by J. A. Huss
Never mind that I already talked sense into her. Never mind that I already smoothed it over. Never mind that I had his back from day one.
And maybe that makes me sound callous. I am happy she’s alive. I’m… fucking thrilled that she’s alive. But this feels a whole like we just started a new game of Let’s-Pretend-That-Didn’t-Happen.
“Maggie?” Indie finally speaks and pulls me out of my heated thoughts. “Is that really you?”
Maggie looks up at Adam and he nods. “Go ahead. You know who she is.”
Maggie leaps. Like a fuckin’ gazelle. And two seconds later she is huggin’ her mama. Indie is crying. Hard. Like… I have never seen Indie cry like this before. And pretty soon my eyes are tearing up too.
Even Donovan is crying. Hell, even Adam is crying.
When we lock eyes again my anger subsides a little.
He is not a bad man. He can’t help who he is any more than the rest of us.
We are just… liars.
“I just needed to keep her safe, McKay. We all stretch the truth for the same reason, don’t we?”
His Southern accent, which is almost always mostly hidden—like it’s a secret that confirms who he really is underneath—comes pouring out of his mouth with his words.
“We lie to keep each other safe, right? Even you do it, McKay. Even you had to make choices that day, remember? That’s all this was about. Nothing else. Just that.” Adam swipes a tear off his cheek. And then he narrows his eyes at me. “You understand, right?”
And then I get it.
Because I do understand.
And he knows why I understand.
We are playing a brand-new game.
And that game isn’t called Let’s-Pretend-That-Didn’t-Happen.
It’s called I-Know-What-You-Did-To-Nathan-St.-James.
CHAPTER THIRTY - TWO - INDIE
You have this image of people.
They are strong, and loyal, and truthful, and protective. They say things like… Write it down, and Eat your vegetables, and Do it just like I tell you.
They are tall, and handsome, and smart.
They give you a home, and your own bedroom, and a swamp filled with fireflies, and a duck lake with a boy on the other side whose mere presence convinces you that this is all gonna be OK.
And you believe it.
Because you are small, and young, and scared, and lonely.
You write it down, you eat those vegetables, and you do it just like they say.
But then one day you realize you’re not so small, or young, or scared, or lonely. You realize you’re bigger, and older, and braver, and surrounded. And you see them for what they really are.
Just people.
Just men.
Just humans who make it up as they go, like the rest of us.
They are liars, and cheaters, and killers.
They are sick, and twisted, and ruthless.
They are afraid, lonely, and scared, just like the rest of us.
But they are yours.
They are mine now.
They are all mine.
I did drug them. And that was all me. I wanted what I wanted and I wanted them. I will not apologize for that.
But they are mine now.
They are all mine.
So I keep that secret to myself.
But picking those berries with my daughter. Telling her they were delicious. Mixing them up in the frosting.
None of that was my idea.
It was his.
I failed. None of the people he wanted to kill that day died.
I don’t feel bad about that because it wasn’t my failure.
It was his.
EPILOGUE - ADAM
THREE MONTHS LATER
I’ve been lucky. I’m not too proud to admit that. The fucking stars aligned for me many times over the years.
I was born into the Company.
Into a family of Untouchables.
I was given Core McKay as a gift.
I was withdrawn from the Zero Program and the Negative Program and given a second and third chance.
I have a trust fund, ten mansions, fifteen warehouses, and eight-hundred leftovers doing my bidding.
I have three partners and a little girl.
I have everything.
And he knows I have everything. So of course, he’s gonna try and take it from me.
But I’m only gonna say this once, Carter Couture.
It’s mine. And you can’t have it. Not one fuckin’ bit of it.
The day Indie drugged us and we all had sex was just one more fortuitous event in a long line of good fortune as far as I can tell.
Yeah. Shit went wrong that day. Pretty much everything went wrong that day. But Maggie and me? Everything about that went right as far as I’m concerned.
I didn’t mean to make McKay and Donovan think she was dead. It’s just… Indie tried to kill us. What was I supposed to do? What choice did I have?
I knew all about Carter Couture. I knew all about their little Negative Program they ran on that island. I knew Indie was fucked from the first moment I saw her and I knew Donovan was in on it.
I knew he was looking for Carter.
I knew McKay was my double. Oh, I know what people think about that. How could McKay be your Negative, Adam? He’s not your twin. But come on, people. Keep up, OK? Why do you think Donovan wanted to go into plastic surgery? I mean… fake tits? Plump lips? Face lifts? Really? Is that the line of work Untouchable Company Boy Geniuses go into?
Please. Give the boy some credit. He never fooled me. Not for one second. When you go into PSYOPS and then you transfer into plastic surgery, there is only one reason for that.
To make double negatives for Company kids. To take their minds and twist them all up and then change their faces to match what’s inside.
I knew that if the Company fell, McKay’s family would be among the dead. They were keeping one of our secrets. My father told them why he needed McKay.
I knew my father was heading for an early grave. Hell, I helped Sasha Cherlin set it up. Who the fuck do you think got those drug lords to crash that wedding in Santa Barbara and shoot the place all to hell?
