Page 107 of Gorgeous Misery

“If you mean the cat-and-mouse game?” I shrug. “I can’t see any way around it, can you?”

Adam turns to face me. He’s not that far away. And even though we’re like exactly the same height and build, we didn’t have the same training growing up. We are very different in all the ways that matter. But that doesn’t mean he’s not formidable. He did have that brain injury, courtesy of Indie. But he was an assassin, after all. Not rank and file, which is what I would call Nathan. So Adam Boucher is not a man you underestimate. And I don’t.

He says, “Why are you here, Nick?”

“I’m delivering your PSYOPS agent, as requested.”

Adam’s eyes narrow down into tiny slits as he parses my words, trying his best to read between the lines. “Merc?”

My heart flutters a little at his question. “Who else?”

He cocks his head to the side like he’s genuinely perplexed. “Are you lying to me, Nick Tate?”

“I do not lie.”

He barks out a laugh. Same way Sasha did.

And this kinda pisses me off. “Name one time I lied to you.”

“Well…” But he falters.

“I have never lied to you. I have only withheld my truth. And my truth, Adam Boucher, has nothing to do with you.”

“Doesn’t it?”

“It does not.”

“Well, I find that very interesting.”

“And why’s that?”

“Because I was down in a graveyard not more than a month ago and do you know what I was doing there?”

“I wouldn’t even know where to start guessing.”

“I was digging up my brother’s grave.”

I don’t know what to say to that, so I stutter. “I… I… I’m sorry to hear the sad news about your brother.”

“Is that a joke?”

“No. I didn’t even realize you had a brother.”

Adam smiles and points at me. “Nor I you.”

I have to chuckle. “Yeah. I guess that’s a little bit weird.”

“Is that all it is?”

“Adam. I feel like you’re leading me around in circles. What are you trying to say that you can’t seem to spit out?”

He studies me for a moment, that small smile growing bigger as the seconds tick off. “You really don’t know, do you?”

I am truly confused and his clutter of words is knocking me off my game. I have no fucking idea what Adam is getting at. This is not good because I’m playing like seventeen games in my head at the moment—all those balls in the air, all those secrets flying around, tryin’ their best to surface—and this bizarre conversation will not be what ruins the tail end of an eight-year plan.

“Well? Are you gonna tell me?”

“What do you do again?”