King of War Tech novel · Chapter 11 of 24

Chapter 11: The Order

That night the rain started at ten.

Imogen came across the garden without an umbrella, and by the time she reached the pool house door she was soaked to the skin.

I opened it before she knocked.

She stood on the step with water running off her chin.

"Say it," she said. "Whatever you've been holding in for three years. Say it now."

"Come in."

"Say it first."

"You let them put me on my knees."

Her mouth trembled.

"You stood by and watched. You said, do as he says, and you meant it so well that I didn't know."

"You poured soup on me in front of the Navy."

"Yes," she said.

"Why?"

She stepped inside, and I shut the door on the rain.

Her wet hair clung to her cheeks.

She did not wipe her face.

"My brother called me at 6:10 that morning," she said. "Clyde."

"Three hours before the range."

"He said, Imo, I need you to listen and not argue."

"He said, if anything goes wrong, you marry Wesley Tarrant."

I stared at her.

"He said you'd say no, and I should say yes anyway. He said Stellan could never find out how much you meant to the project."

"He said the only way to keep you alive was to make everyone believe you were nothing."

"He said, be the worst wife anyone has ever seen. Make them look at him and see a man not worth watching."

The rain hit the roof.

"I thought he was drunk," Imogen said. "I laughed at him."

"Then the range exploded, and I stood at his funeral, and Stellan told me the company would handle my future."

"And I remembered."

"Six weeks later I walked into this house and told you I'd marry you."

"You never asked me why."

"I knew you wouldn't, because you'd already decided."

"I was twenty-six and I was grieving, and I was so angry I could barely see."

"I did what he said."

Her voice cracked all the way open.

"I called you useless. I made you kneel. I stood in front of my mother and said every cruel thing I could think of."

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