Chapter 54
CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR
KENSINGTON, TEXAS
Saratoga Springs, N.Y. CEO Leanne Miles is pleased to announce a new internship program for Castor Industries. One internship per semester per location will be granted. Details regarding the application process must be located by applicants on the Castor website. The information is not under the standard ‘Careers’ link.
—Castor Newsroom
It’s two days later. I’ve stayed drunk most of the time and finally, after coming up for air, I reply to Thorn. What he tells me has me retching over the bowl. After rinsing my mouth out, I croak, “What?”
Thorn’s voice is unmistakably cold when he replies, “I told you to wait for a reason.”
“She wasn’t there? Not for any of the calls?” My hand nudges my mouse to the side, waking my computer up. There she is, beautiful and smiling. Not blank and emotionless the way I left her two days ago in the parking lot of Devil’s Lair.
“Not. A. Single. One. Q?za triple checked her personal cell’s movement. Although her extension was used, she, herself, was only at Devil’s Lair for a few hours at night.” A sneer enters his voice. “You know, long enough to field a few calls, including yours.”
“Don’t. It was part of a job.”
“Did you tell her your role in it?”
My silence is the only answer that’s needed. Thorn sneers, “Seems she wasn’t the only one keeping secrets, was she, Ethan?”
“My secrets were classified!” I shout.
“There are ways you could have told her without blowing up national security if you’d come to me, but no. Not the great Ethan Kensington. Gee, doesn’t this sound familiar. Isn’t this why you quit the Agency in the first place? Found taking orders too restricting—that is the line of bullshit you threw at me, wasn’t it?”
I wince, knowing every word he’s hurling at me with perfect precision is the truth. There’s no use in trying to argue because to try to use words against my former boss in this mood is fruitless. “She’s in the clear?”
“She’s so far clear, you have no idea.” Thorn’s anger is so hot I can feel it singe through the phone lines. Not since Q?za went missing years ago have I heard him this livid. He takes several deep breaths before he regulates himself. “Consider yourself blessed if she ever speaks to you again.”
Something sours in my stomach and tries to crawl its way up my throat. “Thorn…”
“Let alone forgive you.”
“Tell me,” I plead.
“You don’t deserve to know. And don’t try to get into her file. I’ve already had Q?za flag anything to do with her or her family.”
That makes me shoot straight up in my chair. He wouldn’t do that without good reason. What is it that Thorn knows that I don’t? He doesn’t pause long enough for me to ask, instead demanding, “Did she share anything useful with you?”
Just her agony, her devastation. My voice is robotic when I give him a “No.”
“Why not, Ethan?”
The memory of the way I tore into Fallon causes me to rub my hand against my chest in agony. For the past few days, I’d thought the organ that used to live there was gone. It turns out it was just in stasis while I mourned. What must Fallon be feeling?
“Why would Ms. Brookes be feeling anything other than an extreme desire to learn how you knew she was working there?” Thorn’s low warning can be heard across the phone lines.
I swallow to shift the lump in my throat so I can respond. “She meant everything to me, Thorn.” That’s not quite right. Fallon is everything. I just forgot that for a moment in my very real fury over who she’s been working for.
How she’s been supporting herself.
Instead of giving her a chance to explain, I just went for the jugular. Knowing Fallon the way I do and her innate honesty, it wouldn’t surprise me if her mother already knows about her daughter’s association with Devil’s Lair.
As honest as the day is long, Fallon wouldn’t do something so farfetched as blackmail a Middle Eastern royal family member. Christ, I open the file and look at her access rights. She didn’t have the ability to see who her clients were.
Then what drove me to attack her? The answer is as simple as my racing heart. I was jealous of her sharing even that little bit of herself with strangers—even with me.
I face-palm myself and want to see if it’s a physical possibility to kick my own ass.
“I’m going to kick it for you,” Thorn grunts, letting me know I’ve been speaking some of my thoughts aloud.
“I almost wish you would.”
“You failed to do what I ordered you to do and wait for confirmation. Hence, you blew what could have been a necessary in.”
I cringe before admitting, “You’re right.”
“And Ethan?”
“Yes?”
“Just for the record, had you waited until Q?za confirmed, you would have learned your Fallon was at her museum job for every single threat. We confirmed they were sent from inside the building when she wasn’t within ten miles of the place. Maybe you wouldn’t have blown up your personal relationship with the pretty little blond in the meanwhile.” Thorn lodges the knife he’s holding into my heart a little more before he disconnects the call.
I lean forward and brace my elbows against my knees knowing I didn’t just cut my nose off to spite my face. I carved my heart out and ran over it back and forth with a tank. I can only imagine what Fallon must be feeling if I’m feeling this way.
Pulling up our text string, I send her one.
Ethan:
I’m sorry, Fal. It was a huge shock.
Ethan:
I found out about it because of something I’m working on that I’m not at liberty to discuss.
Ethan:
I’d like to fly back out so we could talk about this in person.
Ethan:
I truly want to make amends.
Ethan:
Fal, baby. Please. Give me a chance to explain.
As quickly as I’m sending texts, I don’t realize each and every message is coming back one at a time with an angry “Not Delivered” notification. My hands shake when I realize the implications immediately. “She blocked me.”
Furious as Fallon was with me six months ago for not sharing with my family she and I had a friendship that existed outside the confines of our family parameters, she still never blocked me when she refused to talk to me for those two weeks. For her to have done so now tells me she doesn’t want to listen to any apologies. She wants me out of her life.
Right now, I can’t say I blame her.
“If I’d just let her speak, maybe this mess could have been avoided.”