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By now, you’ve discovered who you are, who you were meant to be, and what I worked so tirelessly to prepare you to face. All those years of extra protection and mastering unique skills were my way of attempting to be your hero even if, at times, it may have seemed overbearing or senseless.
Maybe you’re wondering about how your mom and I were blessed with the huge honor of raising you. It’s peculiar, the way life weaves things together. Your mother and I had been trying for a baby for many years. She suffered through seven miscarriages and two stillbirths, the last one being one month before you arrived in our arms.
Eleanor Healy,your birth mom, was much younger than us, in her early twenties, on the run, and terrified. She’d heard about us through the organization, about Mom’s pregnancy losses, and my reputation for being someone in the organization people could trust to be discreet. Scared, with nowhere to go, she showed up on our doorstep eight months pregnant and eager for us to raise her baby. We were living in Minnesota at the time, mere days into grieving the loss of yet another child.
I knew who she was, knew O’Reilly was searching for her, and also knew her future was grim, having run as she did. We took care of her for a month, undecided how to handle the situation. I’d always kept your mother out of these types of affairs, and this was no exception. I shared very few details, but she didn’t care. All she wanted was you.
To say I was conflicted would be an understatement. Watching your mother suffer all those years was the most painful thing I’d ever faced, but the thought of O’Reilly searching for you both was also agonizing. In the end, it was Eleanor’s pleas to offer you a normal life and your angelic blue eyes that solidified it. Once you cooed in my arms, there was nothing I wouldn’t do for you even if it cost me my life.
Eleanor took off a few days later, leaving behind a ruby necklace, a warning it was registered, and a request to give it to you as a token of her love when you were older. It was one of the most heroic acts of parenting I’d ever witnessed. She feared if you stayed together, she couldn’t protect you long-term, so she left you with someone who could.
Since so many people had seen Mom pregnant and we hadn’t shared the loss, it was easy to pass you off as ours. And there wasn’t a day we didn’t take that job seriously or remind ourselves what a precious gift we were holding.
I wish I was there to hold you right now, to help you feel that truth. But just as I would have in person, I want to tell you how much I love you and believe in you, Ivanna. I believe in your ability toconquer any obstacle in your path, to be an absolute force at whatever you set out to do, and most importantly, to make the best choice for yourself.
I used my greatest discernment to hold up your hopes and dreams beside the staggering life awaiting you and decide if it was worth clearing the path for you to pursue your KORT position, but it was always with your happiness in mind. That world and role hold privilege and power that you are deserving of, due to both birthright and competence, but that path also carries weight, stress, and danger that may not be what you desire.
So, if the fate you’re facing isn’t what you want, run, sweet girl.
Run.
Sometimes, in this world, it’s the bravest choice.
Remember that no matter where you go, I’ll always be with you.
The honor and joy of raising you was by far my greatest treasure.
Love,
Dad
Opening the black box lying beneath the letter while still shaking with emotion, I find five passports and five driver’s licenses with various different names, all with my picture—although in some of them my hair color is brown. Each identity comes with other necessary documents as well. There’s also one million dollars in cash stuffed inside a tote bag and a key with a note to open a floor panel beneath his desk.
Leaving the bank with my new identities, cash, and encouragement from my father, I rush home to see what else awaits me, my strength and hope revived. Crawling under his desk, I roll back the Persian rug and find a safe in the wooden floorboard. I have to slide his desk to open it. Inside is a huge black duffel bag, the contents of which is my very own artillery stash—guns, ammo, knives, body armor, and burner phones.
My father readied me to leave and not look back, but he didn’texpect me to go quietly into the night unless that’s what I wanted. Since I was ten years old, he’s been weaponizing me to soak up information, and now, he’s arming me to fight. It’s exactly the bolstering I need. I’ve always loved making my father proud.
KORT, Wells, Ty, Gage, Liam—if he’s still alive—whichever pompous, high-handed men’s club is responsible—they fucked with the wrong girl.
I’m not opposed to running. Other than Celeste, there’s nothing here for me. I could disappear and start a life as someone normal—fall in love with an average guy, who doesn’t secretly have another identity, isn’t involved in some national cabal or erasing people, and doesn’t throw me over his shoulder in handcuffs and fuck me on a three-million-dollar car because he can.
Sadly, that seems excruciatingly boring.
Liam insisted I’d changed them, but maybe the real story is how much they all changed me.
As much as I want to run, I want something else more. I want them to chase me, to suffer, to fret. Being chased by the very people who so willingly cast me aside like last night’s trash might seem like an unlikely pipe dream.
Unless.
Unless I manipulate their fucking pulse points.
Flashes of a plan float through my mind, the marrying of all the ways I was fucked over and all the breadcrumbs they unknowingly provided coasting into place like a satisfactory game of Tetris. I mosey up the stairs to my art room—Bob Marley’s “Three Little Birds” crooning in my head as I bop along, like I did with the guys on Thanksgiving. Thrilling jitters rocket up my spine for the first time in over a month.
Tonight, I paint.
Tomorrow, I orchestrate.
It’s time to play, boys.
