Wherever It Leads(82)

Watching his face pull together, reminiscent of being in pain, my heart cracks. I hate seeing him like this, unsmiling, unjoyful. And I have to remember why he feels this way and not go to him, comfort him like I want to, even now.

“I don’t know where to start,” he laments.

I wait for him to continue, to look at me, to say something, but he doesn’t. All that comes out of him are tension-filled exhales and that’s not getting us anywhere.

“Tell me this,” I say, my voice sounding way more controlled than I feel. “Why does that envelope say Nzou on it?”

His gaze snaps to mine, his face ashen. He starts to come around the island, but for every step he takes towards me, I take one back.

“Brynne . . .”

“Why?”

Both hands on the counter, he eyes me warily. “Nzou is my company. I own it.”

My entire body goes weak, my shoulders slumping forward. It makes no sense. “Did you know that’s the name of the company my brother works for? It’s the parent company of his contractor. Of Mandla. Did you know that?”

Again—silence. But he doesn’t have to respond because his silence says it all.

He knew.

Of course he knew. He had to know.

I, too, hold myself steady with both hands against the counter. “Fenton, I . . . I don’t understand.”

“Your brother . . . Brady,” he gulps, “he’s employed by Mandla, a subsidiary of Nzou.”

“I . . . how . . .” The room spins, wobbles, shakes as I try to force the information into a puzzle that makes sense. “I don’t understand.”

“Mandla is a security company working in Zimbabwe.”

I think I’m going to pass out.

My eyes clamp shut to stop the room from rolling and to stop myself from having to watch his reaction. I need words. Only words. Only the truth.

“This can’t be happening,” I mutter, resting my head against my forearms.

“Mandla was a company of my mother’s. She was from Zimbabwe, from a family of British immigrants. My father met her there on a hunt, like I told you.”

“Pardon my lack of manners,” I say, popping my head up, “but I don’t care about your parents right f*cking now.”

“Right. Okay. So Mandla was my mother’s way of pumping my father’s money back into her home country. It was a humanitarian-only company at first, but after she died, we had a group of our people fired on by insurgents. A couple of them died. It’s gotten really murky there in recent years. I knew I was going to have to provide better security for our workers, so I expanded our repertoire to include security as a whole.”

“Fenton,” I sigh, irritation thick in my voice. “Cut to the chase.”

“Brady went with us as a medic in the humanitarian aspect of the mission. Just like you already know, he was helping an injured child when he was abducted.”

The pain on his face matches mine. It’s a cool, twisted vision of grief and I wonder why, exactly, he’s hurt. Does he know more than he’s letting on? Is he sick about having to come clean? Did he know my brother?

“I . . . oh my God,” I sigh, my eyes filling with tears. Anger keeps them from spilling over, an intensity that just builds. “How long have you known who I am?”

“Not long,” he swears, his voice abnormally steady.

“Why didn’t you tell me this?”

“I tried. I wanted to tell you, Brynne, but I was afraid—”

“Afraid of what?” I say, feeling the fury roll through my veins. I latch on to it, grab on to the feeling of being bamboozled by this good-looking liar. “Afraid of telling me the truth? Afraid of telling me you’re the one that left my brother to die?”

“No, Brynne, no . . .” He comes towards me, but I hold up a hand and laugh in his face.

“Don’t come near me,” I seethe. My words pound into him and he takes them with every ounce of the insult I injected. I can see them sear into his consciousness, burn a hole in his heart, and I hope it hurts like hell. “How dare you? How dare you . . . I don’t even know how to put it into words!” I shout. “Are you some kind of sadist?”

“Brynne, stop,” he pleads.

“You stop. I can’t even process this!”

Everything is rocking in my head—ideas, thoughts, possibilities, theories smashing into one side and then the other. I can’t make sense of any of it.

I watch his features fall, his shoulders slump forward as he watches me work through this information. All I know is that I hate him. I hate him in so, so many ways.

I pick up my phone and type in a text to Presley. I get a reply immediately that says she’s on her way.

“When did you know?” I ask, biting the side of my cheek. The pain is quick and welcome, offsetting the numbness that threatens to overtake me.

“When your mother called in Vegas,” he chokes out. “You told me Brady’s story and I started to put two and two together.”

“That’s why we came home?”

He nods.

“How could you do this to me, Fenton? How? How could you let me . . .” My lip quivers, the anger evaporated. The look on his face starts to break me and I won’t let that happen.

Running into the master, I shut the door behind me. I need space. I need privacy. I need to go home.