Chapter 13
NEW YORK
“We can’t stay here. We have one, two maybe three days tops,” a disembodied voice said.
“No shit, Sherlock, don’t you family peeps have a recourse for something like this?” Elena’s voice pierced into the room.
Adria looked around. She was lying in a softly painted bedroom with the shades drawn. A rhythmic beeping filtered into the space.
“The families are going to have a hard time believing our side without proof,” Eric said.
“If El has a plane, maybe if we get a flight plan today, we can get enough of a head start. And we can figure this out,” Seth chimed in.
Tension eased out of Adria’s body.
They had found them.
Pain cracked into her safe place as memories weaseled their way into her mind.
She had tortured Jonathan. Eric could have done it. Elena would have been happy to do it. But instead, Adria had taken the job.
Insisted.
Adria closed her eyes. All she wanted to do was stay here forever. Bryson, Kaydon, and Seth were safe.
“Bryson needs medical attention. The doctor said he lost a lot of blood,” Elena said.
That got Adria moving. Pushing the covers off her, she knocked a bag onto the floor. The sound silenced all communication happening in the next room.
“Hey there, Tiger,” Kaydon said, hitting her with a huge grin that shook her to her very core.
“What’s wrong with Bryson?” Adria said, her voice hoarse.
“You okay to walk?” Kaydon asked, eyes tracking her movements as she got up.
Adria pushed past him.
Elena, Seth, and Eric were in the living space beyond her bedroom. Kaydon’s hand grazed her arm, and he led her to the adjoining bedroom.
Kaydon pulled a poorly hung curtain aside, revealing the source of the beeping.
Bryson lay on a table, in what looked like an operating suite. He had bandages all across his torso and left thigh. Adria watched his chest rise and fall in shallow spurts. She was shocked by how pale he looked.
Had he lost weight?
“He had a punctured lung. We had to get him emergency surgery,” Elena hissed from behind her. “The doctor said he needs time to heal and another transfusion of blood, and maybe a third.”
The small-framed woman paced around the room. “And who knows when the doctor will be able to come back with the blood he needs,” Elena said, voice cracking.
Adria looked at Eric. “You brought your first-aid supplies?”
He was hesitant, probably knowing what she was going to propose, but unable to hide the truth, he nodded.
“Bryson and I are the same blood type,” she said, rolling up her sleeve.
“Ma’am, you aren’t in any condition—” Eric started.
“Why not? I wasn’t hit,” she shot back, reading the worry in their eyes.
Kaydon cleared his throat. Adria waited.
Finally, Seth said, voice low, “You fainted back there. What you did with Jonathan…that would break anyone.”
Anyone.
And yet it was only her who had passed out.
“Well, I’m awake now. Bryson needs blood, unless someone else has a better idea,” she said.
Eric stared at her, his eyes assessing, but eventually he relented and went to grab his bag.
Bryson barely moved when Eric started the IV. and Adria’s heart squeezed. They connected a tube into Adria’s arm and she sat up, trying to help create gravity between her and Bryson.
Eric had emergency medical knowledge from his time in the military as a Navy Seal, and after a little bit of fiddling he was able to get the blood flowing from her. She watched as he connected the now red tube to Bryson.
“Fingers crossed his wounds aren’t infected,” Elena said. “And there is still the minor issue of where we are going to go.”
Adria brushed the hair from Bryson’s face and hoped he was deep in a peaceful dream, far away from all of this.
He pulled the trigger.
The memory was hazy, but she remembered his eyes. She remembered asking him to finish what she couldn’t.
And he had.
If the Families ever learned, Bryson would pay with his life. Adria whispered a silent oath that she would do everything in her power to ensure they never found out.
She kissed her ring.
Adria: I need a favor.
Adria stared at her phone. She needed to be careful. She needed to be sure.
Except she was none of those things.
They needed a plan. Needed next steps. And to do that, they needed help.
She had many contacts, but no one on the outside was equipped to help her with something like this. Adria needed someone from inside the Nine.
Helen: I’m listening.
Adria: If I needed to be out of reach for a little while, is there a place you would suggest?
…
Adria watched the three dots come and go on her phone, her thumb hovering over the screen, ready to delete the entire thread. Elena’s voice rose in the next room, Eric’s lower tones trying to soothe her.
Helen: Off the top of my head, I would say south. But even that won’t buy you much time unless you have help.
Adria chewed on the inside of her cheek.
Helen: Do you have help?
Adria: Maybe.
