Dangerous Designs Read Free Page B

would wait to see what he said. I forced myself to stay silent, lacing my fingers together and twisting them until he ached. When I caught him watching me. I looked away; I wanted to throw up, I was so afraid.
    We did not speak in the elevator. He went into his bedroom, motioning for me to stay in the living room, and came back with a button-down shirt to replace the blouse. He was already turning away to get a drink, and so I didn’t have to figure out how warmly to smile, or what to say. When he came back, with a glass of scotch for each of us, I could tell he had already chosen his words.
    “I was fifteen when I found out what Ellison Corp did.” He sat down, elbows on his knees, and he rolled the glass between his palms.
    I said nothing, watching the amber liquid swirl. Like him, I had no desire to drink it; there seemed to be safety, simply a grab at normalcy, just in holding it.
    “I’d seen science fiction movies. I never really liked science fiction.” He paused, and lifted a shoulder. “I’ve never seen the point in saying something sideways when you could just say it. But—” He sighed. “That was what it was like, you understand? It was like finding out that there was some super secret, videogame type of crazy…it was everything you’d be afraid of. It was the worst thing I could imagine. I saw pictures of it. I wasn’t supposed to, it was just supposed to be Sebastian.” His face twisted.
    “How did you find them?” It was the wrong question, but I sensed he was glad that I had asked.
    “Sebastian showed them to me.” His lips twisted bitterly. “I think he knew what was going to happen.”
    “What did happen?”
    “I threw up.” He didn’t look at me. “I threw up, and then I went to my dad and told him to explain everything. He was mad at Sebastian—I don’t know what happened, but I know Sebastian never did anything like that again. You…didn’t cross my father.”
    I felt a chill. “I’m sorry.”
    “Does that change anything?” His eyes met mine for one moment and then he shook his head, looking away. “He didn’t have to do it again.” The voice almost didn’t sound human. “Because he’d proved to our father what I was.”
    “What you were?” It didn’t make sense. None of it made sense.
    “I was the weak one.” He looked like he was about to choke on it. One hand clenched beside the glass. “All our life, it was—it was life or death with me and Sebastian. Always. From when we were children. And our father encouraged it. He wanted to know which one of us to back. Which one was the strong one. Sebastian proved it, and I…did something stupid.”
    “Throwing up when you—”
    “Oh, not that.” He took a sip, the cocky mannerisms back. One brow lifted, and the humor, however fleeting, was real. “I went up against him. I tried to turn him in.”
    I nearly dropped the glass. I had frozen, every fiber of me crying out for me to move. Let him finish the story. You don’t know how it ends.
    Hope could be cruel, I reminded myself.
    And then I realized what he was saying.
    “The government already knew,” I said quietly.
    He tipped his head back, assessing me.
    “I figured it out. It was little things. And then I—today—I looked up the laws. It’s not illegal if it’s for the government.”
    “So you know how the story ends.” He drained his glass bitterly.
    “No.” I shook my head, meeting his eyes. “It wasn’t just revenge, was it?”
    “Would you be disappointed if it were? No, don’t answer, I can see it in your eyes.” He lifted one shoulder, elegant despite the pain I could see in every line of him. “No. It wasn’t just revenge. But…there was some revenge to it. I wanted to destroy it all.”
    I tried to stop my heart from racing, but there was no use. I wanted so desperately to hear what he had to say. I wanted him to be innocent in all of this.
    “I made myself the heir,” he told me simply. He was staring at the cold hearth, eyes