Chapter 33
Brie
Tears blurred the gray walls of Mnemis into a smudge as my feet carried me aimlessly—away from our room, away from Will. From his lips. His body. The look in his eyes.
‘I’ve wanted to for years,’ he’d said.
What was I supposed to do with his revelation?
And where was I even going? Not back to our room. The Grotto would be full of people who’d ask questions or stare. Little Haven was locked down for the hurricane. The gym? The spa? Back to The Bridge?
No, I needed someone I could be real with.
Pulling out my phone, I texted Rav: Where’s your room?
His reply came quickly: I’m in the cafeteria. Do you need something?
I hesitated, then typed: A friend.
The response was immediate: B-24. I’ll be right there.
I glanced up at the signs on the wall. I was already close. But when I turned the next corner, I came face-to-face with the last person I wanted to see.
“Brie?” Claire stood a few feet away, her lips pressed tight.
Shit. I hastily wiped at my face.
“Where the hell did you go?” She marched up to me as though I were a misbehaving student. “You said you were grabbing a sweater and never came back. I had to finish those updates alone.”
My throat closed up. I couldn’t do this—couldn’t maintain the lies and professional facade. Not now. All I managed was, “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?” Claire’s eyes narrowed. Despite everything we’d suspected of her and what the other staff said about her, she’d been nice to me.
But now? She sounded downright hostile. “You abandoned your shift partner in the middle of a job, and you think ‘sorry’ is appropriate? Thousands of people would kill for this job, and you—”
“It was all Will’s idea.” The words tumbled out before I could stop them.
Claire’s irritation flared even hotter. “And you had nothing to do with it?”
I looked away, unable to meet her probing gaze. I just had to keep up the cover that we’d snuck off to be together. “The whole thing. It was his idea.”
“I specifically told you going into the Atlantic section wasn’t social time,” Claire said, her voice cutting. “It was work.”
I couldn’t answer. Couldn’t keep the lies straight when all I could think about was Will’s words spiraling through my brain.
‘Friendship or nothing.’
Claire’s anger drained quickly, and she came closer. “Did he hurt you?”
“What? No, I—”
“Because if he did something to you…” Claire tilted her head. Her voice grew softer. “Do you have anything you need to tell me, Brie? Anything at all?”
“I…” What could I say? My lips were still tingling from his kiss. God, the way he’d slid my glasses out of the way. How he’d pulled me closer, how he’d put my hands on him, inviting me to touch him.
“Because if you want to confess,” she said, “now’s the time.”
I wiped the back of my hand across my eyes. There were too many things to confess: I’d tried to use Ken to get inside the Atlantic server room. Used her to find Meridian. Used the guard to get my upgraded security badge.
“Ladies.” Rav’s steady voice cut through our conversation. I hadn’t heard him approach, but there he was, his presence immediately calming me.
“Brie, right?” he said, with a slight nod in my direction. “We had breakfast together earlier this week.”
Claire’s posture stiffened. “We’re fine. No one called security.”
“She seems upset.” Rav positioned himself slightly between us. To me, he said, “Do you need a walk back to your room, Brie?”
No, anywhere but back to Will. But because Claire was standing with us, I said, “Yes, please.”
Claire hesitated, glancing between us, as though Rav had robbed her of something. Of my company? “I can walk her back.”
“No need.” Rav’s tone was firm but polite. When Claire didn’t budge, he smiled at her, maybe leveraging the flirting they’d done earlier in the week. “Thank you, Claire. I’ll take care of this.”
She hesitated, but eventually nodded. Leaning close to me, she whispered, “Remember, there’s an emergency button in the Mnemis app if you need it.”
After she disappeared around the corner, I gripped Rav’s forearm. “I can’t go back to my room.”
“I thought so.” He didn’t ask why, just nodded once and guided me to his quarters.
They mirrored mine and Will’s layout, but with a single bed and only one of everything we had two of.
The same neutral furnishings in muted blues and grays, the same elegant bathroom, the same high-end finishes designed to make this underground bunker feel like luxury accommodations.
I collapsed into his desk chair, my fingers finding the wedding ring I’d hurriedly picked out less than a week ago. It was one more lie, but now, it was a physical reminder of everything that had happened with Will.
I should have ripped it off and thrown it across the room. Instead, I twisted it around my finger like a meditation.
Rav moved to his mini-fridge without a word, pulled out a bottle of water, and removed the cap. He handed it to me. “Drink.”
I accepted the bottle and did as he said.
“Mission stress?” Rav asked, leaning against the wall, arms crossed.
I nodded quickly, grateful for the out. “It’s a lot. The constant lying, the pressure.”
“Mmm.” His noncommittal hum said he wasn’t buying it, but he wouldn’t push.
That was Rav’s way—patient, observant, waiting for you to come to him.
He’d been the same when I was eleven, Scarlett’s intimidating friend who wound up like another protective big brother, always knowing when I needed someone to stand between me and the world.
“The hurricane’s not helping either.” The ache in my chest made my words tumble out faster. “Being trapped down here, losing access to Little Haven, not being able to contact the team…”
“Brie.”
I met his eyes and immediately regretted it. Rav had always been able to see through people. Even when we were kids, he somehow always knew when people were hiding something. He read people almost as well as Mum did.
