Everything inside her sharpened to pinpoint focus. The way he’d said those words. “Why?”
He shrugged. “You might as well know. Darius is alive and well and moving into position for our next step. He’s done everything I asked tonight.”
Or you did everything Darius asked? She felt pounding rage; she wanted to tear his throat out. No, she had to be calm, she had to keep it together, she had to find out what was going on. Next step of what?
Time to try the spurs. “I see. First, you didn’t bother to tell me that you were going to test out your bombs tonight and kill people, and then second, you didn’t bother to tell me Darius was just fine, thank you? This small detail somehow slipped that genius brain of yours? I laid on that hill for an hour waiting for him to come out, watching the dead and the injured being ambulanced out, and it was all for nothing because you couldn’t be bothered to tell me?” He looked taken aback. She poured on more, slammed her fist on the seat. “Didn’t it occur to you that I could have been taken? The FBI was there, and wouldn’t they have done a happy dance if they’d nabbed me? Why didn’t you tell me, Matthew? About the bomb? That you’d finally perfected it? That you were going to test it out? About Darius? Why?”
He had the gall to laugh at her. “Oh, I perfected it a while back. What, are you jealous, Vanessa?”
“No, you moron. What I am is sick and tired of being kept out of the loop, always trying to prove myself, which I have, over and over, always trying to make you trust me. I’ve done everything you wanted and done it well, yet you treat me like some sort of outsider.
“Then Darius shows up with a bag of money and you fall all over him. Who is he? Do you even know? I know, I know, I’ve heard his rhetoric—he hates the terrorists as much as you do, wants them to choke on their oil. I’ve heard the both of you having a cursefest against them, but so what? I’m your bomb maker. I’ve been with you since Belfast when Ian brought us together. You always said you needed me because this bomb you were building—you weren’t going to use it because you didn’t want to take any chances you might hurt someone, you wanted it for leverage, to force our government into stopping oil imports.
“So what happened, Matthew? Darius changed your mind, obviously. Where is Darius and what is he doing? What are you two planning?”
His hand shot out and gripped her knee, hard. She felt equal parts surprise and pain. Should she break his hand? She wanted to, but she didn’t move, said only, her voice perfectly calm, “You’re hurting me.”
“I need to make my point clear, apparently. You are a soldier, Vanessa, my soldier, to be told where to go and what to do. Don’t you understand? We are at war with radical Islam, with all the jihadist fanatics who would destroy our world and us with it. I had to make a big point tonight that if our country continues to import their freaking oil, they’re as bad as the terrorists. And I made it, and it’s about time I made it.
“And like you said, sweetheart, I didn’t search you out, Ian brought you to me, promised me you wanted in, promised me you were good.”
“And you trust Ian. You worked with him for years. Why don’t you trust me? Ian does. Even crazy Andy does. You didn’t search out Darius, either. He came to you, like I did.”