Wasted Lust - JA Huss Page 0,2

no amount of money—not new mothers and fathers, not new friends and schools, or college degrees, or even the simple satisfaction that comes from my grad school research—can make up for it. None of that can fix the fact that I lost.

My father is dead. Mother dead. Grandparents dead. Home gone. And Nick—the one thing I held onto after the Company took my childhood away and turned me into a murderer—left me behind. Left me all alone. Because only a Company kid can understand what I am. We don’t walk the edge, we live on the other side of it.

Harper has James. Merc wasn’t a Company kid, but he was a Company assassin. And Sydney has him to keep the crazy at bay. So good for them. I’m glad they have each other.

But I’ve been alone on the other side of things for ten years because my partner left me. And yeah, I’m tired of it. I want my past back. And just a glimmer of the future I was promised and denied, just one more conversation with Nick, would be worth it for me.

But if this agent thinks I will sell my soul to the government to see Nick Tate again, he’s wrong. I’m not a snitch. So if he wants to play a game of cat-and-mouse with me, fine. I’m in.

“I’d like to leave now.” I fold my arms over my chest and zone him out. I don’t even hear him as he uses the next thirty minutes trying to persuade me.

He threatens me with a forty-eight-hour hold, felonies that list into the dozens, and a visit to my grad school mentor at University of Kansas.

That last part is the only thing that gives me pause. My mentor is cool. I chose her for a reason when I decided to take KU’s grad school offer. She thinks the world of me and I’d hate for her to find out I’m such a lowlife piece of shit.

But it can’t be helped. I am stone, that’s how firm I am in this. There is no way in hell I will work with the corrupt FBI to take down the only person I ever called a partner.

If Nick Tate is looking for me, then I can make myself available without any help from this asshole.

“Sasha,” Agent Jax says calmly. He’s switching tactics. “Please.”

I shake my head and laugh.

“I don’t know your whole story—”

“You don’t know shit.” My calm is fading just as his is building. I stare up at him, the rage finally getting to me. “You don’t know shit. And whatever it is you think you do know is not even a fraction of what’s happening.”

“I know about the Company, Sasha.”

“Do you want a medal?” Snide and sarcastic Sasha is threatening to come out right now, and I’ve spent all ten of the years between then and now trying to rein her in. This Jax guy is bad news. Bad in every way.

I don’t want that girl to come back. I don’t want to feel these feelings. I don’t want that anger and hate to build inside me to the point of overflowing. So I take a deep breath. I don’t care about the things I’ve gained since Nick left. I love my family and I enjoy my work, but the only gift I got out of all that loss is this girl I became. I am strong, and rational, and normal.

I exhale that breath and say, “I can’t help you. I don’t know that man anymore and I have no intention of seeing him again. And that’s the end of it.” I tip my chin up and set my jaw, making sure he knows this is final. “Arrest me. I will bail myself out. Follow me, bug my apartment, threaten me with twenty-four-hour surveillance. I don’t care. I have nothing to hide. I’m not going to get dragged into some government sting operation just to satisfy your curiosity or give you some upper hand in whatever political war you think you’re fighting.”

He sighs, looking at me from across the table. I see a lot of things in his gaze. Frustration, mostly. “I’m going to do all that, you know. Aside from the arrest.”

“It’s your game, Agent. Not mine. Do whatever you have to do. If you’re not going to arrest me, then I’d like to leave now so I can pick up my luggage before someone at baggage claim steals it.”

“Do you have a ride home?”

“I don’t need a