Page 36 of Only the Wicked (The Sinful State #1)

Chapter Thirty

Rhodes

I push up from the bench, pop out the earbuds, and start the walk back, Nana’s words echoing in my mind.

Syd lied to me, yes. But not for greed or malice.

She’s trying to find whoever got her people killed.

If someone had targeted my team, betrayed people under my protection, wouldn’t I do anything to find them?

The difference is, I’d probably just throw money at the problem.

Hire investigators, offer rewards. Sydney?

She became the investigation. She put herself in harm’s way to get justice for people she couldn’t save. That takes courage.

Sure, I can understand the rationale in believing ARGUS is a source of leaks. I can understand why she accepted the assignment. I can even see how everything progressed over the last few days. I can get my head around forgiveness, but there will be no relationship. That’s done.

As for working with her…that I can do. I can find the leak. Finding a leak is no problem. But there’s more going on here.

Why did the FBI approach her? She’s right. They don’t cultivate assets. Did the DOJ authorize an investigation? Did someone lie to Miles so he mistakenly believed it was handled?

The timing of Alex’s IPO pressure now seems too convenient. Every week it’s another dire funding projection, another investor demanding liquidity. But what if those aren’t organic pressures? What if someone’s been manufacturing the financial crisis to force my hand? I can’t take Alex’s word for it.

I’ll trace the source, do the research myself. On both points—our financial needs and the investigation. As for the investigation, who else is watching me? Which intelligence agencies are in on this?

The agent may have recognized Sydney, which is why he confronted her, thinking a former CIA officer could be convinced to aid an investigation.

Or maybe he has no idea who she is, and the government will approach anyone in my circle.

I’ll need to update my security team back in San Francisco.

I believe they already monitor the staff, but they’ll need to take more care.

If there’s not a surveillance camera over my trash, maybe they’ll need to put one over it, just to discover if anyone’s digging through garbage. Absolute insanity .

Of course, if I do what Russia wants and make a move to buy the Forbes database, the investigations will no longer be clandestine. There are a handful of senators who will make it their mission to stop the acquisition. Political theater. Everyone seeking a payday.

If I’m successful with the acquisition? What does that look like?

The owner of secrets.

ARGUS was designed to analyze data, not collect it. The system processes and analyzes data that is supplied by our clients. The Forbes database would change everything—theoretically, it could transform my creation from a tool into a weapon by augmenting clients’ data.

Daisy has been clear about the technical integration challenges, but the ethical considerations keep me up at night.

The database contains troves of data, including every public FBI and CIA report ever released.

What happens when that information interfaces with ARGUS’s pattern recognition algorithms?

Power beyond imagination—and responsibility I never wanted.

In theory, powerful. In reality, a target by all.

I find myself back at the suite and pause at the door. Inside is a woman who deceived me, yes. But also a woman trying to honor the dead. Prevent others from dying.

I push open the door.

Keeping the company private won’t offer the protection I imagined. Not in a world where governments target me.

Hubris .

That one word calls to my subconscious.

Sydney greets me in the foyer, tentative.

“What’s going on?” Her voice is soft, her posture tentative. “Where’d you go?”

Those soft brown eyes study me—the same eyes that looked at me with what I foolishly interpreted as desire back in North Carolina. But no, those are dark, calculating eyes. Analyzing my responses, measuring my weaknesses, assessing how to get to know me.

My conscience corrects me. Her expression now seems genuinely concerned, not manufactured.

The actress and the woman—where does one end and the other begin? And why does it still matter to me?

Maybe the actress and the woman aren’t separate entities. Maybe they’re both Sydney—one who accepted a mission to find justice, and one who found something she wasn’t looking for along the way. Just like I did.

“I don’t need to know what they have over you,” she says, apparently taking a stab in the dark at my thoughts. “I trust you. You’re not a bad person. If the leak came from ARGUS, I believe you aren’t the guilty party.”

She’s correct. I’m not a bad person, but will hubris be my downfall?

“You’re scaring me. What is it? Why aren’t you speaking?”

“Do you study mythology?” She’s taken aback by my question.

She blinks and tilts her head, but she reaches for me and her touch warms my skin.

Miles mocked me for my mythology fetish—that’s what he called it. The stories remain with us for a reason, contemporary fiction’s original tropes. The themes and tales woven through all the modern religions and popular fiction because they tell the tale of our wicked ways.

“I knew nothing about mythology,” she says, “until I was assigned to you. I picked up that you have a thing for mythology and read a basic primer.”

She studied me.

And she won’t be the only one. Life as a target.

