Page 190 of Ruin Me With Lies

My appetite is nonexistent, but if forcing breakfast on me makes him feel better…

I sit down and make a plate.

After a stretch of silence, he asks, almost conversationally, “Do you think you know my daughter?”

Not in the way you’d want to hear.“No.”

“Then what exactly is it that you ‘love’ about her?”

I think back on that night on the Ferris wheel.I can still smell her, feel her breath on me, the warmth of her body next to mine.That might very well be the moment I fell in love with her.

“I love that she makes mewantto know her.I love her brilliance, her mind, the way she unerringly reads people and situations.That I can never tell what’s going on in her head—she keeps me on my toes.”I take a drink of coffee to hide a smile.“I love that she has a good balance of compassion and savagery.Most of all, I love that she never needed my strength, or protection, or...anythingfrom me.I love that she always looks me directly in the eyes, that she sees all that’s there, and gives herself to me anyway—”

“Hey.That’s my daughter,” he curtails, waving his fork at me.“Jesus Christ.I didn’t need all that information.You could have stopped after the first sentence.Who are you, Sophocles?”

“Sophocles was a tragedian, actually.”

When he just scowls at me, I bite back a laugh and hold up my hands.“You asked.”

“The most important thing here is youknowyou don’t know her, but want to,” he says.“Because youneedto know her to understand what you would be signing up for with her.”

Judging by his tone and the gravity in his expression, there are things he needs to get out, things that might provide answers to my unasked questions, so I take a sip of coffee and wait for him to go on.

He cuts into his eggs Benedict.“Did she tell you she’s a twin?”

“She did.”

“They were three when we realized something was wrong,” he tells me.“Violent towards each other even at that age.”He pauses, then goes on, “We eventually got them evaluated early.Her brother, Sevyn, was diagnosed a psychopath—today’s medical term is ‘anti-social personality disorder’ or some shit like that.But we know what he is.He’s shown us.”

He sets down his knife.“Soraya’s came back normal, but for reasons I won’t get into, we had her evaluated every year until she turned eighteen.Her last results were ‘unspecified personality disorder.’All this to say, it’s difficult to ‘know’Soraya.She’s an emulator and an unreliable narrator.Even as her father, and her best friend, I struggle.”

I hide another smile behind my coffee mug.

Pavlov seems irritated by this.“What’s so amusing?”

“Tried to tell you that’s one of the reasons I love her, but you shut me up, so...”I spear a blueberry with my fork.“I spent a lot of time trying to know and understand her.Until I realized I never would, because she doesn’twantto be understood.Deception, deflection, and distraction are her MO.She’s a chameleon.So, I started reading herintentionsinstead, and that’s when everything changed.If I could read her intentions, I could read her mind.And, ultimately, her heart.”

Pavlov lowers his fork and stares back at me in utter defeat.“Oh…so, youdoknow her, after all…” He looks like I just punched him in the gut.“Christ.My wife’s going hate this.”

“What, is there some kind of bet going on or something?”

“Or something,” he grumbles.

What’s going on with these people?“I have a question…”

He gestures for me to go ahead.

“In your world, I’m just a ‘speck,’ yeah?Gum under your shoe.Pesky lint on your Egyptian cotton.But your wife…she’s thechief.The boss of world leaders.As close to being a god as it gets.Incontestable.Indomitable.In—”

“Intolerableis what you are.”He radiates impatience.“Get on with it, you little shit.”

Fucking with him is too easy.Fun.“Why does she hate me so much?Surely, it’s not just because of my penchant for pushing the boundaries.In the grand scheme of things, my petty misdemeanors should be, at most, a nuisance to this organization.Putting me on the Kill List?That felt…disproportional.But, at the same time, it didn’t surprise me, because she always made it clear she had it out for me.Why is that?”

Pavlov sets his fork down and leans back.“Look at you, asking all the right questions.”He stares back at me for a beat.“You’re right.It has nothing to do with whatever nonsense you get up to in your domain.Her disdain for you is personal.”

Knew it.“Personal how?”

“You exist,” he answers simply.“Consider yourself…not quite a pawn, but anassetof war.”