Her? Really? Twelve-year-old Sasha Cherlin? She’s good, but… no. She’s not that good.
OK. I will give Nick Tate some credit for that, I suppose.
The real Nick Tate, that is.
Not the Double Negative I met with down in Daphne, Alabama.
I cannot, for life of me, understand how anyone fell for that shit-show double. Didn’t they see those tattoos for what they were? A way to hide the Double Negative scars? I mean, come on. Oldest trick in the fuckin’ book, right?
Didn’t they notice his voice? His accent? How could they not know?
Jesus Christ. That makes me laugh.
Nick Tate had a twin, just like the rest of us. And her name was Harper. At first glance you gotta feel sorry for the Admiral, right? All that genetic planning and plotting to make twins and what does he get for his trouble? A boy and a girl?
Such bad luck.
But, unlike the rest of us, Nick Tate wasn’t a twin, he was a triplet.
I have to hand it to the Admiral. He knew how to play the fuckin’ long game like a pro.
If he was still alive, I’d shake that man’s hand.
But anyway… I’m getting way ahead of myself now…
When Maggie started screaming out in the garden, I almost lost my shit. I was fucking high. Couldn’t even talk right. And Indie was going off on Nathan like a goddamned psycho. A sick fucking psycho. Nathan was a big dude and he was very good at martial arts by the time McKay stopped inviting him to train with Indie when he was around sixteen.
But she was crazy. She went crazy. And one good kick, man. Sometimes that’s all it takes.
It’s just… that wasn’t all it took this time.
I know Donovan made it into the house. He was going for his doctor bag that he always brings with him. He kept
the drugs he used for Indie’s hypnosis in there. And that was where the Narcan spray was.
So I know he came running out yelling about drugs. And he dosed me with it and threw my clothes at me, yelling, “Take Maggie to the hospital, Adam! Right now!”
And my head cleared up pretty good. Not all the way because whatever Indie used on us, it was a cocktail. Not just one drug. But I could understand what was happening. I saw Maggie screaming. Just fuckin’ screaming her little head off.
I didn’t know it at the time, but eating those berries is like munching on chemicals. The inside of her mouth was bleeding by the time the doctors saw her in the emergency room. And those berries are deadly. She ate more than enough to die if I hadn’t gotten her to the emergency room.
And then I saw Nathan on the ground. And Indie standing over him. Donovan was dosing her with the Narcan, but she wasn’t on drugs. She was on… PSYOPS. So she wasn’t responding at all.
Carter got to her. I knew it. I knew it right away. And McKay… McKay was bent down next to Nathan and then the next thing I knew I had Maggie in my arms and I was shoving her in my truck.
I don’t even know how I got to the emergency room in Pearl Springs. They took us in right away and did something. But then we were in a fucking helicopter on our way to New Orleans because Pearl Springs was… well, ill-equipped.
I didn’t even have a phone. Or my wallet. I didn’t have shit. So that’s why I didn’t call McKay and Donovan and let them know what was up. I didn’t plan this. I was not in my right mind that first day in the hospital.
But, later, after Maggie was stabilized and I was sure she wasn’t gonna die, I went to my other family home in the French Quarter where I had documents and cash stashed. I changed clothes, bought a burner phone, and I had every intention of telling them that Maggie was fine. Well, she would be. They were still dealing with the toxins from the daphne berries, but she was responding well.
My head was clear by then. The drugs had worn off and I was running the last fourteen years back and forth in my mind. Over and over again.
That conversation with Gerald on the island. The girls in those cages. Donovan’s words of caution and big plans for a research paper. The way people were bidding on her at the auction. Indie’s little disappearing acts over the years. Angelica, James Fenici, and Nick Tate.
All those documents I was gifted when my trust fund matured the day I turned twenty-one. All those secrets that came with it.
The Double Negative Program. Which is not the same as the Negative Program. The Negative Program is just about twins. But, as the Admiral can attest, it doesn’t always go to plan.
You can have a set of identical twins and one fraternal in a trio of triplets. But that’s not how it shook out for the Admiral.
Lots of Untouchable families had this problem over the years. In fact, it’s pretty damn hard to have a set of identical twins. You really gotta have the right bloodlines, and even then, it’s a crapshoot.
The Double Negative program has been around since the nineteen forties. That’s how they did it in the old days before scientists could manipulate eggs and up your chances. And even now, when that kind of interference is possible, most of the time, those twins don’t happen. And if they do, they aren’t identical. So you gotta help Mother Nature out a little bit. Rearrange that face. Add a scar here and a tattoo there. Make it all look legit.
And let’s be clear, OK? Nick wasn’t the chosen one. His twin sister Harper was the chosen one. Nick was just another expendable. Just like me, and James, and Donovan.
And I guess you could include Core McKay in our exclusive little group if you really wanted to. It’s not the same, but it’s close enough, I guess. His father did have three sons, after all. And he did agree to my father’s plan.
That’s how I knew the Shadow of Secrets calling himself Nick Tate down in Daphne, Alabama wasn’t who everyone thought he was. He included McKay in our little group of Untouchables. The real Nick Tate would not make that mistake. Because the real Nick Tate does not. Make. Mistakes.
