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"Look, dude, you were fucking insane, OK? We couldn’t bring you in until we knew you’d snap out of it And you did So she brought you here"

"No" I shake ood, isn’t she?"

"You set me up, Smurf?"

"Sorry," she says But she’s pretty proud of herself froure out if you were insane or not Merc did send you to get me But so did the Admiral And Merc did send me out to the prairie to wait you out But so did the Ad you, James He told me to kill you and that’s why he told you to killHarper off was a bad idea, but we really did need to get rid of her"

I scrub my hand down my face as I process all this "And you let ain and they both stop se in e in thehter "You were not supposed to see her"

"That’s bullshit The fucking Admiral sent me to the beach to watch her"

"He sent you to the beach so you’d buuy a visit before you arrived"

"More bullshit! I told you on the phone before I ever went to the beach that I failedup onAnd I didn’t I’ve got , you know that But the next day I took a trip down to SoCal and took care of your business"

"Was it One?" I ask

"Is One dead?" Merc quips back I just give him a snide look "Obviously it was not One" He waits to see if I’ll take another guess but I don’t "It was Eight"

"So all those assassinate-the-assassin jobs I did over the past two years?"

He shrugs "Setups, I guess I really have no idea, Tet They wanted them to appear dead, but not be dead You tell me You know these Company people I don’t I have no clue how they think other than they want to get rid of ie, my friend," Merc says "Someone else wants to take over Think about it Harper poisons all those higher-ups when she makes her escape You pick off your brother--for real," he adds "Then you find Harper and trail her like a good dog One barges in and steals her file in the last second Why?"

"They don’t trust hs "Would you trust you?"

"Whatever"

"I mean, I wouldn’t trust you for shit" His smile says otherwise "But I don’t think that’s the reason I don’t think they know about this file we have" He looks over to Sasha "What do you think?"

She looks stunned that he wants her opinion And why not ask her? She seems to be the one with all the answers, whether she wants to have them or not Her expression becomes sad Her eyes droop "They know They killed my dad for it"