Chapter 36 Wesley
Wesley
An impossible choice
Mac rolls in some time later, and I bring Madison’s computer out to the van while she babysits her neighbor with the gun—her suggestion, in order to limit the number of times she’s out on the street.
I disassemble her machine, retrieve the solid-state drive, and take apart one of the earpieces I have on hand to make a tiny listening device.
I’m not terribly pleased with my work, since it sticks out against the wire connections and obviously doesn’t belong, but it also doesn’t look like a listening device.
It ought to buy us at least some overheard personal conversations—until he tries plugging it into a motherboard, anyway.
I just hope we hear enough that it’s worth the consequences.
After Madison untapes her victim and offers him the SSD, she threatens to shoot off his dick if he tells Fred she’s alive—though she fully expects him to—and we leave. Mac agrees to bring Eleanor to pick up her car, and heads back with the van.
Wordlessly, I hand Madison my helmet. Perhaps it’s my imagination, but she hugs me tighter than she ever has on the ride back.
She follows me from the garage without a word, nervously clacking her nails against each other and chewing on her lower lip. I can’t tell exactly what she’s feeling, but I’m fairly certain that if I’m hoping for genuine contrition and an apology, I’ll be disappointed. And I’m right.
“I know you’re mad,” she starts as soon as the office door closes firmly behind her. “But that went so well! This is the biggest clue we’ve had yet, and we’re so close now!”
The rage that was so sharp moments ago has dulled into something quieter and controlled.
“The ends do not justify the means when your life is at risk, Madison.” I shake my head as I drop to the couch.
Some Bills promptly stands from his curled position, arching his back in a stretch, and sits, regarding us with sleepy eyes.
“If I hadn’t been there to question him, he never would have spilled the frijoles. And it’s fine, right? I’m fine. I took precautions. I loaded my gun. I knew you were coming, and I knew you’d bring the…” She trails off, then frowns. “Wait, I never sent you that text. How did you know?”
No sense denying it now, I suppose. “I installed cameras in your flat when I was watching you to determine if I wanted to kill you.” I reach out and scratch Some Bills behind the ear when he rubs against my arm.
“That’s…” She falls back a step. “Um… I don’t know exactly how to feel about that.”
“I also watched you masturbate from your closet before we ever even met in person.”
“What?!” she hisses. “Wesley, just because you’re mad at me, that doesn’t mean I’m not allowed to be mad at you for something else—”
“Be mad. You ought to be. Because men like me are not good people,” I say slowly, emphasizing the words. “I don’t know how else to get it through to you. Your life is in danger, and you don’t seem to care.”
She rolls her eyes. “Of course I care. Come on, Wesley—you don’t genuinely think I just charge into things with no regard for my own safety. That’s not what this is about.”
“You’re under my protection—”
“You mean your control,” she snorts.
“—and it’s on me if you get hurt!”
“Stop saying that! It’s not your fault if I get hurt! Stop trying to… take responsibility for my actions! It’s so weird.”
“It would be my fault. You have no idea.” I blow out a long breath and drop my head into my hands.
The couch shifts under me as Madison drops onto the adjacent cushion, leaning in with a desperate look in her eye.
“Then how about you just fucking tell me? Tell me why you won’t let me help you sort the data.
Tell me why you’re really after the General.
Tell me what that black notebook you hide in your drawer is.
Tell me why you won’t trust me!” she urges, finishing on a cry.
I want to. The guilt that’s been keeping me awake at night for years bubbles to my lips, wanting to spill over and spill out.
Tell her.
God, I want to. I’ve wanted to for ages. But after all this time, I… I don’t know how.
Keeping unnecessary details from Dimitri and Mac is one thing—even if they had known the truth, it wouldn’t have changed anything about what we’ve done or how we did it—but keeping the truth from Madison is quite another.
The omission feels much more like a lie with her, and not just because it was my actions—my mistake, my worst shame—that ultimately wrought all this, but because I want nothing more than to have her at my side, bouncing ideas with me and teasing my coding choices. Acting as a partner. My partner.
But secrets are tricky things, and they can sit so heavy that it feels like they’re part of you.
