Page 86 of Ravens
“You know that’s not what I want,” York says quietly.
I raise my brows. “Do you honestly think I give a shit what you want now? I will never fall under your dominion the way you want, and I was never going to stay, not for you.” My eyes shift to William. “Not for any of you.”
“You’re making a mistake,” William says, still holding my attention. “We want you on the team, Tripoli. That’s the offer.”
“There is no room on this team, and I can’t trust any of you.”
Carter pushes his chair back without a word and stands.
Startling me, I back away and swing the gun back to him. He ignores me, walking around behind August’s unconscious body and pulling him upright. I watch as he grabs his head and twists it violently.
The crack of August’s neck is loud in the quiet room, and my eyes widen as his lifeless body collapses to the floor heavily. My eyes flick to Carter warily as he sits back down like nothing happened. I may have been wrong about his desire to be more removed from the killing. York and William don’t flinch.
“There.” William shrugs. “We made room on the team for you.”
York stands cautiously, and I stand in place dumbfounded. “You have a skill set we can use. Between the four of us, we can manage the tech side of things, but we can’t do what you do. We can’t play the roles you do.”
William and Carter get up, Carter going into the kitchen as William comes around to stand in front of me beside York.
“The honeypot was honeypotted,” William says, gently pushing my gun down to point at the floor. “But we know you’re more than that. We just needed to see it.”
“Jesus,” I say under my breath as my head swims.
It’s hard to ignore the pang in my chest as I stare at York. I knew they weren’t being completely honest with me. I suspected some acting was going on, but I thought I figured it out . . . I never suspected York was playingmygame. He would have made an excellent Raven.
“Impressive work,” I say dryly.
“Many things I said were true,” he murmurs, glancing down at August. “I do want you towantto stay . . . but I thought for certain you’d pull the trigger onhimlong before we’d have to.” My breath catches as his eyes come back to mine. He smiles slightly. “I lost that bet.”
They were trying to bait me into killing August from the start? That’s so fucking twisted.
“But I may have misled you with the whole domination angle . . . In fact, we misled you with a lot of things. Most of the conclusions you arrived at about us were the conclusions we wanted you to arrive at.”
“We aren’t sleepers,” William says in a perfect British accent. It sounds so out of place with the way he looks and because I’ve grown accustomed to the Texan twang. Can’t say I like the change. “And we don’t have government resources at our disposal because we aren’t affiliated with them in any . . . official capacity.”
“Mercenaries,” I surmise.
“Contractors,” York amends. “The Director was a contract that came to us."
“Who put out the hit on Russel?”
“The White House,” Carter says as he comes back in with garbage bags. “They looked into the Raven Program after the Venice incident went wide and wanted it shut down.”
“The other Ravens?” I look at William.
“Alldead.”
“So, this whole time, I’ve been the end game? You were setting me up to kill one of you— obviously you wanted it to be August—and it was all atest?”
“A tryout,” Carter confirms as he bends down. “Technically, it was a tryout that youfailed, but August had to go regardless. We have our reasons.”
“She may not have had the balls to kill August, but she killed that agent to protect me,” York says with a shrug. “That’s a pass in my eyes.”
“Theballs?” I grind out loudly. “I’ve known you for a week and killed two people. A week! I went seven years without having to resort to that.”
The level of manipulation . . . layers on layers of it that I couldn’t see at all. My hand tightens on the pistol grip. The things he said to me and the things I wanted to believe…the things I thought I could maybe feel for him . . .
“You only killed one person,” York corrects.
