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out he hadn’t updated his will. I don’t know how.”
“Probably boinking the lawyer.”
“Probably. Anyway, the guys in the stairwell talked. They were hired guns, no loyalty to who hired them. They’re in jail on reduced sentences. The ex has been extradited from Italy and is awaiting trial. The will’s been changed.”
Jason pushed away from the treadmill and started pacing. Stupid fucking reason to be killed . He was glad he wasn’t really dead.
“And the aftermath?” He had a feeling this would be worse. When you hired a company to protect you, you expected a low number of explosions. Like none.
“It hit immediately,” Matt admitted. “Half our ongoing private sector clients have fired us. The government hasn’t managed to find a way out of the stuff we do for them already, but they haven’t given us anything new. The media frenzy has died down, of course, it always does, but in the industry there’s still a furor. Some say our failure on the Kolanko job has damaged relations all over the industry.”
“That’s bullshit.”
“Doesn’t matter if it’s true or not, if people believe it.”
And Jason had been down here running on a fucking treadmill, listening to Harry Potter audiobooks for the last three months. “I should have been—”
“No, you shouldn’t. It was hard enough losing you the first time.” Matt stopped. Swallowed. “The risk of infection was too great for you to be out.”
Jason nodded. It didn’t help his guilt, but it was reality and couldn’t be changed. “I appreciate what you’ve done, Matt. But—”
“There’s a reason I had you declared dead.” Matt rose and came closer to him, visibly steeling himself for whatever he was going to say. “The technology we used to fix you is a big deal. It can mean saving a lot of lives. But none of it is approved for use in humans yet. We didn’t know if it would work, and there wasn’t time… I had to make a quick decision.”
Jason bit back his response. He knew he was an experiment, and didn’t blame his friend or the doctors who, except for Gabby, treated him like a lab specimen. So he couldn’t yell at Matt for that. It wasn’t what he was really angry about, anyway.
“There was no way you should have survived the fall,” Matt continued. “If anyone had known you did, we wouldn’t have been able to save you.”
Jason nodded. It wasn’t that he wasn’t grateful or anything. But resentment burned in his gut for the implications of the lie.
“Plus, I knew if anyone found out about the technology, found out it had worked, we’d have enemies after all of us, from worldwide.”
“Why won’t we when I go topside, anyway?” Matt didn’t respond right away, and the resentment swelled. “Because they won’t know, right?” This time, he didn’t wait for a response. “Fuck that, Matthew. I’m not changing my identity.” It was one thing to use dangerous technology to save his life, and to use him to test dangerous technology. It was another to strip Jason of everything he’d done and been for thirty-six years. Every experience, every success and failure.
“You won’t have to,” Matt said, derailing the head of steam Jason was building.
He scowled. “How do you figure that? I’m dead.” He didn’t want to change his identity, but Matt’s decision six months ago had left them little choice. His intentions had been good, and Jason understood he’d been protecting both him and the company. So for Matt to now say he didn’t have to change his identity… His brain chewed on that for only a few seconds before he understood.
“Crap.”
“Yeah.” Matthew shoved his hand through his hair. “We can do some damage control. Since you left your assets to me—”
“Back up.” He pushed away from the treadmill and faced his best friend. “You’re not going to keep hiding me.” Matt didn’t move, didn’t change expression, but Jason knew he was right. “You’ll let them find out I’m alive.