Page 14 of Provocation (Den of Deception #3)

He doesn’t say any more and I don’t ask, but I file all these tidbits of information away. I haven’t spoken much to Applegate since the first week that I began my new majors, but I know the guys have meetings with him frequently, and of course he knows a lot about what they’re up to.

‘Does Applegate know I’m making Envy?’

Mav glances at me and shakes his head. ‘No, and we aren’t going to tell him.

We’re going to let him keep believing it’s me.

I…hope you’re okay with that. I’m not trying to steal your thunder or take the credit, I promise.

But there’s more to Applegate than meets the eye.

Shade might trust him, but I’ve never been sure.

I don’t want him knowing anything about you, Tulip.

I don’t want him having power over you, okay? ’

My gaze on him softens. ‘I’m pretty sure most people have power over me,’ I say. ‘John might have most of it, but there’s always just a little bit more for those who want it.’

Mav sighs, putting his head to mine. ‘It won’t always be like this. I promise you.’

I nod, but I can’t really see how the guys are going to change anything. If I want something done, I’m going to have to do it myself. I mean I guess I am already, now that I’m actually making Envy. I still can’t quite believe it.

It’s been so frustrating that everything’s been moving so slowly. The past few days’ revelations have been a lot to take, and I haven’t felt like I’ve been doing anything, or at least not anything of real value.

But I fixed Envy, I reason, and now I’m making it. The first batch will be ready within the next hour or so, which is much faster than I’d anticipated.

And Shade was right. I have the guys. They’re helping too. It’s not just me. I’m not alone anymore.

MAV

Shade arrives by seven with the rest of the ingredients that Daisy asked for.

I let her measure them out, mostly because she’s clearly been doing a ton of research on the best binders and the kinds of excipients that will aid in absorption, so I actually think she knows better than me what’s going to work.

‘How did you decide on the carrier?’ I ask, watching the electronic scales and intrigued by the amounts she decides on for the mixture.

‘I thought about paper,’ she murmurs absently.

‘Like LSD, and I think the onset of effects will be similar either way. Maybe twenty minutes to an hour. But you mentioned you wanted green for envy and that’s easier to create in pill form rather than making a liquid and then having to find green blotting paper. ’

I see Shade’s eyes narrow a little. ‘How did you know we wanted it to be green?’

She turns away to put the next ingredient in the mixer, but not before I see a tiny wince.

I raise my eyebrows at Shade, and he crosses his arms over his chest, frowning at her back.

‘Well?’

‘I might have seen a memo that you sent to each other about it.’

We both stare at her in disbelief.

‘But that was on my private lab server,’ I say. ‘How could you have possibly seen that?’

She lets out a sigh. ‘Just a minute. I don’t want to get this wrong or I’ll have to start all over.’

We both watch in silence as she closes the mixer and sets it to run for a few minutes to make sure it’s evenly mixed.

When she turns to face us, she looks almost sheepish. She glances at me and then looks at the floor.

‘You know when I was stuck upstairs in the KIP house with my ankle, and you gave me access to the lab documents so I could get some work done?’

I feel Shade’s accusing eyes on me. ‘That’s impossible! I only gave you the lowest clearance level. You shouldn’t have been able to see anything I didn’t want you to.’

She shrugs. ‘Well, it didn’t work. I saw everything. I read everything. I already knew Envy existed, I just didn’t know anything about it. You should be glad it was messed up, if you think about it. Or I might never have figured it out and you’d still be up against your looming deadline.’

I can’t fault her logic, but what the actual fuck?

‘I thought you guys couldn’t…’ I taper off, not sure if I should continue, but she gives me a questioning look.

‘Us guys?’

‘Neurodivergents,’ I amend. ‘I thought…I mean I read that you couldn’t…um…lie.’

She gives me a look that’s half incredulous and half ‘do better’.

‘Don’t be an idiot,’ she says softly. ‘Of course I can. I don’t often because I don’t like doing it, but I have the capacity, Mav. Just like anyone else.’

Shade, still standing by the wall, is very quiet. Daisy doesn’t seem to notice. She’s too focused on what she’s doing, but every time my eyes find him, he’s staring at her with a predatory intensity that even has me shivering a little.

I snort. Our girl thinks she’s tired now, wait until Shade’s done with her later.

My phone buzzes. It’s Shade.

I have some stuff to do. Give ten pills to Dom on your way out. He’ll get them to the guinea pigs. Make sure she eats and drinks. I want her ready.

