Like somehow that call is more important than finding out what I need. It’s not. Not anymore. Because for this second, I have enough adrenaline coursing through my body to form words instead of excuses. For this second, I’m a SuperSoldier with a conscience, clutching his vibranium shield.

“Hi, Dad,” I say, pushing into his office before I lose my nerve.

“I’ll have to call you back,” he says, and I didn’t realize he had his Bluetooth thing in his ear. I hate those things; they make everybody look like sci-fi movie rejects. Nobody even uses them anymore except my dad and people like him, probably because they’re also the only ones who even make phone calls anymore.

He pulls the device out and drops it onto the desk beside him. There are papers all spread across it, and he closes a file with a hard thud and then picks up his glass of scotch. “Okay, you have my attention.” He leans against the desk a little bit, his legs angling out, taking up as much space as humanly possible. “What’s so important that you had to interrupt me on a call to our German financiers?”

And I know I shouldn’t be excited just by the thought of having his attention for once, his undivided attention, which I don’t think I’ve had even once since I was born—stolen from German financiers, no less—but I am.

I am.

God, I am so screwed up.

“This is wrong,” I say. And that wasn’t how I meant to open, but it’ll do. I tuck my hands behind my back and lean against the wall and hope my opening volley was a good one.

He blinks and then lets out a little sigh. “I wondered why you’ve been feeding us bogus reports. I should have anticipated this. You’ve always been the emotional one.” He runs his hand over his chin. “It’s just business, Ridley, glorified market research, nothing more.”

“You knew?”

“I thought threatening to send you back to Seattle would bring you around.”

Awesome, so his threat was actually a business strategy. He literally does not care. I swallow hard—I can’t worry about that now—and steady my course.

“They’re good people.”

He turns around, shuffling some papers on his desk. “Why does that matter?”

“Screwing with good people is wrong.” I can’t believe I even have to explain this to him. This is like Being Human 101.

“Is that what you’ve been doing?”

“That’s what you’re making me do!”