Chapter 75 #2
“Giving you a reason to go on … after Molly’s impending departure.”
“Fuck you,” Preston snaps, losing his composure briefly.
“Tyler,” Tobias barks, growing agitated, and I grant him the micro-dip of my chin.
“Stop wasting time and state your fucking game,” Tobias hisses. “I assure you, we’re all too eager to play.”
“It’s ironic you’re not aware we’ve been engaged for some time. You all truly have given it your all, which I found impressive and, I must admit, at times annoying.”
We all wait, sadly as baited as he wants us to be, eyes glued to the screen before I make the mistake of glancing Larissa’s way.
“Tell her not to check on the kids just yet, Tyler. You will all sleep safely in your beds tonight. Sean … maybe not so much. For this one, boys, I fear you might be one bird short. At least mentally.”
I send out another frantic text to have a bird at his house within minutes, but no response from anyone comes through. It’s then that I scan every play we’ve made, realizing that with all the countermoves we’ve made as of late, Sean is the one who’s been most at risk.
Antony’s failure to conceal his annoyance, as well as his targeting Sean, is key to this call and the reason for whatever move he’s made or is making. Already giving us a flash of his hand before we know what that move is.
“It’s too late, Jennings,” he snaps, as if reading my mind. “You slept soundly one too many nights already,” he spits acidly, which is equally telling. “Got too complacent.”
“Never that,” I counter, flashing my own grin.
“No?” he draws out smugly. “But you do know the day we came face-to-face for the first time wasn’t the first. You missed that opportunity, missed me altogether.”
What the fuck does he mean? Tobias texts.
“He knows exactly what I mean, Tobias,” Antony replies.
Tobias stiffens in response as we realize our collective phones have been hacked.
Which likely means my welfare texts have been intercepted.
It’s then I sink where I stand, knowing all my safeguards are useless for the moment.
We’ve been invaded on a molecular level, and Antony wants it known that he’s not just knocking on our door—he’s already inside our houses.
“Though we were never formally introduced back then,” Antony continues, and my panic rises at the potential bomb I’m becoming more certain he’s about to drop. “Though I was just a boy back then, but you, Tyler—you were a newly minted Marine.”
Fuck.
Furious he has everyone close to me feeling like sitting ducks, I mute my tongue from any reply, allowing his arrogance to speak for him as my mind races.
“Oh, that’s right, Tobias,” Antony continues. “You still don’t know how your brother betrayed you.”
“Still wasting our fucking time,” Tobias clips, an edge to his voice as his eyes briefly veer from the screen.
He’s buying time too—calculating—but it doesn’t matter what he does right now.
This threat has already got his blade to our throats and is breathing down our necks.
At present, we don’t have a countermove until we know what his is or was.
From the way he’s talking, he’s already made it.
“I’m fairly certain you saw me leaving that day, through his window.”
The image of the boy in a prep-school uniform dashing down a crosswalk, away from the building, shutters in.
Only his build, his hair color, and a slight hint of his profile were visible as he strode across the cobblestone.
His long strides pausing as I gazed down at him from above.
His pause on that street nearly imperceptible.
As if, for a split second, he was aware he was being watched, before he blended into street traffic.
Just before I shut the curtains to position the body.
Adding another to the body count I’ve buried mentally with the promise I made to my general. A promise I’ve kept until now.
“Abel,” I confess to Tobias before Antony can. My eyes trained on Tobias as I force the words out. “It was you crossing the street that day.”
“Ding, ding, ding,” Antony whispers as Tobias’s eyes flare—even he manages to keep his expression mute.
“I could have sworn I felt a presence that day in his apartment when I dropped him off at the door, but dismissed it. I blame it on my youth,” Antony sighs.
“It took me years to put together that whoever was waiting must have been there for quite some time. Though a well-trained man could exhibit so much patience. Very premeditated,” he adds, twisting the gutting knife into my brother, his expression unflappable as he stares back at me as I sink where I stand.
“You are, by far, the most impressive chameleon I’ve ever encountered, Tyler Jennings.
A rare talent. Shame you wasted so much of it being unexceptional.
But I digress … and will save you some mystery, King, because we are the ones who share real history.
You see, in the grand scheme, you were supposed to be me.
Accomplishing what I have, but your so-called brother denied you that fate when he took your grandfather’s life. ”
Tobias’s expression doesn’t waver as Antony continues his rant.
“What’s mine, and it’s substantial, was supposed to be yours. Honestly, I owe you a debt, Tyler, and in paying it, I’ve allowed your little dalliance with the American dream. But don’t flatter yourself into thinking you’ve been my sole focus. I’m not that fucking boring.”
“Then why the renewed interest?” Tobias hisses, his wrath emanating over the line as the need to get to Sean overwhelms me. Forcing myself to remain idle, it’s Larissa’s hand—which now white-knuckles mine—that keeps me grounded.
“Because it’s time we settle the debts left to be paid. Though we did an amazing job of distracting you, didn’t we?” His short laugh rings out as Tobias cants his head.
“The Founding Fathers,” T clips.
“Guilty,” Antony rings out. “Sadly, it’s far too easy to position the monsters you so desperately wanted to find hiding under your bed—because they already existed.
You see, chaos doesn’t need a throne—it subsists on its own.
Now, managed chaos? That’s an art form to take seriously.
A gentle push here, a substantial donation and nudge there.
And of course, greed and the promise of power do the rest. You have all too eagerly been chasing every ghost I canvassed.
Not that it was hard. But, if your collective need to believe in good versus evil has you anxious to boil it down to a face”—his lips twitch—“I’ve been told I’m a handsome devil. ”
“Someone lied to you,” Tobias counters dryly.
“Well, that’s subjective, but Larissa would know.” Antony winks at me as I clench my teeth, icy cold sweat trickling down my spine.
“With you calling yourself the Antichrist, it’s clear who’s delusional,” Tobias hisses. “Which is fucking boring.”
“Well then, let’s skip the fairy tale and get to the burning question you truly want to ask, or maybe haven’t thought to. Ask me about Daddy.”
The blood in my veins ices through as Antony’s eyes flare at Tobias’s stunned silence.
“Come now, Jennings,” Antony scolds, “you didn’t tell him that Abijah should have won an Oscar for his performance?”
“We’re done. Preston, hang up. T, come home,” I tell Tobias as my brother’s eyes darken in a way I haven’t seen in years. Preston disappears from the screen as I hold my brother’s eyes with my request. “Come home.”
“But you suspected, didn’t you?” Antony taunts in an attempt to drive the wedge I can feel growing between us. “You suspected his illness was a farce, did you not?”
“T,” I urge, unwilling to give Antony any more room to distort the truth.
A truth that doesn’t fucking set me free as I mentally scramble to place the players on the board of the long game Delphine warned me was already in play a lifetime ago.
That game kickstarting further in motion as the seconds tick by, while the true evil we’ve been warring against for decades reveals itself.
Chillingly confident, too fucking confident, as he makes himself known.
The victory in his eyes saying that a war isn’t coming, it’s already here.
And wherever Sean and Dom are, they’ve been lured toward the first battle line.
“No need to be rude, but as I said—” Antony drops all animation, eyes dripping with malice as he speaks. “It’s time for all debts to be settled, and I know just how to pry your eyes open to what’s owed. I’ll be in touch.”
It started with them, and it will end with them! Read the series finale and conclusion to the Ravenhood Legacy in Exalt: The Path of a Foot Soldier.