It’s like a boulder nestled in a perfectly shaped divot—trying to move means working against gravity, and the boulder falls too easily back into place.
It belongs in that space, just as the lie belongs, covering and crushing the truth, its weight borne by the conscience.
And the reason for holding back is the same as it ever was. It’s not safe for her to know; it’s not safe for anyone to know. Especially before I’m certain I’ve found the man I’ve been looking for.
“It’s not that I don’t trust you…” I run my hands through my hair and sit back, glancing over.
She sees the decision on my face, and her shoulders round in defeat.
“You say that, and I think you might even believe it, but I know that’s what it is.
At the end of the day, though, it’s all about trust. You’ve been keeping the truth from me in one way or another since the very first day we met,” she says softly, eyes downcast. “And I know you had your reasons, and I know you think your reasons are good, but… I have always been honest with you.
“I have always been 100% myself with you—and only because you made me feel safe enough to do it. You are the only person who’s ever had all of me—not just the real me, but my loyalty and my respect and my trust. You saw me. You made me feel seen, even when we’d never even actually seen each other.”
She shakes her head and wipes under her eyes, getting rid of a tear before I can see it. “You were the only person I wasn’t supposed to have to worry about. And now I feel like I never really knew you at all,” she finishes. The final twist of the knife.
My heart cracks, splintering into a thousand pieces, an echo of the broken look on her face. I’ve hurt her. Deeply. And I know only the truth can fix it.
This is the cost of a lie. I always knew there would come a time when the price was too steep. But as much as I want to tell her… it goes against every fiber of my being.
All my life, I’ve controlled the flow of information. It’s what I do. It’s more than what I’m good at—it’s who I am. I’m the spy master. The keeper of secrets. My web of lies is woven from the finest gossamer, hiding in plain sight. It’s exhausting. Isolating. Lonely.
But this is an impossible choice. If I tell her, I risk losing her violently, like I lost the others. If I don’t tell her, I risk losing her heart.
What is the point of a life that she’s not part of?
What am I protecting if I can’t have her at the end of all this?
Only one of those outcomes means losing her forever—the secret can only hurt her if she were to tell anyone, and if I were ever going to trust someone to keep my secrets, it would be her.
With a deep sigh, I stand, move to the door, and click the lock into place. If I’m going to do this, I can’t risk an interruption. She frowns at me, suspicious of the ominous sound.
“All right, Madison,” I say, going to lean against the desk in the spot Dimitri usually occupies. I’m only a few feet away, but no doubt she’ll be happy for the distance when she learns the truth. “I’ll tell you everything. It can’t leave this room.”
Her expression irons out, and she sits back, nodding to me to proceed.
“In my early 20s, I was recruited to a project. It was top secret—government, I assumed. We were a team of five, held to a very high standard of confidentiality. We worked independently—everyone completed a different piece of the project—and were monitored to ensure we didn’t accidentally reveal anything to outsiders or each other. ”
“That sounds like government work,” she agrees.
I inhale shakily. “That was what we all believed. I was recruited for my bit, based on my dissertation—”
“Wait, are you a doctor?” she pipes in, a grin forming at the corners of her mouth. God, it feels like it’s been ages since I saw a smile from her.
“PhD, yes.”
“Doctor Nerd. Nice.” She fishes her phone out of her pocket. I see out of the corner of my eye as she calls up my contact on her phone and changes the title name from Sir to Dr. “Go on. I’m listening.”
“Essentially, I created software for data mining and pattern recognition. Very powerful—capable of taking most inputs, sorting massive amounts of information, and producing results that were very easy to refine. That was my part of the project.”
She nods, understanding how impressive a tool like that would be—even more so a decade ago.
“Matilda was from the banking industry. She was an expert in cryptocurrency and was writing her second dissertation on identifying patterns for money laundering and illegal transfers. Derrick and Fiona, working together, had created an anonymous messaging platform and a third-party vouching system that created a foundation for trust between participants. They’d intended for it to become a service exchange platform, mostly between neighbors.
I’ll wash your windows if you’ll watch my dog—that kind of thing.