I nod and Shade leaves.

It’s a few minutes before Daisy notices he’s gone. When she does, she turns to me.

‘Where’s Shade?’

She sounds disappointed.

‘He just had some errands.’

‘Oh,’ she murmurs, looking woefully at the mixer which has stopped. ‘I thought he’d want to be here for the first ones to be done.’

She looks so disappointed that I put my arms around her to hug her from behind, but not before I begin recording our conversation with my phone.

Shade is more distraught about this than he’s letting on and I think it’s important that he hears her side before later .

I don’t think he’ll hurt her, but there won’t be any mercy, and the past few days have been tough on her.

Her mental wellbeing is as important as her physical one. Shade might forget that sometimes, but that’s one of the places where I can and will pick up the slack.

‘He’s upset with you,’ I tell her truthfully

She looks back at me, her confusion evident. ‘Why?’

‘Are you asking me because you don’t know?’

She nods. ‘You said if I didn’t know things, I just had to ask, and you’d tell me. Why is he angry with me?’

I let out a sigh. ‘He’s upset because you’ve been less than honest with us, Tulip, and we keep finding out more stuff. How deep does the rabbit hole go? What are we going to find out tomorrow? What else have you been keeping from us?’

‘Nothing,’ she says, but looks away from me. ‘Nothing important ,’ she amends.

‘Maybe you should let us decide what we think is important, huh?’

She gives me a small nod, and I already know that, despite what she says, she isn’t quite ready to tell us all of the things she keeps hidden from us.

Shade conveniently forgets that he’s been keeping things from her as well.

What the detective told her about the Novelle family business was a surprise to her. She had no idea at all. I’m sure of it.

‘But surely everyone has secrets,’ she says, lines appearing between her brows.

‘Sure,’ I agree, ‘but there’s a difference between lies, even ones by omission, and secrets.’

‘I suppose. Are you angry with me, too?’

‘I’m a little upset with you. I’m also a little upset with me that I didn’t check the permissions.

If it was anyone but you, that would be a huge breach, Daisy.

Do you understand? If it had been Marcus or one of the postgrads, at the very least, I would have lost my position in the lab. It would have gone on my record.’

Her face is blank. Something that happens when she’s battling intense emotions, I believe.

‘I’m sorry,’ she says woodenly. ‘I didn’t think of it that way. I was just happy that I was going to be able to?—’

‘Get one over on us?’

‘Maybe a little,’ she admits after a moment, ducking her head.

‘But more that I would have some control over my life for once. I think you guys forget that I spent the whole year of sixth grade under John’s thumb, and then was locked up for a decade in a place where everything from my bedtime to the food I ate was decided for me.

And then I come here as an adult and I think I’m going to be free, have some autonomy, but it’s just back under John’s thumb again.

’ She closes her eyes. ‘At least until Joe Banderville gets his claws into me. God only knows what his rules will be like. I have a feeling the no drinking alcohol one is just the tip of the iceberg.’

She rubs the back of one of her thighs absentmindedly and I cover her hand with mine, stopping the phone recording with the other and sending it directly to Shade.

‘Let’s get this batch done and get back to the house, okay? I’ll lay in bed with you if you want and we can catch up on some sleep before tomorrow. There’s no point in making more until we have feedback from Shade’s guys anyway.’

She nods and takes the canister out of the mixer, putting it straight into the tablet press.

‘I calibrated it earlier for fifty percent active ingredient and fifty inactive, and I tuned it to four hundred milligram, but let me know if they aren’t right and I’ll change it. Here goes nothing,’ she murmurs and turns the machine over by hand to make the first one.

I watch as the first light green pill is ejected smoothly and rolls into the collection tray. Picking it up, I make sure it’s not too brittle.

‘We might want to make the color deeper,’ I say, peering at it closely and then handing it to her.

She takes a thorough look as well. ‘Yeah,’ she murmurs, ‘the color right now is a natural result from the chemical process, but we can easily add a dye if you guys wanted.’

She puts the pill back in the tray. ‘The press sounded fine when I turned it manually, so I’m going to start it.’

I nod and she presses the red button on the side.

The machine beeps and I hear her echo the sound just before it roars to life, the pistons moving up and down, compacting the ingredients into the little round pills that begin to run down the small ramp into the tray. When I look at her, she’s watching the machine work, a small grin on her face.