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How was there any explaining, anything? I didn’t even know if I believed him. But I’d been through enough at this point to know that I had to keep my wits about me. I’d allow myself this shower, and then I’d game plan. I’d figure out where to go and what to do. But for now, I would just stand in this shower and have this moment.
As I rinsed my hair, I wondered if Mason truly was the inside man. I would have never seriously suspected him unless I’d caught him red-handed like I had hours ago… but the more I thought about it, everything added up so flawlessly. It would have been easy. Too easy for him to be the one selling the weapons information.
I shook my head. It was no wonder he got me a job instead of treason charges, he’d been expertly maneuvering that himself, for God knows how long.
Fucking traitor.
No wonder he didn’t want out of the agency.
Hewasthe agency. He was benefiting from his situation on so many levels. No wonder he brought me in with the snap of his fingers. He’d been gaming the system for God knows how long.
I didn’t bother running for the toilet when the sickening truth of it all finally blasted through my numb nerves. I just leaned over the shower drain and vomited. The idea of being his pawn, of sleeping in the same bed with the man who’d dragged me out from under my own bed, who’d fired a weapon at me, who’d drugged me, it made me sick. Even if he had saved me in Iran, and then again at the gala, it didn’t excuse a damn thing he’d done to me. It was a thick web, and I struggled to see through it, feeling like the realization of it all was getting tighter and tighter around me. The web he’d spun, the lies he’d told. I was trapped by my own denial. I hadn’t wanted to see what was right in front of me. I braced myself against the shower wall as I weakly wretched over and over until finally nothing more came up.
I stood trembling under the hot water, letting it soothe me as much as it was able. The man I thought I loved was the biggest piece of shit I’d ever laid eyes on. And if I didn’t get it together, he could easily put an end to me if he wanted to.
That was what I had to figure out… what his motives were.
What he would do to me, now that I knew.
I didn’t know who to trust, who to go to. I was utterly alone and in danger. Life-threatening danger.
While I knew I didn’t love him anymore, part of me wondered if for that brief moment that I did, as a token of what I thought we’d had. If I could keep my mouth shut, and just go my way, and let him go his. Maybe if I just kept my mouth shut about what I knew, he’d let me be. Maybe.
Even that would require a level of trust I knew I couldn’t risk. Even if I wanted to, I knew I couldn’t count on him to just let me go. Not that it was right, but maybe it was safe?
I shook my head, but the reality was, I was one of his loose ends now.
I shuddered, wondering what he was capable of… if he’d tie me up like all the other loose ends he had over the last few weeks.
The thought made my chest tighten.
The feeling of those big callused hands and how many times they’d brought me to ecstasy, and now all I could think about, is how those were the hands of a killer. Those were the hands of a man who killed in cold blood, and they could snap me in half without a second thought if they wanted to.
Grief and fear swirled around, mixing, mingling, causing confusion and panic to stir up my chest.
It was so incredibly painful.
Being betrayed by him was so incredibly painful.
Losing him… was even more painful.
As the water poured down my face, I was sure it was also washing away big heartbroken tears. But they disappeared into the stream of water without an ounce of recognition.
I had no one. And the one person I could trust in my life, my dad, I couldn’t bear the thought of putting him in danger by asking for help. Even if he could help, I knew the truth of the situation would break him. Knowing what his best friend had done, what he wasdoing.
Suddenly, I heard an odd noise, and the hair on the back of my neck raised.
24
EMMA
I stilledin the shower stall and listened for a moment, trying to calm myself.
You’re fine. You’re safe. You’re just being paranoid.
I bent over and looked between the gap of the shower curtain and the floor, peering into the locker room.
I stifled a gasp, softly sucking in a breath as I snapped back up, steadying myself on the shower stall walls.
