Page 56 of The Company

“Whatever,” Sasha grunts. “I hate him.”

“Year seven,” Harper prods.

She’s digging, I realize. Looking for something. About Nick, maybe.

“That year I spent with my brother, Tony. He was twenty, I was twenty-two. We were in for almost the same amount of time, they started him early. Had him doing local jobs in Southern California all through high school, put him in the US military at eighteen. He was just finishing up his two-year contract with the Marines that year. But he was in love with this girl.” I look over at both of them now. “Not a Company girl. And he wanted out, so he applied to the SEALs, thinking if he could just hang on to the military affiliation, the Company might let him have a life.”

“Did it work?” Harper asks.

“I fucking blew his head off three months ago. What do you think?”

“Why did you kill him?” Sasha asks.

“It was a job.” Tet’s answer comes out so fast it surprises even me. “Years eight and nine were spent running a shadow government in San Pedro Sula, down in Honduras.”

“So,” Sasha interrupts. “You weren’t just killing people. You were helping too, right?”

I want to lie to her so bad. Harper’s watching me, a little bit of hope in her eyes. “No,” I say, choosing to tell the truth. “I wasn’t in San Pedro Sula to fix things, Sasha. The government down in Honduras is as corrupt as the cartels.”

“And year ten. When I was turning sixteen, what were you doing then?” Harper redirects to the more recent years. The years that changed everything. The only years that matter right now.

I stare at her as I recall that day. It was confusing for me. It’s confusing for me now, but I’m trying to be honest, so I tell her the truth. “Looking for you, Lionfish.” She sighs at the name. It’s been tainted by the words in the journal, so I soften her hurt with more truth. “I did show up that year. No plane ticket that time, but I showed up anyway. You guys stayed pretty close to Anguilla, so I knew where to look.”

“We went to Tahiti that year, and the next two after.”

I shrug. “I know that now, but I did my best.”

“Did you want me that year?” she asks, a little bit of hope spilling out with her words.

Again, I want to lie. But I don’t have it in me to put up the pretenses. Besides, she’s gonna find out the truth sooner or later. “Not enough to admit it.”

“But you do now, right?” Sasha chimes in. “You want her now, even I can tell that.”

I look over at Harper, but she’s shaking her head and putting up her hand, shutting down the talk of her. She may or may not want to know more about that, but right now she’s on a mission for other information. “And the years between then and now? You said you were in some European country last year. But it sounds to me like that’s not your territory.”

“It’s not. But I’ve been on special assignments since then.”

“Mmm-hmm,” Harper says, pissed off. “So your tally, James? What’s your final tally?”

“Too many to count.”

She throws the notebook at me and jumps down off the Hummer hood, but I grab her wrist before she can escape, pulling her close until I can secure her by her shoulders. And then I lean into her ear and go in for the kill. “What’s your tally, Harper? How many have you killed? Do you even know?”

Sasha blows out a long breath like she can’t believe I just went there.

Harper shakes her head. “I’m not a killer. I don’t know why they tell you those things. I’m not a killer.”

“I am,” Sasha says, trying to break the tension. “I got four, James. When they came to blow up my grandparents’ ranch. I got four.”

I have to smile and appreciate that. “I know, Smurf. I heard. How many, Harper?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she tries again, clearly nervous about the new direction this conversation is taking.

“You probably don’t. You probably have no idea. Because you left the ship. You left them all there to die and never looked back. So how could you know?”

She turns her back, head still shaking.

“You can judge me if you want, but the truth is, Harper, we’re all killers here. Even you, baby. And your tally puts my first year to shame. Because you got thirteen souls, right out of the gate.”