Adria had never asked X for a direct favor.
Helen: In my experience, things like these don’t work out well when they are drawn out.
The subtext was clear. Helen thought she should come in. Except Helen didn’t know what Adria knew.
Adria: I need to think.
Helen: Understood. I’m here.
Adria stared at the exchange. It was a risk, but she hoped that by tipping Helen off, even slightly, that the woman would assist them in the future.
If she didn’t, Adria hadn’t really told her much, anyway.
It was a planted seed. Now Adria just had to wait and see if it grew.
Next Adria just needed to convince X to let her come visit.
Adria: Something happened, we need a place to lie low.
X: We?
Adria: We have the boys. Long story. Jonathan’s dead.
…
Adria focused on the soft glow of her phone.
The group had left her and Bryson to rest. An hour or so ago he had started shivering so Adria had crawled into bed next to him—too close, too intimate—but couldn’t bring herself to move away.
She watched his breathing, shallow but steady, wondering if saving him now only meant losing him later.
The covers were pulled over their heads, keeping them cocooned in an illusion of safety.
She watched the three dots as X decided his response.
X: Come down to me.
Adria let out the breath she had been holding. X was the only person she knew of that had successfully eluded the Nine. Her fingers moved quickly on the screen.
Adria: How long would the journey be? What airports would we be looking for?
X responded with a two-part flight itinerary, Sinaloa then Curitiba Paraná.
X: You need to land at Sinaloa first. You’ll need official paperwork to leave the country. After that, money can grease the wheels.
Adria’s lips pressed into a line. How was she supposed to get those? Anyone she reached out to could be a death sentence if the Triune found out.
“Hey, beautiful,” Bryson’s soft voice cut through her thoughts.
She turned, her phone’s glow lighting up the small space between them. His face looked tired, but the smile that stretched across him caused her to reach out and brush his cheek without thinking.
“You look like shit,” she said.
He gave her a soft chuckle. “You should see the other guy.”
Adria didn’t miss the flicker of something dark behind his warm expression. She turned on her side to fully face him, hand still on his cheek. The two just lay there, breathing.
After a moment, her phone light blinked off and her and Bryson fell into a soft darkness, beneath the blanket.
“I thought I lost you,” his voice whispered between them.
“I’m here,” she said.
The voices continued in the other room, soft but urgent.
“What are they arguing about over there?” Bryson asked.
Adria dropped her hand and sighed. “Next steps I suppose.”
He laughed.
“What?”
She felt the bed shift and the heat of his body moved impossibly closer. “No point in arguing. I’m sure you already have a plan mapped out.”
His fingers grazed her hand, and she almost jumped.
“I do, but it’s not as solid as I would like.”
“I’m sure it’s good.”
Adria’s mind turned over who she could risk asking for flight papers and she trailed her hand along the white bandage on Bryson’s chest.
“What happened?”
Bryson’s eyes flickered, and Adria watched as a wall formed between them.
“It’s not as bad as it looks,” he joked with a small smile.
Adria frowned. “You almost died. Collapsed lung, stab wound dangerously close to an artery…It’s amazing you were able to close it so quickly. You are lucky to be alive.”
“How did we get there?” Bryson’s question was not accusatory. It wasn’t angry. It was just a question.
But that didn’t change the heaviness that settled on her as he spoke it.
She shook her head, even though she knew he couldn’t see her. “I don’t know. Frances is dead. Regan, no doubt. Obviously, Jonathan was behind the whole thing, but—”
“He wasn’t acting alone,” Bryson said.
Adria took in a breath. “I don’t think so either. If it was about revenge, he would have acted sooner. Not waited until I found out.”
“Any ideas on potential players involved?” Bryson asked.
Your father.
Adria didn’t say it.
Couldn’t.
But she suspected Callen. In fact, he was at the top of her list.
The words formed in her throat, then died there. She knew telling him might protect him—or destroy him completely.
“Maybe someone in the Nine, trying to make a play for my seat,” she said, and Bryson was quiet.
Adria wanted to talk to him. Wanted to say more. Wanted to curl against his chest and forget the world outside this bed. But she also needed him to rest, and she didn’t want to push him. After a few minutes of silence, she heard his breathing deepen and knew he was asleep.
Adria stared into the darkness, spinning her father’s ring along her finger, and listened to Bryson breathe.
She tried to think about things in a linear step-by-step fashion. But nothing was black and white anymore, and her mind swirled with all the what-ifs.