Chapter 30 #2
“I don’t know,” he bellows, stalking away. “But I couldn’t let you go to that meeting tomorrow night without telling you the truth about what you’d be walking into.”
Tomorrow night. My meeting with Petrov.
“They know about tomorrow?”
“They know about everything.”
“Are they listening right now?”
“No. I made sure we weren’t followed, and I left my phone in the truck.”
“So what happens now?”
“You don’t go to that meeting. You walk away from Petrov and his offer, and you hope the FBI can build their case without using you as bait.”
“And if they can’t?”
“Then I go to prison and my father dies in a state facility and you get to live your life without having to choose between your safety, your family’s safety, and your career.”
“What about the syndicate? They’ll just find someone else?”
“Probably.”
“And Morrison? He’ll just let his investigation fall apart?”
“Morrison will figure something else out. He’s FBI. That’s what they do.”
The fog’s so thick now I can barely see the lights on the bay.
“You should have told me.”
“I should have told you a lot of things.”
“Like what?” I can barely get the words out, my throat is so tight.
He turns toward me, his eyes heavy, his face drawn like he hasn’t slept at all.
“Like the fact that I love you more than I’m afraid of going to prison.
Like the fact that protecting you matters more than protecting myself.
” He’s closer now, close enough that I can see his face in the dim light.
“Like the fact that if I had to choose between keeping you safe and keeping my father alive, I’d choose you. ”
“Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t say things like that. Not now. Not after everything you just told me.”
“When then? When is it okay to tell you that I’d rather lose everything than watch you get ruined by the same people who crushed my livelihood?”
“It’s not okay. None of this is okay.” I twist away from him, toward the edge of the garage where the fog is slowly swallowing up the city. “You lied to me. About everything.”
“Not everything.”
“About everything that mattered.”
“I never lied about caring about you.”
“You just lied about why.”
“No. I lied about how it started. I never lied about what it became.”
I want to believe him. That’s the fucked up part. Even after everything he just told me, part of me wants to believe that some of it was real.
“It doesn’t matter what it became. What matters is that it started as a lie.”
“Tate.” He reaches for me but I back away.
“What matters is that you’ve been pretending to care about me while helping people destroy my life.”
“I haven’t been pretending.”
“Then what do you call it?”
“I call it the worst mistake I’ve ever made. And I call it the only way I could think of to keep you safe.”
“Safe.” I laugh again, the sound sharp enough to cut. “You call this safe?”
“Safer than what would have happened if I’d walked away and let them recruit you without any protection.”
“We’ll never know, will we? Because you made that choice for me.”
“Yeah. I did.”
“Without telling me.”
“Without telling you.”
“Without giving me a chance to make my own decision about my own life.”
“Because your decision would have been stupid.”
The words hit like a slap. “What the fuck?”
“Your decision would have been to try to handle it yourself. To think you could outsmart professional criminals or somehow find a way to protect everyone you care about without getting hurt.” His voice rises, shaking with frustration. “And you would have gotten yourself killed.”
“That would have been my choice to make.”
“Not when making it would have gotten you killed.”
“Says the guy who made a deal with the FBI without thinking about what would happen to me when their operation went to shit.”
“I thought about what would happen to you. That’s all I’ve been thinking about.”
“While you were lying to me.”
“While I was trying to protect you.”
“By betraying me.”
“By loving you.”
“Don’t you dare try to make this about love. Love doesn’t lie. Love doesn’t deceive,” I growl.
“Love does whatever it has to do to keep people safe.”
“Bullshit.”
“It’s not bullshit. It’s the truth.”
I stab him in the chest with my finger. “The truth is that you chose your father over me. You chose your freedom over my safety. You chose to cooperate with the FBI instead of trusting me with the truth.”
“I chose to try to save everyone.”
“And instead you fucked everyone.”
Silence consumes us, swallowing the white noise in my ears.
“Yeah, I did.” He lets out a deep sigh. “Look, just don’t go to Petrov’s meeting tomorrow. Pretend this conversation never happened and live your life.”
“And what are you going to do?”
“I need to figure out how to explain to Morrison why his primary target isn’t going to cooperate anymore.”
“What will he do?”
“Probably arrest me for obstruction of justice. Maybe conspiracy, if he’s feeling vindictive.”
“And your father?”
“My father won’t remember that I used to visit him, anyway.”
Part of me wants to comfort him. Part of me wants to tell him we’ll figure it out together, that love is supposed to conquer all the bullshit.
But a bigger part of me is too angry and hurt and betrayed to offer comfort to the person who was ready to sell me out.
“I need to go.”
“Tate, no. Stay. We can—”
I shake my head, not letting him finish. “I need to think about this. About all of it.”
“What’s to think about? Don’t go to the meeting. Stay away from Petrov. Let me deal with Morrison.”
“Maybe I don’t want you to deal with Morrison. Maybe I want to deal with him myself.”
“What does that mean?” Zane’s expression is incredulous. “You can’t interfere with this operation.”
I shrug. “I’m tired of other people making decisions about my life.” I turn on my heel and head toward the exit. “Maybe it’s time I made some of my own.”
“Just wait.”
I don’t wait. I keep walking, my heels digging into the concrete floor, leaving him alone with his choices.
And I try not to think about the fact that the person I love more than anyone else in the world just told me he’s been helping people destroy me since the day we met.