Now that I’ve seen what’s in the shipments, I have to get the manifest from Jamison Hart. I’ve delayed for too long already, and I’m the only one who can do it. Skimming through the files, I can see that hundreds of normal children have been identified as likely to respond well to Ophidian’s gene therapy. Their deliveries have already been scheduled over the next several years, originating from various departure locations around the world. This is why Romeo wanted me to find the manifest. This is why Alpha told me to keep going when I was on the patrol boat.

All of us are willing to risk everything just to save these children from becoming like us.

I start to search for the ten children who just arrived, but that’s when the manifest disappears from the laptop, taking every single file along with it. Even though I knew this would happen, it’s hard not to fling the laptop across the lobby in frustration. Without Alpha here to balance me, I’m starting to become increasingly emotional. I can feel it surging within me, the sensation that I’m breaking apart, the knowledge that my heart has shattered into a million pieces. For now I mostly feel numb, but it’s all going to catch up with me at some point. I know it will.

If Gallagher Hart is gone, I’ll just have to kiss Jamie and dig the manifest out of his hand. It’s not all that different from what I was supposed to do anyway. But it’s going to be a lot more gory, and my stomach turns just imagining it. I don’t know if I can even pretend to be in love with Jamison Hart anymore. The aloofness with which he treated those children was heartbreaking.

Still, what other choice do I have? Even if I could download the manifest onto another device, the program would just self-destruct after approximately fifteen minutes.

But then I hear a scornful voice from behind me. “How incredible. I didn’t think you would be so unbelievably stupid as to still be here. My son really knows how to pick them, doesn’t he? I’m starting to doubt whether you’re even with the Executive.”

I turn around to see Gallagher Hart holding his wife’s revolver. He hasn’t actually left Ophidian yet, and he’s flanked by three security guards. Maybe I won’t have to cut into Jamie’s hand after all.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about—” I start.

“Let’s not play games,” he snaps. “Jamison is my son, and he has the manifest, and so I have to protect him. I’d assumed you would have abandoned your mission after learning the truth about the Executive. But I can see now that you’re still intent on killing my son.”

“I’m not,” I say weakly.

Jamie’s father narrows his eyes, suspecting that it’s all an act. “Come here, Eliza.”

When I don’t move, he gestures at one of the security guards, who steps forward and points an assault rifle at me. This is the part where I’m supposed to plead for my life and convince Gallagher Hart that I’m not going to kill his son. But I can’t do it anymore. I’m finally reaching my breaking point, and it’ll only be another second before I scream. I’ll lunge at him, I’ll rip his throat out, I’ll do whatever it takes to get that manifest.

But then the security guard lifts his head to look at me. Up until now, his face has been shadowed and partially obscured by a black cap. A flood of emotion almost overwhelms me when I realize who it is.

Alpha.

My partner came after me. I don’t know how he managed to get onto the island, but here he is. His dark eyes are gazing at me dispassionately, as if we don’t know each other at all, but I can see the warning behind them. Focus, Echo. There are three enemies in the lobby, and they’re all armed. Our only chance to win in a standoff is if I can regain the revolver before it’s used against me.

Haltingly, I step toward Gallagher until we’re face to face. He lifts up my chin and examines my eyes, not actually looking into them but rather assessing whether I’m wearing colored contacts. I force myself to remain still as he takes a few strands of my streaked hair in his fingers, then lowers his gaze to my lips with impassive judgment. At last he nods, satisfied.

“My son never bothered to look for your file, but I know what you are,” he says. “Jamison is fortunate that you haven’t been able to kill him as of yet. But you’d be able to eventually, when he bored of you as a plaything, and my intention is to prevent that from ever happening—”

I grab the barrel of the revolver and wrench it away from him, my knee connecting solidly with his gut at the same moment. He doubles over, wheezing, his fingers twitching involuntarily. As Alpha swiftly disposes of the two security guards, I point the cocked revolver at Jamie’s father, ready to pull the trigger.

Gallagher stares up at me, his face contorted with fury. “If you shoot me, the Executive will retire you. If you run away, the Executive will hunt you down. I can see why my son was attracted to you now. You’re just as foolish as he is, and a useless aberrant as well. No one will ever truly desire you—”

I tense my finger at his words, firing the revolver without even realizing it. As a bullet sinks into his chest, Jamie’s father stumbles backward in shock before finally toppling to the ground, the blood blossoming through his suit. I can see the artificial northern lights reflected in his open eyes.

He’s dead.

“Eliza?”

I glance up to see Jamie watching me with an expression of disbelief on his face. He must have arrived just in time to see me shoot his father. An entire security team is streaming into the lobby, and Alpha and I are disarmed and restrained in a matter of seconds, without even the opportunity to fight back.

“He was going to kill me,” I gasp.

But Jamie reaches me in an instant, gripping my arm with enough force to imprint another layer of bruises onto my skin. I thought he hated his father, but that was wrong, wasn’t it? Jamison Hart only hated his father because he never got the attention or praise he wanted from him. And now he’ll never get what he wants, thanks to me.

