“She killed your parents,” Adam finished for her, clearly starting to see the big picture. “So, you took on her identity and embedded yourself in Volkov’s organization to find her and stop Dominion on your own.”
“Yes and no,” she said, forcing her hands to stay loose in her lap. “Jay is the only person who has the code for the lock, so nobody but him could control Dominion. I was there to keep him safe until I could get him the codes he needed to destroy it.”
“But I thought you already had the codes.”
She shook her head. “I wish I did, Davis. Unfortunately, Maya stole the kill switch from my room seven years ago when she took a piece of artwork that didn’t belong to her.”
“A drawing,” Jay said. “A black rose. I saw you working on it in your journal.”
“Yep.” Her eyes welled with tears at the memories flooding her, and Jesus Christ, now was not the time to spring an emotional leak.
“So, why didn’t you take it back?” Davis asked. “The kill switch, I mean.”
“Well, at the time, my relationship with Maya was already…thorny. She had no idea Jay had asked me to help with the assignment by coding the key, and neither one of them knew about the kill switch. So when Professor Keating shut down the project, and the theory behind Dominion remained just that—a speculative, unproven, and improbable hypothesis, there was no need for the lock, the key, or the kill switch. We didn’t know the research had been taken over by the government or that it had been appropriated by multiple international agencies.”
“So how do you know she still has the drawing?” Cody asked.
“Because she had the black rose tattooed onto her left shoulder before she burned my journal and everything in it. Her way of taking something that belonged to me and making it her own.”
“Don’t you have the same tattoo?” Gray asked.
“Yes,” Becca replied. “Same image, different lines. I embedded the code in the original sketch—every stroke mattered. Without it, the key is lost.”
“Do you know where she had the tattoo done?” Cody asked. “The artist would’ve had to make a stencil—maybe they still have the digital file they used to print the transfer?”
She shook her head. “That was the first place I checked when I found out Dominion had been successfully engineered. Unfortunately, Maya had already spent years wiping out every digital trace of herself. The only replica of the original is inked in her skin.”
“I still don’t get it,” Gray said. “If Maya doesn’t know she has the kill switch or that you coded the key, then why take on her identity and risk being caught infiltrating Volkov’s organization?”
“Because to protect Jay, she needed to be in a place Maya couldn’t find her.” Adding to the conversation for the first time, Chase looked across the table, his dark eyes piercing her with a level of understanding only those lost in an all-consuming love could comprehend. “Helluva dangerous risk you took.”
Becca shrugged her shoulder, feigning a level of calmness she didn’t feel. “Once the codes for Dominion were combined and the virus became a viable weapon, Johnson, Volkov, the Imperium—they all wanted Jay. Maya knew the easiest way to find him would be through me. I couldn’t let that happen, so I took the best option available and became her.”
“Becca!” Voice infused with fear, anger, or something along the lines of general shock and disbelief, Jay stared at her in horror.
Tattoos peeking out from the cuff of the sweatshirt she wore, she pulled the sleeve down. “Once I looked like Maya, it didn’t take much to convince Volkov to come after me.”
“Let me get this straight,” Cody said. “You spent the last two-and-a-half years on Big Diomede pretending to be your evil twin while simultaneously trying to find her, protect Jay, and destroy Dominion and the Imperium Council from the inside.”
Hands clenched in her lap, Becca didn’t dare look at Jay as she bit the corner of her lip to keep it from trembling.
“Holy shit!” Gray said. “You’re either a diabolical genius, and a total badass rolled into one, or completely fucking insane.”
“Grace!” Adam barked.
“What?” She barked back. “It’s true. Who knows where we’d be today if she hadn’t taken the risks she did. She bought us time and gave us a chance before we even knew what we were up against. We should be baking her a cake and thanking her with flowers and a ticker tape parade before we shove her straight back into the fire.”
“Grace!” Adam barked again.
“What?” she demanded. “You’re all thinking the same thing. I’m just the one with the balls big enough to say it.”
“Are you out of your fucking mind?” Jay pinned his angry black gaze on Gray. “If you think I’d let the JTT use Rebecca as bait, you don’t know me at all.”
“She’s right, Jay.” Becca laid her hand on his forearm and felt the tension in his body echo all the way down to her bones. “With the US election all but a formality after Johnson murdered the VP, Volkov escalated his timeline. Three days ago, he gave me…well, Maya…whatever.” She flapped her hand and shook her head to clear it. “He gave us five days to find you or crack the code on the lock. He’s up to something, and whatever it is, it’s not sanctioned by the Imperium.”
“So all of this was for nothing?” Davis blurted, his skin turning ashen as he anchored his worried gaze on Becca. “I mean, not the rescuing you part, but the rest of it. Volkov’s going to unleash Dominion, and that’s the beginning of the end, right?”
“Yes and no,” she replied again, wishing she could ease his fears, and doing her best to explain. “After Alexsandr gave the five-day order, I escalated my own plans by giving my sister a way to find me, then I uploaded an advanced polymorphic virus into the mainframe. When the JTT showed up a day later, I thought Maya had come for me with an army of Johnson’s men, so I activated the ghost script.”