Or hell, maybe Real Nick had the Shadow make that mistake on purpose? Maybe he was dropping me a hint?
I didn’t need that hint. And the Nick I knew as a boy wasn’t known to be so accommodating.
But this Shadow Nick was so far gone—his mind and body so far away from the boy he started out as—he must’ve forgotten who McKay really was. I can only imagine the kind of mind fuck the real Nick did on his Shadow after Santa Barbara. The Company washed their hands of the whole Tate family after all those people died.
Nick wasn’t taken captive that night.
He set himself free.
Free to be himself. And oh, yeah. You think Indie’s scary? You think I’m scary? No. I was restrained. Indie was restrained. Even James Fenici was restrained once he fell for Harper Tate.
But Nick and Carter? Those boys are the real face of the Company killers.
Regardless, I’d have figured it out even if the Shadow didn’t make that mistake, but that just hurried along my understanding of the situation.
But here’s the thing I never understood about the Company. They do this to us. To me, to James, to Nick, to Donovan. They turn us into these killers, and mind-fuckers, and psychopaths. They chew us up and spit us out. And they never see us coming, do they?
They keep those doubles safe and give them a cushy life in big houses or too-long yachts. They send them to the best schools. They give them everything and make them soft so they are ready for their upcoming Manchurian Candidate political careers.
They do this, while all the while, they are making us expendables hard.
How did they not see this coming?
If my father were alive, I’d fuckin’ slap him. Shake him hard by the shoulders. Scream in his face—Why don’t you see us coming?
Anyway… I’m off track again.
I didn’t know how deep this Indie betrayal went. The only thing I knew was that Carter was involved and I had to protect Maggie. So I sent that text to McKay. I was gonna just lie to him. Tell him straight up that Maggie was dead and then quietly disappear with her. But I couldn’t.
I mean, I could. I have no problem lying when it suits me.
But lying straight to McKay felt like crossing a line.
I’m gonna be clear about this right now. I love Core McKay. My father didn’t need to lecture me on how much I owe McKay. He’s mine. Just like Indie is mine, just like Maggie is mine.
There is no future without McKay in it.
I didn’t want to lie to him. But I didn’t want to give him the whole truth in case Carter was tracking his phone. So I just told him it was over and tossed my burner just to be sure.
McKay doesn’t need a phone to find me. We are connected. If he wanted to find me, all he had to do was look a little harder.
And he didn’t.
So I didn’t call him again for almost two years. By that time, Maggie and I were settled in. I wasn’t going back until Carter made his next move.
I knew one day Indie would turn up. Carter is after me. I’m the one who ruined his life. I’m the one who fucked it all up when I helped James and Sasha take down the Company in Santa Barbara. I’m the one who took him away from Donovan.
But I am not an easy man to kill.
And if he can’t kill me, well, then he’ll just take my life. He’ll take my power, he’ll take my McKay, and my Indie, and my Maggie, and… well, I don’t know about Donovan. I have no idea how he feels about Donovan these days.
When Maggie was released from the hospital, I took her to my home in Baton Rouge. It wasn’t a great plan. Hell, I actually expected McKay to come looking for me. I figured… a week, tops, and he’d find us. And we’d figure shit out from there.
But McKay never came. And Donovan never came. And Indie never came. And Carter never came.
So hell, Maggie and I, we took off. There is only one way to escape the attention of Company assassins and that’s by boat. Yachts have alwa
ys been the Company’s way of secretly getting from place to place. The ocean is deep, the world is wide, and there are plenty of places to get lost.
We got lost in many different parts of the ocean. We got lost on rivers too.
But I have eight-hundred leftovers doing my bidding. So I had twice as many eyes on McKay this whole time. I knew Indie popped back up almost two weeks ago. So Maggie and I flew home to Louisiana to wait and see.
Probably should’ve kept some of those eyes on Donovan as well, seeing as how Indie showed up at his place first. But it would’ve done us no good. She was still under Carter’s control back then. That visit was probably part of his plan.
I’m playing a long game of my own. One so twisted and perfect, the Admiral would shake my hand back.
That’s what really happened. And that’s why I did it.
But here’s the thing I don’t understand. Why did McKay do what he did with Nathan?
He knows I know.
Because he shut up real fast when I brought Maggie back to Old Home and neither of us has said a word about it since.
I want to tell him, It’s gonna come back to bite you, McKay. Right in your do-gooder ass. You watch.
But fuck it.
That’s his problem now.
And besides, today is Maggie’s birthday. So it’s not a time to bring up secrets.
Everything is back the way it’s supposed to be. Hell, better than I could’ve ever hoped.
Donovan stayed for two whole weeks after I brought Maggie to Old Home. Then he left, packed up his shit in LA, and came home for good.
McKay backed off Indie. Told us all that we’re in a complicated relationship and we all have to consider the consequences before we go upsetting the balance.
I can’t argue with that. But… the sexual tension around here… it’s palpable. So some kind of arrangement needs to happen soon.