Shit.

“Put that one with the others,” he spits out at his security team. “I’ll be there in a minute.”

August catches my eye as the security guards drag him away. For the first time in our lives, I can see every emotion on his face. Fear that he’ll die without saying certain words to me. Regret that he never said them before. Uncertainty as to whether he’ll ever see me again. All this time I thought my partner couldn’t feel anything, but I was wrong. Alpha was merely keeping it hidden for my sake as well as his.

He was balancing me so we could survive.

I want to call out to my partner, to say something, to run after him, but Jamie is already turning back to me. The coldness in his blue eyes makes a chill run down my spine. No amount of claiming to be in love can save me now. I just killed his father in front of him, and it’s too late to backtrack from any of it. I don’t have a cover story prepared for this. Everything is out there in plain sight, as if my target has X-ray vision, and I can’t escape the fallout.

“So you thought you’d get rid of my father.” Jamie’s face is uglier than I’ve ever seen it, his grip tightened to the point where it’s cutting off the circulation in my arm. “This is a serious problem, Eliza. I thought you loved me.”

I shouldn’t say anything. I can even hear Alpha saying into my ear, Don’t say anything, Echo. But this is everything that’s wrong with me. Without a counterbalance, I can’t stop myself from being overwhelmed by my emotions, from succumbing to whatever impulse happens to rise to the surface. I’ve spent too long hiding the truth from Jamie and putting on an act for him, and I can’t stop remembering the ten children shivering in the shipping container.

I am Eliza, after all.

“No, Jamie,” I spit out, seething with rage on behalf of myself, and August, and every other child who’s been turned into an aberrant by Ophidian. “Do you want to know what the serious problem is? You’re forcing aberrations onto children. You’re sentencing people like me to a life that we don’t want or need. After all this, it turns out you’re just a rich boy who was so desperate for his father’s attention that he could never resist the urge to play along. I could never love someone like you, Jamison Hart.”

He stares at me for a long moment, and I can see a glimmer of something behind his eyes. Triumph that he’s influenced me into telling the truth. Relief that he doesn’t have to hold back from hurting me anymore. Cruelty that no longer needs to be masked as passion or a reckless desire for adventure.

“So that’s how you really feel,” says Jamie silkily. “I’ve been trying to take over Ophidian for the sake of the future, but you never really understood what I was doing, did you? We’re long past love now, Eliza. You killed my father, and for that I can never forgive you.”

I’m already regretting my outburst. My own target is about to kill me, and this is it. No one’s covering me. No one can save me. I might be able to take him in hand-to-hand combat, but not if he’s backed up by the remaining security guards in the lobby.

“I’m sorry,” I say, lowering my voice to a seductive tone. “I didn’t mean it, Jamie. Of course I love you. I killed your father because I thought it was what you wanted—”

Jamie slams me into the wall without warning, knocking the wind out of me, his body flattening against mine. I can feel him against me, hard with rage, his eyes searching my face as his fingers tighten around my throat. Even though he didn’t want me to kill his father, he’s turned on by the fact that I did. And he still feels that attraction to me, that desire to feel me tremble underneath his lips and his touch and his warm, warm tongue. I can see it now. All Jamie’s ever wanted was to feel an aberrant submit to him physically. Even when we were supposedly dating, when he still respected my boundaries, this was his endgame. He was always going to do it whether I wanted him to or not. But we both know that if he allows me to live right now, he’ll die because of it.

I’ve finally tipped over the line between sexy dangerous and actually dangerous.

And yet Jamie doesn’t retrieve a weapon. He doesn’t tear off my clothes. Instead he leans down and kisses me, his lips meeting mine in a sear of rage and fury. It feels brutally red-hot at first, his mouth pressing against mine with too much force, his teeth scraping at my poisoned lips with vicious anger. But after a few seconds, the kiss begins to deepen into something more intense, and I can feel the brunt of his emotions being released into the kiss between us, only to be replaced by a desire to be inside me.

It’s enough that he hasn’t realized my lips aren’t electric.

My instinct is to struggle against him, but I know he believed my cover story about electrocuting anyone who kisses me for too long. Jamie doesn’t want to die, and he’s not about to force himself onto me with his security guards waiting nearby and his father’s body lying only a few feet away. No, this is it. This is all that’s ever going to happen between us. As far as he knows, I’ll just remain a memory in the back of his mind, a forbidden fruit he thinks about whenever he sleeps with someone else. A fantasy. A moment we could have had together, if I hadn’t been so intent on killing him.

What he doesn’t know is that I’ve already killed him.

Jamie pulls away from me and retrieves a leather flask from his pocket. When he uncaps it, I almost gag from the sheer odor of whiskey and cyanide wafting up from inside. Still pressing me against the wall, he holds the flask to my lips and says, “Drink.”