Page 85 of Before the Bond
Jake shrank back. “I’m just saying… She would want to know. Wouldn’t she?”
Stella couldn’t answer that.
But what Stella said was exactly why I kept it from Olivia to begin with.
Olivia was the kind of person who would put herself on the backburner if it meant she could help someone. If she knew about this —
Donovan's jaw tightened. "People die while we wait."
"And people lose more than their lives if you take the decision away from her," Stella said.
"No one goes after her."
Everyone looked at me. No one expected me to be able to talk. I forced myself upright. Maureen hovered close, ready to catch me if I tipped again.
"I don't want her to come back for that," I said. "I won't do that to her."
"You keep saying that." Donovan moved closer. He wasn't raising his voice, but each word landed like something measured and deliberate. "You keep talking about what you won't do to her. But you've been making decisions for her since the night shearrived. You decided what she needed to know. You decided the truth about her parents could wait until it detonated on its own. This is the same thing."
I didn't deny it. I had nothing to throw against it.
But it was all the reason I wouldn't budge.
Donovan stopped in front of me. He didn't crouch. He looked down at me.
"You are doing the thing you said you'd never do." His voice changed, more direct.
I would flinch if I could.
"That's different…” I murmured.
Donovan shook his head. For a moment, I saw the smallest glimpse of disappointment. "It isn't."
I was quiet.
"Tell me I'm wrong," Donovan said.
I thought about my mother's face. Drawn, listless, unable to say no to the man who loved her. I promised myself, young enough that the promise had become the foundation of everything I tried to be, that I would never become that kind of man. That I would never use a bond as a claim. That I would always ask what she wanted.
And I kept that promise in every place but the one that mattered most. I withheld the truth because I believed she couldn't bear it. Because I believed I knew what she needed better than she did.
I didn’t deserve her.
Which was exactly what my father had always believed about my mother, too.
Donovan held my gaze for another beat. Then he stepped back, slowly, like a man who had said what he came to say and was no longer interested in pressing the wound.
Stella picked up her jacket. “I’m going back to the perimeter,” she said. “We can’t lose track of their motions now.”
“Is that really the best idea?” Donovan challenged.
“I don’t see what else we can do right now,” was all she replied.
She moved to the door. No one tried to stop her.
She glanced at me. I thought I saw the smallest glimmer of an apology. It didn’t last.
Donovan stood in the middle of the room for a moment. Then he turned back to me. His expression settled back into the one he'd worn at the start of the night.
