Chapter 7 Truth
Truth
The click of a hammer being pulled back stopped me dead in my doorway.
I didn't need to turn around to know Nathan had followed me up from the bar. His presence filled the narrow hallway like smoke, and the cold press of metal against the base of my skull was almost gentle. Professional.
"Hands where I can see them," he said quietly.
My own weapon was already in my hand, had been since I'd heard his footsteps on the stairs. I raised both arms slowly, letting him see the Glock 19 dangling from my right hand.
"You going to shoot me in my own home, Nathan?" I kept my voice light, conversational. "That's terribly rude. We just bonded over body disposal."
"Turn around. Slowly."
I complied, pivoting to face him in the cramped hallway. His Sig Sauer pointed steady at my chest, but my raised gun arm had naturally aligned my weapon with his head. We stood there, caught in the world's most intimate Mexican standoff.
"Your tactical positioning is excellent," I observed. "But you should have waited until I was inside. Better backdrop for blood splatter."
His lips twitched. "I'll remember that for next time."
"FBI?" I guessed, studying his stance. "No, wait. Former FBI. Current FBI wouldn't have helped with Carter."
"Very good." He hadn't lowered his weapon, but something in his posture relaxed fractionally. "Eight years with the Bureau. Left three years ago."
"Let me guess—bureaucratic differences?"
"Philosophical ones." His green eyes stayed locked on mine. "They preferred arrests. I preferred solutions."
"And now you're what, exactly? Besides a very rude houseguest."
"Independent contractor. I solve problems for people who can't go through official channels." He tilted his head slightly. "Currently, I'm deciding if you're a problem that needs solving."
My apartment door was still cracked open behind me. I could dive through it, but he'd get at least one shot off. Probably center mass—he had that careful aim of someone who'd fired thousands of practice rounds.
"You knew what I was downstairs," I said. "If you were going to shoot me, you'd have done it then."
"I was curious. Now I'm concerned." His eyes flicked to my gun hand. "Lilah. Tell me she's actually dead."
"She is." I smiled, the broken doll expression that made people uncomfortable. "Has been since week four at the Mire Institute. I just borrowed her skin for a while."
"That's not an answer."
"The real question," I continued, "is why former FBI is looking for trafficking victims off the books. That's not a typical career transition."
"Lower your weapon and I'll tell you."
"You first."
"Together then?"
I nodded. We moved in synchrony, arms lowering at identical speeds. Neither of us holstered our weapons, but at least they weren't aimed at vital organs anymore.
"Inside," I said. "Unless you want Mrs. Cathy from 4B calling the cops about armed standoffs in the hallway."
He followed me into my apartment, and I felt the exact moment he noticed. His body went perfectly still, that predator awareness when entering another predator's den. I flicked on the lights, illuminating what I'd built.
"Jesus Christ," he breathed.
The entire far wall was covered in what I privately called my murder map. Photos, strings, documents, newspaper clippings. A sprawling web of connections centered on the Volkov network but spreading outward like infection. Three years of hunting mapped out in obsessive detail.
"Welcome to my hobby room," I said, locking the door behind us. "Tea?"
He moved toward the wall like it was magnetized, weapon forgotten in his hand. His eyes tracked the connections—names, dates, locations. The red strings marking confirmed kills. The black ones marking targets still breathing.
"This is..." He trailed off, leaning closer to examine a cluster of photos. "This is three years of work."
"Technically only five months worth." I moved to the kitchen, keeping him in my peripheral vision. "Started the day Gabriel, or the institute, sold me and I disposed of my handlers."
"And you chose this."
"I chose to hunt the things that created me." I filled the kettle, movements automatic. "Seemed poetic."
He found Gabriel's photo at the center of the web, surrounded by question marks and dead ends. "No trace of him?"
"Nothing. It's like he evaporated." I set out two mugs, pleased when he didn't object.
"Maybe he's dead."
"No." The word came out sharper than intended. "I'd know. I'd feel it. We're connected."
Nathan turned from the wall to study me. "Trauma bonding. It's common in—"
"Don't." I gripped the counter edge. "Don't reduce it to psychology terms. You didn't know him. Didn't know what we had."
"What did you have, Bunny?"
The kettle whistled. I poured water over tea bags, using the ritual to steady myself. "Purpose. Direction. Someone who saw what I could become and shaped it. He made me into something beautiful."
