“No one’s using me,” I interject forcefully, refusing to let her rewrite what’s happening. “I’m making my own choices.”
With the immediate threat contained, I turn my full attention to the woman who raised me; the stranger sitting before me with my mother’s face.
“Tell me why,” I demand, my voice breaking despite my efforts to keep it steady. “He loved you. Isawhow much he loved you.”
For a long moment, she says nothing, just studies me with clinical detachment. When she finally speaks, her voice has changed—the warm maternal tones replaced by something colder, more precise, with a hint of an accent I’ve never heard before.
“The Directorate ordered it,” she says simply, as if this explains everything. “It wasn’t my choice. He was going to expose a thirty-year operation, Lea. He’d found documents linking me to Pyongyang. He confronted me, threatened to publish everything.” She gives a small shrug. “It wasn’t personal.”
The casual dismissal of my father’s murder ignites something molten inside me. “He was your husband, and my father,” I spit out, my hands curling into fists at my sides. “You were my mother. There is nothingmorepersonal than that.”
A flicker of irritation crosses her face. “You don’t understand the bigger picture. The mission was always primary. Everything else—marriage, motherhood—those were covers, tools to establish my position. When he became a threat to the operation, he had to be removed.”
“Removed,” I repeat. The clinical term for murder makes me feel physically ill. “And what about me? Was I just part of your cover too? A convenient prop in your life as a suburban academic? Was I going to get removed too at some point?”
For the first time, she hesitates. Something that might be genuine emotion flashes across her features before disappearing behind her mask.
“At first you were part of the cover,” she admits. “But children are... complicated. They don’t stay props. They become...” She trails off, searching for a word.
“Human?” I suggest bitterly.
“Real,” she corrects. “You became real to me, Lea. That wasn’t part of the plan.”
“So real that you manipulated my entire career? That you placed me at the Journal as your asset? That you were willing to use me as a pawn against Nico?”
She doesn’t deny it, simply watches me with those cool, assessing eyes. “You have exceptional talents. I saw that early. Why wouldn’t I help shape your path toward something useful?”
“Useful to whom?” I demand, my voice rising. “To North Korea? To your handlers? To your precious Directorate?”
“To the cause,” she says, as if this should be obvious. “To building a world where American imperialism doesn’t?—”
“Stop,” I cut her off, unable to bear hearing propaganda from the lips that once sang me lullabies. “I don’t care about your justifications or your ideology. I care about your having murdered my father. That you used me. That everything—everything—about our life together was a lie.”
She regards me for a long moment, then shakes her head slightly. “Not everything, Lea. I loved you, in my way. I still do.”
The words shake me. I take a stumbling step backward, my vision blurring with tears. “Don’t,” I whisper. “Don’t you dare say that to me. Love doesn’t do what you did.”
Something shifts in her expression. “You’ve made your choice then,” she says, her voice devoid of emotion. “You’ve chosen him.” She nods toward Nico. “The man who seduced you, manipulated you, and used you just as much as I ever did.”
“The difference,” Nico interjects quietly, “is that I never pretended to be something I’m not. I never claimed to love her while plotting to sacrifice her.”
My mother’s laugh is short and bitter. “And that makes you noble? You’re a criminal, Varela. A murderer. You traffic in human misery just as I do, but you pretend there’s honor in your methods.”
“I don’t claim honor,” Nico replies evenly. “Just honesty about what I am.”
I look between them—the mother who raised me and the man who opened my eyes to the truth—and feel something final settle within me. A decision, a severing, a farewell.
“As far as I’m concerned,” I say, my voice flat, “my mother is dead. You are dead to me.”
She flinches, the first genuine reaction I’ve seen since her mask slipped. But she quickly recovers, her face smoothing into impassive lines.
“You’ll regret that sentiment,” she says softly. “When the novelty of playing criminal consort wears off, when you realize what you’ve thrown away, you’ll remember that I would have given you the world.”
“A world built on lies,” I counter. “I’d rather have the truth, no matter how ugly.”
Nico steps forward then, clearly deciding the emotional confrontation has run its course. “It’s time to go,” he says, his authority absolute. “My car is waiting downstairs. We’re going to a different location to conclude our business.”
Blake moves forward at the command, his hand now visibly on his weapon. Isabel rises with fluid grace, but my mother—no,Eunji—remains seated, her eyes fixed on me.
