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“What was the plan? Kidnap her?”
“She remembered me,” he said, somehow both in awe and perplexed at the same time. “I didn’t think she would.”
“Even if she didn’t recognize you, she knew who you were. You were in the letters.” He inhaled like he intended to speak, but there was a pause and then nothing. “I already don’t trust you and I don’t trust your Harry. If I don’t get answers, I’ll walk.”
“You walk and Z will find you.”
“Maybe he’ll be more inclined to answer questions.”
When Tess tried to go the opposite way, he dropped his other hand to the countertop, blocking her in from both sides. Looming over her, he bathed her in his shadow. It didn’t feel like the same shadow she’d basked in with Danny.
Daire was close. Too close.
Raising her chin, Tess met his eye. Such a deep, dark brown, filled with so many unknowns. So much meaning, yet impenetrable. What would it be to dive in and never look back?
“Z is not an option for you.”
“No?” she asked, doing her best to hide the tremble in her breathing. “Then you better give me answers. I don’t have the patience to keep begging for scraps.”
He parted his lips to inhale. “After you were born, Harry left Olympus to live with you and your mom. Z didn’t like that. The Six didn’t like that. Death is the only release from Olympus. When you were two years old, to make their point, they took you from your parents. Brought you to Olympus.” Which must have been when she and Daire played together. “Eventually, negotiations led to Carrie coming to stay with you at the beta site. Harry wasn’t allowed to see either of you… You were there just over a year when they struck the accord. You and Carrie were permitted to leave. Harry was to cease all contact.”
“That’s why we were running? Because they couldn’t stop writing to each other?”
“No one knew they were writing. I didn’t know it… But it was more complicated than that. After you and your mom left, things changed. Z had taken Harry’s home. Threatened what he loved. From then, their hatred grew. Z kept tabs on you and your mom, was always trying to track you down.”
“To use us against Harry?” He nodded slowly. His eyes were low, not on hers, on her tongue as it slid across her lips. “You need to back off.”
He didn’t move. “Anger drove me to you. I hated what your existence did to Harry when I was a kid… Then he took Olympus from me. Putting you in front of him, taking you from him, it seemed right.”
“The perfect revenge.”
“In theory.”
“Yeah, because he didn’t put a bullet in me. That was a nice surprise, you telling him to shoot me… Did you really have to have sex with me before we left?”
An electric charge amped up around them. Fizzing and snapping, the air grew thicker, more humid. More dangerous. Stupid. She didn’t want him to know her thoughts. Spilling them was careless. She needed to be vigilant about opening her mouth.
“I knew after, if we weren’t dead, you would hate me.”
“Top prize to you,” she said, wishing she could move without touching him.
To get him out of the way, she’d have to push his arm. Except after what she’d seen that morning, he’d be able to resist if he wanted to. Strength seemed to be his forte.
“You were never weak.”
The murmured compliment narrowed her eyes. “What?”
“You had no weakness to exploit.”
“Is that what you think?” Folding her arms, she breathed in, doing what she could to maintain her barriers. “That I had no weakness? I broke down in front of you, I was a mess.”
“That doesn’t make you weak. Emotion like that is powerful.”
If that was power, he could keep it. “I was so desperate not to be alone that I clung to the first human who looked my way.” Which was exactly what he’d wanted. “It was pathetic. I probably deserved a bullet just for that.”
“As a kid, every day was a new lesson. A new challenge. Then I grew up and it was mission after mission. I did my mentor proud. Impressed my superiors. Did everything right. But I lost it all anyway. I didn’t know what else there was, what life could be without Olympus. I’d never lived outside the confines of the Olympus rules. They were all that mattered. All I focused on. Everything in my life was about living up to expectation, surpassing expectation… until you.”
Her lowered gaze rose to his at the gentle whisper of those last two words.