"He made you into a weapon."
"Same thing." I handed him a mug. "Now. Your turn. Who's Emma?"
His hand stilled halfway to the tea. "How do you—"
"You talk in your sleep. Not much, but enough. 'Emma, I'm sorry' featured prominently Tuesday night when I followed you back to your hotel."
He set down the mug untasted, moving to my window. The night city sprawled beyond the glass, all light pollution and hidden violence.
"My daughter," he said finally. "Would have been twelve this year."
Would have been. I catalogued the past tense, the careful distance in his voice.
"The Volkovs?" I guessed.
"No. Different network. Smaller, more specialized." He pressed his palm flat against the glass. "I was working a RICO case. Got too close to something bigger. They took her as warning. By the time we found her..."
He didn't finish. Didn't need to.
"The system failed," I said.
"The system protected them. Lawyers, technicalities, jurisdictional disputes." His reflection in the window looked carved from stone. "So I stopped trusting the system. Started trusting other things. Sharper things."
"Is that when you left the Bureau?"
"That's when the Bureau left me." He turned back, and I saw the same emptiness I carried. "Apparently, executing suspects during raids is frowned upon. Who knew?"
"Bureaucrats." I moved closer, drawn by our matching damage. "They never understand necessity."
"Eight men died before they pulled my badge. Eight direct connections to Emma's disappearance." His smile was winter cold. "I'd have killed more, but I got sloppy. Let emotion override tactics."
"And now?"
"Now I'm careful. Methodical. I find patterns in darkness and erase them." He gestured at my wall. "Though nothing this comprehensive. This is art."
"It's obsession." I stood beside him, looking at my work. "Every name is a thread back to the Institute. Every death brings me closer to understanding what Gabriel built. Why he built it. Why he made me."
"Maybe there is no why. Maybe some people just enjoy breaking things."
"No." I touched a photo of Gabriel, edges worn from handling. "Everything he did had purpose. Every lesson, every punishment, every moment of conditioning. He was building something specific."
"Building what?"
I spread my arms, indicating myself. "The perfect soldier for a war nobody else sees coming. Look at the patterns, Nathan. The trafficking networks, the Institute's graduates placed in strategic positions, the careful cultivation of certain skill sets. It's not random."
He studied the wall with fresh eyes, that detective mind engaging. I watched him trace connections I'd spent years mapping, saw the moment he recognized the scope.
"This is infrastructure," he said slowly. "They're building infrastructure."
"For what?"
"Power. Control. The ability to move assets without oversight." He found a cluster of financial documents I'd stolen. "Christ, the money flowing through this..."
"Billions. And that's just what I could track." I moved to another section. "Here. Three judges, two senators, a deputy director at the DEA. All with connections back to Institute funding or graduates in their employ."
"Placement." His fingers hovered over the connections. "They're placing assets throughout the system. But why train them so young?"
"Loyalty." The word tasted bitter. "Take a child young enough, break them properly, rebuild them with purpose—they'll never betray you. We can't. It's not in our programming."
"But you did. You're hunting them."
"I wasn't a child, no one in my particular part of the program was." I laughed, short and sharp. "I don't think he meant for me to hunt backward along my own trail, but he should have been more specific with his instructions."
Nathan studied me with that intense focus. "You're still following his programming. Even while rebelling against it."
"I know." It should have bothered me more. "I can't help it. It's carved too deep. All I can do is aim it in directions he might not have intended."
"And if you find him? What then?"
I considered the question, staring at Gabriel's photo. "I don't know. Part of me wants to show him what I've become, make him proud. Part of me wants to peel him apart like Carter and ask why with every cut."
"Both impulses can coexist."
"Speaking from experience?"
"Every day." He moved away from the wall, examining the rest of my apartment. It was sparse—just the murder wall and basic furniture. Nothing personal except the web of death. "This is how you live?"
"This is how I hunt. Living is what other people do."
"No books? No art? No life outside the mission?"
"The mission is life." I watched him catalogue the emptiness. "What would be the point of pretending otherwise?"
"Because even weapons need maintenance. Even hunters need rest." He picked up a knife from my coffee table, testing its edge. "When's the last time you did something just because you wanted to?"
"I served Carter his eyes on a silver spoon because I wanted to."
"Something that wasn't work."