Page 70 of Toxic Salvation
He wasn’t lying.
He really is shutting it down.
“Do you believe me now?”
I spin around in the chair. Kovan stands three feet away, hands in his pockets, watching me with an unreadable expression.
“How did you get in here?”
He holds up a silver key. “Spare.”
My brain struggles to process this. “You… you wanted me to find these files.”
“I realized you wouldn’t stop digging until you had answers,” he says. “And maybe giving you those answers wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world.”
“What took you so long to reach that conclusion?”
“I’ve never had to trust anyone with this much before.”
I close my eyes and let that sink in. I’ve been so focused on whether I could trust him that I never considered what it might costhimto trustme.
A sob escapes before I can stop it. Then another. Before I know it, I’m crying ugly, heaving tears that make my whole body shake.
“Shit,” I gasp, trying to pull myself together. “Sorry. Pregnancy hormones.”
Kovan moves around the desk and crouches in front of my chair. His office looks like a tornado hit it—papers scattered everywhere, drawers hanging open, books pulled from shelves. It’s all my doing. He doesn’t seem to care.
“Don’t apologize.”
“You probably think I’m insane.”
“I think you’re scared,” he corrects. “And I think you have every right to be.”
I wipe my nose with the back of my hand. Attractive, I’m sure. “I know what you’re thinking. I have no right to judge you when my own father was part of this. When I falsified medical records to save my mother. You’re thinking I’m a hypocrite.”
“Am I?”
“Aren’t you?”
“What I’m thinking,” he says slowly, “is that you’re the most ethical person I know. And the fact that you compromised those ethics for your mother only proves how much you love her.”
“I destroyed someone else’s chance at survival. Another patient got kicked off that trial because of what I did. He’s going to die, Kovan.”
“Cancer patients die every day, Vesper. With or without clinical trials.”
“But I took away his chance. However slim it was, I stole it from him.” Fresh tears spill down my cheeks. “I became my father.”
“No,” he says. “You’re nothing like your father.”
“How can you say that? I faked documents. I manipulated a system designed to help people. I put my family ahead of strangers who needed help just as much!”
“Your father killed innocent people for money. You bent rules to save the woman who raised you. There’s a difference.”
“Is there?”
“Yes.” He reaches up and touches my cheek, his thumb tracing the trio of small birthmarks near my temple. “You’re a good person, Vesper. Not perfect, but good.”
“Given the circles you run in, that’s not exactly a high bar.”