I move to the minibar, the crystal tumbler heavy in my hand as I pour three fingers of scotch.

The liquid burns a familiar path down my throat—Macallan 25, the same brand my first investor drank when we closed our initial funding round.

I’ve come so far from that one-room office with salvaged furniture and borrowed servers.

The suite’s plush carpet, the panoramic views of Washington’s monuments, the $8,000 suit hanging in the closet—all of it evidence of my success.

And now, potential evidence of my downfall.

“What about mythology?” Her gentle probe conveys concern.

Perhaps concern is warranted. I feel lightheaded and ungrounded.

She intensifies her pressure on my arm, seeking an answer.

“Mythology is littered with tales of those whose hubris brings about their end.” I turn to face the monument visible through the hotel window—Washington’s own temple to power. “The ancients understood something we’ve forgotten. Creation without wisdom leads to destruction.”

“Pride?” Her voice carries a note of confusion, but her eyes remain focused, analytical, as she works the problem.

“Pride is too simple a word. The Greeks called it hubris—the arrogance that makes men believe they can challenge the gods. The presumption that we can create without consequence.” I press my palm against the cool glass.

“Every Silicon Valley founder believes they’re Prometheus bringing fire to humanity.

None of us consider that Prometheus was chained to a rock with an eagle eating his liver for eternity as punishment. ”

She’s expecting me to tell her what crime I’ve committed. And I’m sure with the right congressional inquisition, I could be locked away for years. It’s easier to break laws than the average person might assume.

But I’m not looking at my past. I’m looking to my future.

“Icarus? Arachne?”

Her questions prove she indeed read the primer. Icarus ignored the warnings and flew too close to the sun. Arachne believed her skills were her own and not the gods. Both paid dearly.

“And Achilles,” I add.

“The Achilles heel?”

“That’s not the portion of the story that’s relevant. Achilles was the most powerful warrior. His war prize was taken from him, and feeling dishonored, he refused to fight. His refusal led to the downfall of the Trojans.”

“Huh, I always thought it had to do with his Achilles heel being the one weak point.”

“I simplified the Iliad’s version of the story.”

“Are you seeing yourself as Achilles?”

I’m not a warrior, but I’ve created a weapon.

I brush her hair aside before I can stop myself. The strands are damp, her skin soft. And she’s looking at me like I’ve lost my mind, though whether it’s for the touch or the mythology analogy, I can’t tell.

“For the Greeks and Romans, pride was one of the worst sins a man could commit.” I inhale deeply to shake the fog clouding my thoughts.

“Does this have to do with what the Russians have over you?”

She’s inches from me and asking if a business deal that violated a sanction is throwing me into a spiral.

It’s not. I don’t treasure years of court cases or having my reputation spun through the shitter, but no, I’m spiraling because it’s much worse than that.

By creating ARGUS, I am Niobe, bound to suffer the wrath of the gods for declaring my child the most capable and powerful.

ARGUS was meant to be my legacy. Now it could be my undoing.

If I refuse Russia, they expose the Saudi Arabia deal and trigger investigations that could strip me of my company.

If I comply, I become complicit in something far worse than sanctions violations.

The intelligence community, Sydney’s former colleagues included—public servants—remain targets.

And if I take the company public as Miles wants, I lose control entirely.

Three paths, all leading to destruction.

“Rhodes?”

I caress her cheek, and something shifts inside me.

The white-hot fury that drove me from this room hours ago has cooled to something more manageable—still painful, but no longer consuming.

Maybe it was Nana’s gentle wisdom about forgiveness, or maybe it’s the growing realization that I’ve betrayed myself far more than Sydney ever betrayed me.

The anger is still there, but it’s directed where it belongs now: at the impossible situation, not at the woman who tried to navigate it.

Syd’s a symptom of a much greater affliction. A warning of what’s coming.

“Are you Athena?”

“The goddess of war? In what way?”

“Well, you are a warrior, right? You worked for one of the world’s intelligence agencies.

You went rogue to hunt down whoever betrayed your people.

” I take a step closer, close enough to feel the heat radiating from her skin.

“And now, what? Where do I fit in? Are you here to assist me or to turn me into Medusa?”

She doesn’t answer immediately, but I see the calculation behind her eyes—weighing truth against lies, mission against emotion.

“I’m not Athena,” she finally says, her voice barely above a whisper. “I’m just Sydney.”

But that’s the tragedy of the myths. The mortals never recognize the gods walking among them until it’s too late. And I’ve already looked too long into her eyes to turn back now.