Sloane stormed over to the table and slammed his hands against the surface. “Shut up, or I’ll make you shut up!”
Dex put his hand to Sloane’s back, feeling his muscles tense under his fingers. “Don’t listen to him. He’s just trying to manipulate you.”
“I’m simply presenting the facts,” Shultzon assured them gently.
“Yeah, the ones which conveniently take the focus off you and what you did. If even half of what you’re saying is true and my mother didn’t say anything, there was a reason.”
Shultzon shrugged. “I threatened to dismiss her, but surely the lives of all those children were worth more than a paycheck.”
“Isn’t it just so damned handy that you can trivialize her actions since she’s not here to give her side of the story,” Dex ground out. “And why is that? Right. Because you had her killed! She’s not the villain here. You are.”
“You still don’t get it, do you, Dexter?”
“That you’re out of your fucking mind? Yeah, I got the memo about that a while ago.”
“Do you truly believe Therians and Humans will simply accept each other and move on? Humans believe Therians are a threat to them, and Therians believe Humans have had their
day as the dominant species. It’s a volcano waiting to erupt, and when it does, the casualties will be vast. Gina and John Daley were casualties of a war they had yet to understand, and you, my dear boy, are here to finish what they started.”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
Shultzon smiled wickedly. “Everything will be revealed in time.”
“No.” Dex shook his head and thrust a finger at Shultzon. “You’re hiding something. I know it.”
“Fate has placed you on this path, Dexter. Your parents’ death set off a chain of events that is still in play, with you at its center. Nothing is as it seems, and everything is as it should be.”
Dex lunged forward, only to have a TIN operative grab him, haul him off his feet, and drop him by the door near Sparks. Dex was livid. With a growl he pushed himself away from the mountainesque bear Therian.
“Get off me.” He turned to Sparks. “I’m not done here.”
Sparks grabbed his arm and dragged him outside the room. “Go home and get some rest. I need to verify some intel. This is as far as we can go today.”
“Fuck that. He knows way more than he’s letting on.” Dex paced the white hall outside the interrogation room. “Fuck him and his cryptic messages. All he’s given me is more questions, and that’s what he wants, to jerk me around. He’s fucking with us, and I’m going to put a stop to it.” Dex made to move past her when two TIN operatives blocked his path. Were they fucking serious?
“Dex, go home,” Sparks ordered. “I’ll notify you the moment I have more information.”
“Fine. Then I’m going to find that damned file, and I’m going to ask my dad.”
“Absolutely not.”
“Are you fucking kidding me? If anyone knows anything about where that file might be, it’s Tony.”
Sparks’s expression turned hard, her voice clipped. “Make the necessary inquiries without alerting Sergeant Maddock. Find the file yourself. You are an agent after all, aren’t you, Agent Daley? Or are you incapable of completing this task without running to daddy?”
Dex threw his arms up in frustration. “That’s ridiculous. We have a lead, and you want me to go around my ass to get to my elbow?”
Sparks arched an eyebrow at him. “I see you’ve been having dinner with Darla and Calvin Summers. I hear Darla’s pecan pie is transcendent.”
“What?”
“That expression. It’s Southern. Calvin learned it from his mother.”
Dex opened his mouth to reply, then closed it. When had his life become so fucking unbelievable? There was no point in arguing further. Sparks had made her decision, and the golems were planted firmly at the door. It was over. For today anyway.
THE SILENCE was deafening.
They were driven home by Sparks’s operatives, and during the entire ride, neither Sloane nor Dex said a word, each of them lost in his own thoughts. When they got in, Sloane walked to the kitchen, intent on getting something to drink, but he never made it to the fridge. Shultzon’s words rang in his head, and he stopped at the counter. He felt sick to his stomach, but he did his best to push away the nausea. For years he’d tried to bury his past, foolishly thinking he’d succeeded, believing he’d left it behind when he met Gabe. His life spiraled out of control after Gabe’s death, but again he managed to wade through the grime and toxic pain. His life changed when he met Dex. He’d changed.