I seethed in silence, struggling to suppress my fury. She just reminded me of my incompetence in catching that son of a bitch. My anger was mostly directed at myself, not her.
“A harmless man is behind bars while a dangerous criminal walks free,” she said. “This whole thing was your idea, and the longer Varro is in the wind, the more it looks like you failed.”
Those words stung like a nasty bee.
“So fix it. Find that bastard,” she said, her voice much calmer. “He’s not smarter than you.”
She held my gaze for a moment before turning around to leave. I stood there in the stillness, overwhelmed with a mix of emotions. Ellie had just challenged me in a way no one ever had.
She called out my incompetence and opened my eyes to the truth I hadn’t faced in years. Varro’s ability to always slip through my fingers was painting a picture that was bad for my reputation.
The bastard was very good at hiding from everyone. He was smart. But she was right. I was smarter. He’d been in the wind for far too long now. It was time I channeled all resources into finding him.
As much as her words struck me like a dagger to the chest, it was the wake-up call I didn’t realize I needed.
“He’s not smarter than you,”that sentence echoed in my head, a reminder of how she dismantled me and rebuilt me in the same breath.
Ellie’s bravery and the way she stood her ground despite my intimidating gaze were impressive. It was almost like she’d finally understood who she was and the weight of the name she now carried.
When she spoke, she didn’t mince her words or try to sugarcoat them. She told me the bitter truth and didn’t give a shit whether I wanted to hear it or not.
Good.
My influence was starting to rub off on her.
However, one question still lingered on my mind. Why was she so angry that I lied to her? Why did my lack of transparency hurt her so much?
It wasn’t like she was beginning to care about me.
She wasn’t, was she?
Chapter 25 – Ellie
“I’m a monster! The devil everyone knows. I’m a viper who strikes even when I don’t intend to,”his voice echoed at the back of my mind.
“…I derive pleasure from other people’s suffering. So why the fuck are you surprised that I kept that important detail from you?”
He wasn’t entirely wrong. Ididknow what type of man he was; I knew he was capable of horrible things. Yet for some bizarre reason, I still expected better from him.
Withholding a vital piece of information was the least of the terrible crimes he was guilty of. If that even sufficed as a crime in this situation. Still, it hurt me. And I couldn’t understand why.
I wasn’t pained because that “lie” affected Vetrov’s situation in any way. I was pained because he kept his involvement in the case from me. Karik wasn’t completely honest about the whole thing. He only told me a version of the truth.
But wait a minute. Why are you mad at him for something so silly?a voice murmured in my head.If he’s as insignificant to you as you claim, then nothing he does should affect you.
I thought about those words for a moment.
Unless, of course…he’s no longer insignificant,the voice added.
Deep down, I knew there was some sort of truth in that but I wasn’t ready to accept it. At this point, that seemed to be the only logical explanation for my outburst.
Lies only hurt when they come from those you care about.
I let that sink in, even though a part of me was in denial.
The look on his face when I mentioned his inability to capture Niklaus Varro told me I’d crossed a line. A rather dangerous one. If anyone else had said what I said to him, they’d be dead already.
But he didn’t even raise a finger to me. It was crystal clear that my words pricked him in ways neither of us saw coming. Still, he held back his rage.
