to run experiments on your son.”
My hands clenched into fists. “I asked you not to bring him up.”
Hayes sighed. “I just want you to be aware of what I could do for you. I could get you a job in the field you love; I could set you and Elias up in a good home in any part of the country you’d like. I could make sure that he has the best medical care.”
I crossed my arms across my chest. “Why would you do all of that for me?”
“I take care of my people.”
I snorted. “Do you regularly take care of your people by setting them up to be killed?”
His mask slipped again, and his dark eyes turned searing. “I do what needs to be done to maintain what I’ve built. I’m sure that you can understand the need to protect one’s own creation, yes?” I clutched at the arms of the chair, digging my fingers into the fabric. “That being said, I’ll need you to return what you took from my system, along with anything else your brother might have left for you.”
“No.”
“Just ‘no’?” Hayes asked in such a perverse mirror of the conversation Adrian and I had earlier that I actually laughed. “You don’t think you should make the smart choice and negotiate?”
I shook my head. I knew it wasn’t the smart choice, knew that I should play along until someone came to find me, but there were some things I just couldn’t stomach. And agreeing to work for this man—even as a ruse—was a line I couldn’t bring myself to cross. “No, Mr. Hayes. This isn’t a negotiation; it’s just a no.”
Hayes stood, and I pressed myself back in the chair, trying to get away from him as subtly as possible. “You’ve struggled so much as a single parent, Nataliya,” he said, circling now. It was like every cliché movie villain ever, and there was a hysterical part of me that wanted to laugh…but that would probably end up getting me killed. “Don’t you want to make your life easier? Don’t you think you deserve it?”
“Of course, I deserve it,” I said. “No one deserves hardships or suffering.”
“Return what you took from me, and you can have whatever you want.” He shrugged, as if to say it was just that easy. “I’ll even leave your guard dog alone.”
I wouldn’t believe anything he told me even if he said the sky was blue or water was wet. But shutting down the conversation completely wouldn’t do me any favors. I had to keep him talking, try to stall. “Why do you do it?” I asked.
