“You pathetic piece of trash.” How had she ever liked this man? Called him her friend? She remembered crying on his shoulder and feeling comfort from him. He’d hidden his inner sociopath well. Or she’d simply refused to see it because she’d needed one person in the world who seemed to understand her.
His eyes narrowed. “And I was hoping we could keep this civil. After all, once I get you to a secure facility, you’re all mine. I will make all the decisions concerning you. I’ll decide what you wear, what you drink, when you sleep, what you eat. I think you should be a little more willing to play ball. My patience is only going to go so far.”
The laughter that bubbled up was far from humorous. It was damn near hysterical. “You’re finally going to do it, aren’t you? You’re going to try to make me into a doll. Your fuck toy.”
“Well, I can’t have you the way I want you so I shall have to make do,” he conceded. “One does what one must.”
Frustration welled up inside her. How could this be her life? “I told you I can’t love you. I won’t ever love you. I love Beck.”
He was silent for a moment, the only sound the tires turning against the pavement. “Then we’ll start over again. Don’t you ever wonder what your life would be like—what our lives could be like—if Beck never existed? If he hadn’t shown up and wrecked everything? Look at the misery he’s caused. What would it be like if you could forget it all and start over again?”
A cold chill went across her skin at the words. “What are you talking about?”
He gave her a tight smile. “I don’t want to hurt you. I don’t have the stomach for it. And honestly, if I really ask myself the question, I don’t truly want the you I see now. I don’t want Beckett Kent’s leavings. I want the woman I knew when we first started training together. I can’t have her, so I’ll settle for the next best thing. Solo two point 0.”
She was going to be sick. She knew exactly what he was talking about, had seen the damage it could do. “You have McDonald’s drug.”
“Of course I do. Or rather I have the formulary, and it’s being worked on right now.” He set his glass down. “You can’t go on like this. He’s never going to love you. He isn’t capable of loving you the way I do.”
“You are a fucking sociopath.”
“But I’m your sociopath.”
She felt a scream strangle in her throat. He was crazy enough that he would do it. There was something deeply deranged inside Levi Green, something that had responded to her all those years ago, and it had ruined her life. His obsession was a weed with roots that strangled out anything good she tried to grow there.
“You were the one working with McDonald.”
“Not at all. I really was spying on her. I started the mission with the man you know as Tucker long before she was on the Agency’s radar. I saw her for what she was early on, and I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt that the work she was doing was important.” He always managed to sound so reasonable. It was his greatest skill, to hide the psycho behind a veneer of respectability. “I knew if she managed to perfect her drug, she would likely sell it. Shouldn’t our country be the one to benefit?”
“There’s no benefit to taking a person’s memories.”
“Oh, I disagree. It’s going to be to both of our benefits.” He looked at her with a sick resolve on his face. “When I’m done, you will be unburdened by the past. You’ll be free of him. We’ll start over and I’ll treat you like a queen. You won’t know a moment’s despair. You’ll forget that your parents ignored you. You’ll forget that you were nothing but a prop for them. You’ll forget how hard it was for you to get through high school and how lonely you were. And the wreckage Beck wrought on your soul will be gone. You’ll be left with nothing but a husband who puts you first. I do promise that. I’ll always fight for you.”
She’d only thought she’d seen the depths of his madness. “Even when I’ve made it plain that I don’t want you?”
“Isn’t that the stuff of epic love stories? I’m the man who won’t give up, who’ll have you no matter what. Because I know I’m what’s best for you.” He turned in his seat. “I’ve known I had to do something about the situation for a long time, but I needed two things. I needed that formulary, which I picked up from the data we found in Colorado.”
He was so good at rewriting history. “You mean the data Jax Seaborne found and you stole.”
“That data was taken from a secure CIA site, so who was stealing?” Levi asked. “I originally planned to get the formulary from Tucker’s mission. It was precisely why I hired a hacker to add your crimes to Kronberg’s files. This was supposed to go down over three years ago. Never let it be said I’m not patient.”
He’d been planning to steal her memory for a long time. “Why not have the hacker give you the files?”
“They had to come from an op the Agency would approve of. Otherwise I couldn’t use the data the way I wanted to,” Levi admitted. “Do you think I don’t know there are people who watch me constantly? Any data I brought in would be suspect—especially anything concerning you. Unless that data came from a secure place, say, directly from the head of Kronberg’s computer. The
