Page 54 of Toxic Salvation
“How can I let my child be raised by a man who thinks it’s acceptable to steal organs from dying patients?”
She falls silent, processing this. “Fuck. You have a point.”
“I need proof, Char.” The desperation in my own voice surprises me. “I need hard evidence that Kovan is really shutting down the Keres operation. If I have that, I can believe him.”
“How are you planning to find this evidence?”
“I don’t know yet. But I’m sure as hell not going to find it by playing by the rules.”
Charity gives me a skeptical look. “V, honey, I love you, but you’re a play-by-the-rules kind of girl. We both know that.”
“I thought so, too,” I admit quietly. “And then my mother got sick.”
“What are you saying?”
I hesitate, but we’ve come this far, so there’s no turning back now. Time to lay all my sins out there. “Remember when I told you that the experimental clinical trial revised their criteria and Mom suddenly qualified?”
“Yes…”
“I lied.” I let my head hang low. “I told you that just so you wouldn’t judge me for what I actually did.”
“Oh my God, V. What did you do?”
“I tampered with her medical records. I falsified documents so she would meet the trial criteria.”
“Vesper!” Charity recoils. “Those clinical trials have strict FDA oversight. If anyone finds out?—”
“The hospital is screwed. The doctors are screwed. And I’m screwed.” I nod grimly. “Yeah. I knew exactly what the consequences could be. Just like I knew what I was doing when I hacked into the hospital database and changed another patient’s stats so they’d be dropped from the trial to make room for Mom.”
Charity stares at me in stunned silence, her hand covering her mouth.
“I know what you’re thinking,” I continue, blinking back tears. “You’re thinking I’m a horrible person and that Kovan and I deserve each other.”
For a long moment, she doesn’t say anything. Then she reaches across the table and covers my hand with hers. “Actually, what I was thinking was that you must really love your mother.” She takes a shaky breath. “And it’s not the same thing, V. What you did was to save your mother’s life. What he potentially did—if he really did it—was for money and power. It’s different.”
“Thank you for saying that.”
“But babe, you’re in way over your head right now. You’re making moral compromises left and right, and that’s just not you. Maybe you should take a step back and think about this rationally?”
“I can’t! I have to know if the father of my child is leading this operation or trying to stop it.”
“And if he’s trying to stop it?”
My chest tightens as I meet her eyes. “Then maybe there’s hope for us yet.”
“And if he’s not?”
I don’t answer, but we both know what that means. If Kovan is lying to me, if he’s the monster I’m terrified he might be, then I’ll have to walk away from the only man I’ve ever loved.
Even if it destroys me.
20
KOVAN
“Hey!” Pavel double-takes as we pass the planned stop. “You just missed it. Now, we’ll have to drive all the way down to make the U-turn and?—”
“Will you shut the fuck up? I didn’t miss the house; I drove past it on purpose.”