“Is everything all right with Will?” he asked quietly.
Something inside me cracked. “We had a fight. A bad one.”
“About?”
I stared at the carpet, tracing the subtle pattern to avoid meeting his gaze. “He said he wants to be more than friends.”
If Rav was surprised, he didn’t show it. “And that’s a problem because…?”
“Because it would ruin everything!” The words burst out louder than I intended. “We’ve been friends forever, Rav. He’s my best friend. He’s… he’s everything.”
“I know,” Rav said simply. “I watched you two grow up together.”
I shook my head frantically, my hands gesturing as if I could physically push away his understanding. “Then you know why this can’t happen. Why we can’t risk what we have.”
Rav was quiet for a long moment, studying me with those dark, perceptive eyes. “What are you actually afraid of?”
I didn’t have an answer. My mother taught me not to have weaknesses. To meet every challenge head-on. To always be in control.
Swiveling the chair, I placed the water bottle on his desk and pressed my palms against my eyes. No tears. They weren’t going to help anything except help me avoid talking.
But it was useless. The truth was clawing its way to the surface, whether I wanted it to or not.
“If we try this and it doesn’t work out, I’ll lose him completely,” I whispered through my fingers. “I can’t survive that, Rav. I just can’t.”
“And why are you so certain that will happen?”
What was I going to say? Why did I come here in the first place? I should have found a quiet maintenance closet and sat by myself.
“Brie.” This time, he nudged the desk chair with a foot, turning me to face him.
Part of me wanted to maintain the fiction, to keep this secret buried where it couldn’t hurt anyone. But another part—the part that was so tired of carrying this alone—was desperate to tell someone the truth, finally.
“We slept together once. We were nineteen and we were… you know. Everything was awkward and strained and wrong afterward. It was awful. And we agreed it was a mistake.”
“You told him it was a mistake, or he also thought it was a mistake?”
A shiver ran down my legs, and everything suddenly crystallized.
Will was right. I had decided it was a mistake. I had forced him to choose. He’d simply gone along with it because he didn’t want to lose me.
“I couldn’t bear to mess up the one constant thing in my life. Will’s the only thing that’s stayed the same. I can’t…”
I just couldn’t.
“Let me tell you a story.” Rav sat on the edge of his bed, resting his elbows on his knees.
A hint of a smile curled his lips, but pain flickered in his eyes.
“Years ago, I was on a deployment in the Middle East, as part of a protection detail for a scientific contingent. I became close with one of the scientists, and we crossed a few lines, too.”
His confession was a surprise. There was the before-the-military Rav we’d grown up with, then the after-the-military Rav who came to work with Reynolds. He never spoke about the time in between. At least, not to me.
“I won’t bore you with the details, but things ended badly. A year later, she reached out.”
“And?”
“I didn’t answer,” he said, his jaw tightening. “I was too scared to find out what she wanted to say. Too afraid of opening old wounds.”
“You?” The word slipped out. “Afraid?”
“Everyone’s afraid of something, Brie.” A bitter smile touched his lips. “I’ve done a lot of things in my life that haunt me, but not picking up the phone to talk to her again? That’s my greatest regret. Nothing comes close.”
“Are you saying I should—”
“I’m saying,” he interrupted gently, “that some risks are worth taking.”
I swallowed hard against the tightness in my throat. “Your situation was obviously different.”
“Perhaps.” He shrugged. “But answer me this: How did you feel when Will was in London? When you were apart for a year?”
“I was fine,” I said automatically.
“Really?” The skepticism in his voice was unmistakable. “You looked miserable every time I saw you outside work.”
I shifted uncomfortably in the chair, the comment hitting too close to home. “I was fine until Shawn and I broke up. That’s probably what you’re thinking of.”
“Why did you break up?” Rav’s direct gaze pinned me in place. He sounded so confident. Had Scarlett told him the truth?
Probably.
“He said I was never fully present. That it was like I was always waiting for something else.” I drew a shaky breath.
Yeah, I definitely should have found a closet to hide in instead of calling Rav.
“He hated how much time I spent talking to Will. Accused me of being more excited for those calls than to spend time with him.”
“Was he wrong?”
Memories crashed over me. Of Will patiently sitting in the passenger seat while I practiced parallel parking, laughing when I missed the spot for the millionth time.
Will dancing with me at Scarlett’s graduation party, spinning me until we were both dizzy.
Will holding me while I cried about my father a few nights ago, his presence more comforting than anyone else’s had ever been.
Every important moment in my life, he’d been there. Every joy, every sorrow, every triumph and failure—he’d stood by me through all of it. And every time I’d tried to imagine my future, he’d been in it.
“No,” I whispered, the truth breaking free. “He wasn’t wrong.”
Every relationship I’d ever had paled in comparison to what I felt when I was with Will. Every boyfriend had eventually grown frustrated with the space I kept reserved for my best friend, the part of my heart that belonged entirely to him.
Because it did belong to him. All of it.
And it always had.
“Oh shit,” I breathed, my hand flying to my chest as if it were about to burst open. “I’m in love with him. I’m in love with Will.”
Rav smiled, nudging my chair with his foot again. “So why are you still sitting here?”