“Indeed,” he said, and I noticed how quickly his laugh had faded when I refused to cower to him. “If you recall, my text said I had something you wanted.”
“I read it less than an hour ago, so I recall the contents very well. What is this thing you believe I want?” I looked the guy sitting at his side up and down. “Because I have to say, if it’s him, I’m really disappointed.”
I was getting under Barnes’s skin, and I didn’t know why that made me feel good. Perhaps he wasn’t used to people talking to him the way I was. Frankly, I didn’t give a fuck. He was nobody to me. He might scare the shit out of Bri, but it would take more than a looney tune from the UK to rank on my give-a-damn meter. I was wondering if the sniper’s sight had somehow been faked.
“No,” he said. “Jackson isn’t for you. His part comes later. What I’m going to give you is the truth.”
“What truth?”
“The only truth that matters. The truth of your life. How you ended up where you are. The reason I’m here. Why I have to destroy you.” He spoke with a calm confidence, at odds with any sort of mental illness I could come up with. But I still couldn’t imagine what truth he thought he had for me. “I see you don’t fully believe what I’m saying.” He turned to the man at his side. “Jackson, give Mr. Worthington the shawl.”
Showing no emotion whatsoever, Jackson bent to the bag I now noticed at his feet and pulled out a black and white silk scarf. At the sight of it, my body froze, and I struggled to breathe.
Jackson tried to hand me the scarf, but I shook my head.
“You should touch it,” Barnes said. “In order to know it’s real.”
I shook my head again. I didn’t need to touch it to know it was real. “Where did you get it?”
“I would think that obvious,” Barnes said. “I got it from your mother’s body. Right after she died.”
“You killed her?” The rage that filled my body was unlike anything I’d ever experienced. I forced my limbs to remain completely still because if I moved a fraction of an inch, I’d kill Barnes with my bare hands, and I wanted to hear him confess before I did so.
“No,” he said. “But I arrived at the scene not long after. I only showed you the scarf to prove I know the truth.”
I still wasn’t sure if I believed him or not. There was nothing to keep him from lying to me. Lie or not, he’d known what he was doing when he pulled out that scarf. I’d at least listen to him now. I gave a curt nod.
Seemingly satisfied, Barnes leaned back in his seat and began, “Your father was a very wealthy man. Self-made. Like most other men who earned their money instead of inheriting it, he’d taken a few risks along the way.
“He was a smart investor. Always doing his research before jumping into something. He could also spot a company’s problem areas. Once he had all the information needed, he’d go into his office and stay there until he’d decided what to do. There were rumors he’d bring your mom in for her opinion, but I can’t say with any certainty if that was the case or not.”
It probably was, if I had to guess. I had very few memories of my parents, but I remembered they always seemed to be together. Or maybe that was simply my subconscious hoping that was what they were like.
Barnes didn’t seem to care one way or the other. “We approached your father with a new venture we needed his financial backing on, and after reading the prospectus, he promised his full support. About five months into the project, he discovered some parts of the operation that were inadvertently left out of the information he’d been given. He was furious, insisted we’d kept him in the dark and that if we didn’t fix what he considered to be ethical issues, he’d pull his support.”
I balled my fists tightly because I knew where this was heading. I knew, and once he spoke it, I would have to kill him.
“Imagine our surprise when both your parents were killed in that awful car accident,” Barnes said.
“I think the term accident is a misnomer, don’t you?” I asked through clenched teeth.
“No,” he replied calmly. “I don’t. It’s what’s listed on the official police report.”
I wondered how much it had taken to buy the officers off but didn’t voice my suspicion out loud. If what Barnes said was the truth, and I had no reason to think it wasn’t, whatever was going on had been in motion for years.
“As it turned out, your father anticipated he might become more accident prone than normal and had forwarded his concerns to a national news agency. Fortunately, we heard about it before anything could be printed. Unfortunately, we had to shut the entire operation down.” He narrowed his eyes at me. “That prank of your father’s cost us forty million, and we had to change our name.”
From TPA to the Organization, if I had to guess.
“You didn’t have any family left after your parents died, and we had a few judges in our debt. Getting you placed into the various homes over the years and creating a fund with your inheritance was easy. We planned to watch you, and when the time was right we’d bring you into the Organization and get your money that way.”
I wasn’t aware of any inheritance, but it didn’t seem like the right time to bring it up.
“But then you had to screw up everything when you joined forces with Brigitta. I told the bosses to pull you out of the homes and into one of our schools, but they wouldn’t listen.” He shook his head, as if relaying a tragedy. “By time they took action, you were already too much like your dad, and then you applied for that scholarship. A setback, but only a slight one. You weren’t a magnificent prospect, but your shadow was. I was the one who suggested the Organization bring Brigitta into the fold. We all agreed it would be poetic for her to be the one to bring you down when you were older.”
They had taken an emotional young girl with nothing and no one, fed her a diet of lies and deceit, and over the years, they’d groomed and molded her into what they wanted her to be. And what had my response been?
It shamed me to recall my actions. I hadn’t let her speak or otherwise tell her side of the story. Instead, I’d turned my back on her. I looked down at my fists, still clenched.
Barnes seemed to sense my discomfort, or at least that’s what I took the sadistic smile to mean. “It was a brilliant plan. With one unexpected drawback. She fell for you.”
At his calmly spoken statement, I jerked my head up.
Barnes laughed. “This can’t be news to you. But yes, she did. All those years of training and preparation and she breaks the first rule we taught her. Don’t get involved with your mark.”
Where was Bri? It hit me I still didn’t know. Had they done something with her? Punished her for breaking a rule? I didn’t ask about her. I feared if I mentioned her name, I’d show Barnes emotions he’d use against me.
“What did you do with Benjamin Douglas?” I asked in place of asking where Bri was.
“It’s useless to try to keep things from me. I know that wasn’t what you wanted to ask me. But I’ll play along for now.” He snapped his fingers, and Jackson reached back into the bag and pulled out a photo.