“Is there a way to find out?” Sasha asks. “If the Admiral is dead?”

“I’m pretty sure there’d be some sort of global alert if the Admiral was dead.” I should push Sasha for her answers too. I really should. But she’s being very good, almost on my side, so now is not the time to shake things up.

“So now what, James?” Harper looks down at her feet. She’s facing the sun still, and it’s about to set, so the bright glow from earlier is gone. I wanted us to be together tonight so we could watch the sun go down again, get her back in her routine. But the rippling orange and yellow colors across the Pacific Ocean were magical. Beautiful and filled with promise of a new tomorrow.

The dissipating, diffracting light playing across the hot current of air in the desert has a hopeless feel to it.

This desert sunset feels like the end.

“You have to make a choice, Harper.” I take her hand and turn her around. “You trust me and let me lead the way.” I stop to search her for doubt. She holds her eyes steady, unlike mine. My eyes dart all over the place, waiting for lies, for pretenses and ulterior motives. But I don’t find any of that in Harper.

I find grief.

“Or you can go your own way. You’re not my contract, Harper.” I slip my hand behind her neck. She’s sweaty from the heat. Her shoulders are turning pink from the sun and when she looks up at me, her eyes are pink too. She’s had enough for one day. “You’re not my contract, and if you stay with me, I promise to take care of you. I promise I will keep you safe. I promise that the only way they will hurt you is if they kill me first.”

“Because I belong to you?”

“Yes.” God, that makes me so happy there’s no way in hell I can hide the smile. “You belong to me. You’re mine. So if you stay, you need to understand that. You’re mine.”

“And you want me now?”

I slide my fingers down her arm and tug on her hand until she takes a step toward. “I’ve always wanted you.”

She stares into my eyes, so intent on finding motive there. But she fails. Because I’m telling the truth.

“Sasha,” I say as I turn and lead Harper over to the porch. “Bedtime.”

‘”Bedtime!” Sasha snorts. “I don’t have a bedtime!”

“Whatever.” I ascend the stairs with Harper and take her back inside. “But we’re going to bed.”

Chapter Nine - Harper

I let James take me away. Back into the house where the air-conditioning isolates me from the outside and makes me feel protected. Which is absurd, because James just admitted to being responsible for something akin to genocide.

Maybe what the Company does is good. I’ve been told my whole life it is. They keep things in check. The assassins take out very specific targets to stabilize world governments, world economies, and preserve the future of freedom.

But that’s the kind of bullshit Nick and I used to read in comic books whenever we could get our hands on them in a port city. Superhero stuff. He was fascinated by it, since he was being trained to assassinate people too. He believed in them. He made me believe in them.

Until we learned I was sold. And even though that book says I was promised to James, I’m having a hard time accepting it.

Why would the Admiral give me to some killer? Wouldn’t he want me to be safe? How could I ever be safe with James? I study his muscular back as he leads me down the hallway to the bedroom. He’s a dream in the body department, but the shit inside his head is something else. Something I might not be interested in seeing more of.

Tet. It has a whole new meaning now. And the fact that I used his calling-card poison to kill… what does it mean? For me? For him? How did the Company interpret what I did? And how did he not know? He told me he was briefed right after I ran last summer. Didn’t they tell them how I did it? Didn’t they assume he was in on it?

We walk into the last bedroom and he closes the door. The room is dusky, but he makes no move to turn the lights on. Instead he walks over to the window and closes the blinds until the place is near dark. He stares at the covered window for a few seconds and then lets out a sigh. “Where do you want to start?”

My body goes still. “What do you mean?”

He turns and tips his chin up, like he’s building up his confidence. “I’m not gonna talk about it in front of the Smurf, but whatever you want to know, here’s your chance. Ask me. Ask me anything.”

I’m momentarily stunned. I think I should take my time, have a plan of attack for getting the truth from him because this might be my one and only chance. But the question rolls off my tongue like it was waiting all day. “What happened to Amber?”

“My brother shot her in the chest on the last job I did.”

“Why?”

His jaw clenches. “Because she got in his way.”

“Is that all it takes for you guys? Just get in the way? And that’s enough to forfeit a life?”

His eyes narrow at these questions, hopefully because he’s thinking it over and not because I’m pissing him off. I shift my weight from one foot to another, the silent moments ticking off from a clock on the wall.

“Sometimes.”

“Is that why you killed your brother? Because he killed Amber?”

“Not specifically, no. It was a combination of factors. He was my target. Your father wanted him eliminated, but in addition to that I owed my friend Merc a favor. Merc owed his friend Ford a favor. Ford wanted Tony out of his family’s life. I had two contracts on him.”

“And… there was never a moment where your inner self said, ‘Hey, James, this is the guy you grew up with. You’re not gonna kill him. You’re gonna find a way not to, or you’ll die trying?’ Because if I was ordered to kill my brother, that’s what my inner self would say.”

“I did think that, Harper. And there was a brief time where I thought I could pull it off. But everything went wrong, people showed up. Amber showed up. She wasn’t supposed to be there. And her sister, Ashleigh… she was Tony’s high-school sweetheart. He risked everything to try and keep her out of the Company, faked his own death. Abandoned her right before she gave birth to their child. And then Ford appeared. He found Ashleigh. And Ford decided he wanted what Tony walked away from and made it happen.”