Again, I momentarily found myself at a loss for words. He had worried that his previous life was worse than the one he had been shoved into under Brock’s guidance, but it turned out to be exactly the same. More or less, at least. Still, this was good. It meant he was fighting against the system. It meant he stood a chance to get out of it entirely. “What happened?” I inquired gently.
“Clients began asking for me specifically. My reputation expanded. Brock’s…” He gave a slight shrug. “Didn’t.”
I observed the oddly hypnotic movement as his finger circled the edge of the chip.
“I remember specific kills now.” His voice dropped lower, something dangerous threading through it. “A casino owner who eliminated competitors in Monaco. A judge who sentenced innocents in Buenos Aires.” A muscle jumped in his jaw. “With each contract, Brock grew more resentful. Bitter that I was becoming the name people feared, not him.”
The tremor returned to my hand, but it was unrelated to Brock’s compounds this time. I clenched my fist to steady it. “So he betrayed you.”
Reaper confirmed with a nod, his gaze unfocused. “After a high-profile job in Rio. We were counting shares when he walked in with two men I didn’t recognize. He looked me straight in the eye and said, ‘You’re worth more to me as property than as a partner.’”
My breath hitched. “That’s when he sold you to Oblivion?”
“I got one hand on my weapon before the tranquilizer hit. As I went down, I told him, ‘I will remember this. And I will find you.’” Reaper’s voice had turned icy. “He merely smiled and said, ‘Where you’re going, you won’t remember anything at all.’”
I suppressed a shudder. The calculated cruelty of it—to strip someone of their identity, their memories, their very self—was more horrifying than a simple murder.
I stretched across the table and clasped his hand. His skin felt warm against mine. “But you did remember. Eventually, you remembered. You came out of it as a winner.”
“This hardly feels like a win. For now, at least.” He glanced down at our connected hands. “The conditioning couldn’t eliminate everything. Skills remained when memories vanished. Physical training. Languages. Tactical assessment.” He looked at our plates. “Even the trivial things like cooking.”
“And the chip?” I questioned.
A faint smile crossed his face. “My talisman. Won in my professional game in Macau. Carried it with me for every assignment afterward. They took everything else—my name, my past, even my face felt wrong in reflections—but somehow this has stayed with me.”
I was struck by how fundamentally different he seemed now—more present, more connected. He wasn’t completely whole, but the fragmented man I first encountered was integrating before my eyes, becoming something neither fully Reaper nor entirely the man he was before.
“These memories,” I said carefully, “aren’t they causing you pain like before?”
He shook his head. “It’s like a dam breaking. Once the first cracks appeared, everything started flowing back.” His eyes met mine. “And it all started with you, Maeve. Your presence, your voice—something about you weakened their barriers.”
“Not much of a Reaper anymore, are you?” I squeezed his hand. “You’re becoming someone with a past. A history.”
“I’m not sure who that makes me now,” he admitted. “Not fully Reaper, not fully who I was before.”
“Maybe that’s okay,” I suggested. “Maybe you get to decide who you become.” My hand tightened around his. “You need time to decide what direction to go in, and that’s perfectly fine. Don’t strain yourself. Don’t rush. You’ve already done such a big part of coming back.”
He contemplated this, turning the poker chip over in his fingers once more before tucking it away. “Time is one thing I feel like I’m running out of. And now I have a score to settle with Brock too.”
I fell silent as the implications of his returning memories settled between us. Two predators with history, one stripped of identity and remade into something else, now regaining what was stolen. There was something terrifying in it—what happens when an assassin trained and enhanced by Oblivion remembers exactly who to blame?
My mind kept racing.Oblivion.Each time I merely thought about it, a chill ran through me involuntarily, as if the word alone was the announcement of something far beyond what any of us could imagine.
“I think… I think the Marionette Project isn’t the only thing we need to worry about. Oblivion stands behind it. And God knows what they’re up to,” I murmured. During my capture, it felt like the Marionette Project was merely a tiny piece of a puzzle in the grand scheme of things. Reaper remained silent, letting me continue. “It’s the umbrella organization that took over the project after the government abandoned it.” I leaned forward, resting my elbows on the table. “I’d been looking for months and never found that name in any of my research. Brock mentioned it, but it looked like he regretted it immediately.”
“What did Brock tell you?” he asked.
“Not much. He said they weren’t just creating assassins—they were ‘reshaping human potential.’ Called it ‘necessary evolution.’”
“Justifying torture as advancement.” Reaper’s lips curled with disgust. “Classic megalomaniac rhetoric.”
The tremor returned to my hand, but this time it was anger, not weakness. I clenched my fist to steady it. “They talk about conditioning like it’s ascension instead of violation. Like they’re doing their subjects a favor by stripping away their humanity.” I took a breath, recalling the strange shift in Brock’s demeanor. “Brock also mentioned someone above him—they call him ‘The Director.’”
“Not by name?” Reaper asked, watching me carefully.
“No. He said this person ‘prefers to remain theoretical to those outside the inner circle.’” I paused, remembering the most unsettling part of that conversation. “But what was strange was Brock’s reaction when he talked about him.”
“Howso?”
