Read Online Great Exploitations (Crisis in Cali) by Nicole Williams - Free Book Online Page B

could hardly murder my mother and claim self-defense, I focused my anger and energy on taking down the agency that’d had a hand in ruining my life.”
    I peaked an eyebrow. “This all happened while you were busy putting together a multi-billion dollar company as well?”
    He gave me a sheepish smile. “I didn’t sleep much.”
    “To do what you’ve done in this little time, I’d also guess you figured out a way to slow time.”
    The corners of his eyes creased. “Time moved slowly enough back then—I wasn’t interested in slowing it down anymore.”
    The plane started to roll down the runway, slow and steady. I had yet to thoroughly process what had happened over the last twenty-four hours and where the plane was heading, but nothing seemed more important at that moment than patching together those dark pieces of our pasts. “Your whole plan was to expose and bring down the Eves?” As I asked it, I realized I’d not been the only one bent on revenge for five years.
    “That was my plan, yes. In the back of my mind, I think I was hoping that wherever you were, whatever you were doing, if you’d only just catch a clip of the evening news or glance at a front-page article or see it stamped across a magazine exposing the Eves and what they’d done to me, that I’d finally be able to explain what had happened and that maybe, maybe you’d come back to me.”
    “You were going to expose them to the whole world,” I stated.
    “I wasn’t going to rest until every last person in the English-speaking world knew what the Eves were and how they operated.” His fingers curled around the armrest whitened as he gripped it.
    “And is this the part where I assume you figured out I didn’t only know about the Eves but was working for them?”
    After a moment, Henry nodded. “You didn’t just work for them. You were their best.”
    I tightened my grip on his hand, just in case. “And this made you feel . . . ? Copious amounts of rage? Betrayal? Disbelief?”
    “Relief,” he said softly. “I felt relieved.”
    My eyebrows came together. “How could you feel relief when you figured out I was working for the same entity that had ruined a chunk of your life?”
    Henry stopped staring out the window at the passing runway, and he looked into my eyes. His eyes were warm, as if they’d never known a care in the world. “Because I’d found you.” He held our hands up in indication. “The only reason I’d set my sights on outing the Eves was because I couldn’t find you, and I had to vent my need for justice somewhere or risk self-imploding. I couldn’t find you, so I found them . . . finding—ironically—you at the same time.”
    I could do nothing more than shake my head in amazement. “I don’t think I have enough lifetime left to work out that irony.”
    “Whatever lifetime is left, all I know is that I want to spend it with you.” Henry was already smiling, but when the plane’s tires left the runway, it deepened.
    That’s when I realized that I was in a plane heading to some destination I didn’t know. “So where are we going?” I leaned over him to peek out the window. Other than seeing that we were going up, I had no idea where we were. “Exactly?”
    Henry’s grin turned a hint mischievous. “That’s a surprise.”
    I could handle our destination being a surprise. Not much about this past day hadn’t been a surprise. “How long will we be gone? I’ve got only about a few hundred things I’ll need to take care of once we’re back.” Things like deciding what to tell G, figuring out what to do with my future, possibly cleaning out my desk at Callahan Industries since dating the boss seemed like a rather giant conflict of interest.
    “How long would you like to be gone?” he asked.
    It was an easy answer. “Forever.”
    Something glinted in his eyes. “That’s what I had in mind as well.”
    I waited a minute for him to add something to that statement. I waited for the dead