Self-defense? My laugh came out rough, my throat still raw. I could rationalize anything, even my own murder. It was a twisted sort of love, but it was the only kind I knew.
People professed that their love was unconditional, but it wasn’t really. What if someone did something awful? Like murder or rape or organizing major weapons deals across nations? The love would end. I didn’t really know him, they would say, as if that excused their inconstancy. I couldn’t do that. I loved with my entire body, with my whole black heart. I’d never stopped loving my father, even though he’d hurt me, even though he’d stopped hurting me. Even while he sat rotting in prison, hating me, I loved him like the innocent little girl I’d never really been.
I loved Hennessey. I feared Carlos. They twined together like thin strands of metal, a perverse braid, twisted and unbreakable.
I couldn’t stop loving him even knowing what he was capable of. I could still turn him in. That was within my capability. But I’d hate myself for it. What else was new? The shower burned my skin, taking off chunks and swirling down the drain. The bruises on my body were no longer deep enough, wide enough for the indecision I felt inside.
After I dressed I headed to the Bureau for my meeting with Brody. That was the safest place for me anyway. The last thing I wanted was to be caught here by Carlos. Or worse, by one of his associates. He must know I suspected after leaving the hotel without saying goodbye. He must have known I’d figure it out, even if he had looked different. How had he done it? A disguise? It must be, but then I’d already known he was a master of them. I remembered the spread of grainy security camera shots with different clothes, different hairstyles.
He was a chameleon. Changing his hair color, his eye color had been child’s play. His face structure had been different, the cheeks fuller and the forehead higher, but there were techniques people used to change those, fillers that went inside the mouth and cosmetic putty. These were things we learned at Quantico to help us detect disguises—and to help us go undercover.
Carlos.
I shook my head, not believing. Maybe I was imagining things. God, please let me be imagining things. I wouldn’t mind going crazy if it meant I didn’t have to face this choice again. This betrayal. Except I wasn’t the one being betrayed. I was the one doing it, and that hurt so much worse.
I trust you, Hennessey had said last night. And he did, so much it tore me up inside. He didn’t have to show me that side of him. He could have dated me as himself, had sex with me as himself. He even could have whipped me as himself, if he’d just told me he was into that BDSM shit. I would’ve done it.
But he’d wanted to show me the real side of him, the dark side. Just like I’d done for him last night. Something far more intimate than sexual intercourse. We’d told each other the truth. Oh, it had been tentative and framed with doubt, but we’d done it. We’d each offered up ourselves, our true selves, and he’d accepted me completely. He trusted me, and in repayment, I was going to walk into the Bureau and turn him in to my boss.
People would call me strong and smart. I might even get a commendation out of it. A promotion, a raise. So fucking brave they’d have to reward me. But I’d know the truth. It took more strength to stand beside someone you loved, even when they were wrong.
Especially when they were wrong.
The building bustled with its own nervous energy, expanding and shrinking like the bellow of a rough breath. The building heaved with inanimate panic. I crossed the marble floor with its scales of justice, feeling a sense of unreality. Of disbelief. They said justice was blind. They were right.
I nodded at a few agents I knew, gritting my teeth against the urge to scream. To cry. To ask for help. How many of them were on some drug lord’s payroll? I bit the inside of my cheek to keep from screaming.
Laguardia had done more than hire an inside guy. He’d been the inside guy.
He’d made a fool of all of us. Me. Lance. Brody.
God. Brody. Would I tell him? I had to tell him. For anyone else, that was the easy answer. But I’d already sold out someone I cared about, and it hadn’t worked out so well. Not for him and not for me. I wouldn’t be tossed into the foster care system like garbage this time around. Wouldn’t lose my childhood to overworked social workers and rats running in the space between the walls. No, this time around, I’d probably lose my life. With Carlos’s wide-flung network and cold-blooded reputation, I would pay for this betrayal with my life.
“Coward,” I muttered under my breath.