"Absolutely Not."

Chapter 47: Greed

The whole room stilled.

Dumbfounded and unbelievably angry, I glared at him, hoping holes would begin to form in his body, letting him bleed out the transgressions he had accomplished for the sake of 'the greater good'. Graves' greater good.

"I said," I spoke through gritted teeth, "what the fuck did you just say, Austin?"

Every fiber in my body felt as though they'd become coiled up electric wires, and I hoped I had heard him wrong as I didn't have the mental capacity to see another person die. At least, for right now.

"She didn't suffer for long," he replied finally, realizing his mistake. His eyes were wide with worry, his shoulders taut. However much he wanted to probably bite his tongue off, he'd already exposed the truth.

He continued despite the fact that I really didn't want him to, "Once she told us what she knew in the broken English she spoke, her death was made to look like natural causes."

I was almost vibrating as the anger boiled over, and everything I perceived slowly became saturated with the color red.

On my tongue, I tasted the ghosts of the tea she made me after flushing my body of what Simon and I created in Manchester. Dandelion, peppermint, and lavender danced on my tongue as I remembered Alina's brews, concoctions to soothe and calm.

Something that I could probably have used right then other than a shot of whiskey.

And as much as I wanted to break in front of him, I refused. It was what he wanted from me, to lose my composure, but that would have meant his win — my loss.

My fault.

"You killed an innocent civilian," I seethed. My words billowed out as if I had turned into a dragon, syllables transforming into smoke, and I wished for a giant maw so I could chew him up in one big bite. "You killed someone who didn't deserve to die."

Reeling in my anger, I had to physically ball my good hand into a tight fist, the whites of my knuckles a testament to how much I was having to restrain. I didn't think anyone would bat an eye to me giving Austin a broken jaw, but then he wouldn't be able to talk anymore.

"So?" He replied. "Not like either of us haven't killed an innocent civilian in the process of having to do our job."

I shook my head at him. "I've never interrogated an innocent person and then killed them. You've gotta be some sort of fucked up to do that. No wonder you're still on Graves' side."

He narrowed his eyes at him as if he had any power in this room. "At least I'm not a fucking coward."

"I'd rather be a coward than be without a soul."

"And I'd rather die without being known as a mole."

"You're an idiot for thinking that way."

With a shrug, he didn't say anything else.

I didn't regret it, turning my back on the Shadow Company. However, I did regret running. That, would haunt me until the day I died.

"She didn't deserve it," I spoke, returning to what now filled my stomach up with a familiar rage. "The old lady you killed. Did you even know her name? How many children she had? What she did for a living? Or did you not care?"

I paused before I continued, "Or did you think it would weigh heavily on your conscience if you knew all of those things?"

I wanted to scream.

At him. For Alina. About this situation.

"I didn't give a shit about her. Why would I want to know anything about some old gieser who barely knew English?"