The chair squeaked as I stood. “Myka—”
“You’re my weakness.”
Her hand was around her wrist. She didn’t look at me.
“Not on the official file, of course. But in reality. It’s you. And I want to leave Cadinoff. I think I have for a while now.” She shook her head, as if at herself. “Since you came along.”
I didn’t know people were talking literally when they said shit about hearts skipping beats. Turned out, that’s a thing that hearts did.
“Every day I’m surrounded by people wearing masks. People trying to hurt or control other people. Everybody has an angle or a hidden motive or something. A ladder to climb. But you’re just a real person. Someone who doesn’t do any of that. You’re an actual, decent person. And I like that.”
I scratched at the back of my neck.
“I wasn’t supposed to invite you to the night expo. My mission was to just get the Sev Tech design. But I saw you, and I can’t help it. When I see you, I want to help you. So I invited you to the night expo knowing you’d see the Sev Tech launch. I know I can’t leave Cadinoff. I’m stuck. Like you said. But I want you to have your own design. It’s yours.”
Her words took a while to settle and process. She was giving it to me. Just like that. No double-cross. No stab in the back.
No, more. She could’ve done that typical fake-smile shit and “let” me have it. She was being honest about herself. She was offering more. I could tell by how she looked at me with those big, brown eyes. How she moved toward me, tentative, like she was frightened of what she was approaching.
And then she was in front of me, close enough to be back in handcuffs. She put a hand on my elbow. The same elbow that led to the hand at the back of my neck, and I…
I thought of it all in that moment. That entire night. The singing and puppies and the anger and yelling and suddenly I was that Dad in the photography shop with my hand gripping the kid’s neck because this was how that started. It started when fucked up people got selfish and let themselves believe they could have a real family—be a decent person. Believed they could settle down with a wife who played the guitar and a kid with a dog. Except that kid would get into my shit and I’d get mad and maybe throw a beer bottle at them and yell. Once they got angry, I’d have to do more and I didn’t want to and—
She was way too fucking close.
I started laughing. Awkwardly loud at first, then more natural. That froze her. I stepped away. “I gotta admit, Myka, you’ve really leveled up on your infiltration here. You almost had me convinced.”
She tensed. “This isn’t a—”
“Of course it is! Everything is with you.” I smoothed my shirt with shaking hands. My right hand was bleeding, and it left a red streak down my front. “You’re playing the long game now, I’m sure. Weren’t successful getting me on-board by brute kidnapping, now you’re trying to seduce me into the Cadinoff fold.”
What did they call it? A honey trap. Yeah, Glezos wasn’t above using her attaché like that. This was believable. Much more believable than that Myka wanted…
Tears welled in Myka’s eyes. Dangerous tears. “I helped you back then.”
“Oh, right. Of course. Keeping me trapped in your HQ was a big help.”
“I gave Ryan the information he needed to send in the Corporate Enforcement Agency! I was so mad that Glezos changed the deal.” She was mad now. Mad that I wasn’t buying her shit.
“I don’t believe you!” I shrugged with the indifference I definitely felt. “Sorry, but I know you’re a liar. Why the fuck would I believe this? Don’t get me wrong, you’re very attractive. I’m absolutely okay with some making out. You won me over there. But this whole, ‘I wanna leave Cadinoff for you’ routine is a bit much.”
I couldn’t stop my fucking mouth. “You know, I wouldn’t be interested even if you were telling the truth. Because at the end of the day, Myka, you like being the victim, and that’s absolutely disgusting. There’s nothing worse than a person who lets themselves be beat up.” I needed to get out of there.
Then Myka’s mask was on. The tears, the anger, the frustration—all gone. Buried or never really there in the first place. Now she was just the placid Myka Benton, personal attaché for Adela Glezos.
I took it. Whatever I could take to hurt her. “You’re not even sad. Looks like I’m right.”
She turned to the door. Thank the gods.
“You aren’t gonna wait for me to take a shit?” For that much-coveted data tab.
She spoke to the corner. “It’s yours. You won, El.” Her hand hovered at the door control. “Congratulations.”
Then she was gone.
Untitled
I got home safely that night. Or that morning. No Cadinoff goons waiting outside Halcyore’s to spirit me away. No Sev Tech mercs staking out my garage. Safe. Ryan was passed out in his bed, but I was too antsy to do the same. It had been a weird night.
I set up camp in front of that damn Forward 280. Sev Tech still had my phone, so I’d missed the call back about the alternate cabling. The data tab in my gut was a consolation prize, then.
Actually, a huge fucking prize. It was my life’s work, sitting comfortably in my gut. Snatched away from the two mega-corps who desperately wanted it.
Plus, Benjamin Brassard had been humiliated, first by Myka then by Halcyore. I broke a smile remembering Myka’s scathing
