Chapter 27
LANDON
“Motherfucker!” Raymond paces, his fingers scraping through his salt-and-pepper hair. He glances at the three girls, who now sit shoulder-to-shoulder on the couch in the lobby, and repeats, “Motherfucker!”
“You’ve said that already,” Ryker drawls. He folds his arms over his chest and leans against the wall. Only his ice-blue eyes shine beneath his signature hoodie.
“Once or twice,” I say.
“Or three thousand times.” Victoria’s face twists in a scowl.
Jane and Piper, however, haven’t stopped gawking at me and Ryker.
“I don’t understand,” Jane breathes, her lips parting on a breathless exhale. She absently wraps a frizzy piece of brown hair around her finger, agitation causing her knee to bounce. “How are you alive?”
“You fuckers seriously faked your death?” Piper demands.
Victoria rolls her eyes and thrusts her hands in our direction, the gesture eloquently screaming, OBVIOUSLY!
“We can’t let them leave.” Raymond slides his gray-blue eyes—so much like his niece’s—in our direction. “They know you’re alive.”
Ryker’s scowl deepens. “I didn’t realize you were a kidnapper as well as a liar.”
Raymond scratches at the nape of his neck distractedly. He doesn’t even seem to be paying attention to the conversation. I can practically see the wheels in his mind churning as he struggles to come up with a plan of action.
“Kidnap?” Jane’s eyes bulge beneath her wire-framed glasses. She begins to twirl her hair faster and faster around her finger. “You’re joking, right?”
“Right,” I assure her at the same time Ryker deadpans, “No.”
I shoot my brother a frosty look, but he shrugs, unrepentant.
I pinch the bridge of my nose.
Obviously, their arrival here poses a huge problem for not only me and Ryker, but Ellie and the others as well. If Aria ever discovers that we lied to her…
A shudder reverberates through my body at the thought.
In some ways, Raymond’s right. We can’t allow Piper, Jane, and Victoria to leave. If they do, there’s a chance they’ll blow everything we’ve been working toward. Maybe not intentionally, but all it takes is a whisper here, a rumor there.
No one can know Ryker and I are alive.
And they certainly can’t know where we’re holed up.
“I need to think.” Raymond seems to be speaking more to himself than anyone else.
He scratches again at his neck, his fingers gliding to his jawline, which has begun to darken with the hints of a scruffy beard.
It doesn’t appear as if he shaved recently.
I wonder if it’s because he’s been so preoccupied with his work with the FBI…
Or if he’s drowning in guilt for his part in Ellie’s capture.
And yes, I refuse to think of what happened to Ellie as anything other than a “capture.” She didn’t go willingly, despite the deal she made with Aria.
She was coerced and forced to participate in this sham.
She’s nothing but a prisoner, and while Raymond may not be the only one involved, he certainly helped influence her decision.
Dammit, I need to blame someone, and he’s the easiest one to take my anger out on.
“Look, we didn’t come here to cause more issues for you guys,” Piper begins, keeping her voice soft and almost placating. Her vibrant eyes flick from face to face, searching for an ally. “It’s obvious that you all are in deep shit.”
“Someone needs to tell us what the fuck is going on here,” Victoria snaps, scowling. When Piper gives her a chastising look, Victoria shrugs a slender shoulder and says, “We deserve answers, non?” Her French accent turns even more pronounced in tandem with her growing anger.
“Are you a part of the mafia?” Piper narrows her eyes suspiciously.
“Piper!” Jane squeaks. “You can’t just go around asking people if they’re in the mafia.”
Piper ignores her friend and keeps her steady gaze on me. “Are you?”
My lips twitch, despite my foul mood. I’ve always liked Piper. “No.”
“Then, what is this?” Piper continues, waving a hand to indicate the half-constructed hotel we’ve been cooped up in for the past few months. “Where’s Ellie?”
“Look.” Raymond pivots on his heel to face us, his features pinched. “There’s a lot we can’t tell you, and for good reason.” He expertly slides a hand into his jacket pocket and procures his FBI badge. “My name is Raymond, and I’m an FBI agent.”
“Is that badge even real?” Ryker murmurs, but his voice is too low for the girls to hear.
Jane swallows audibly. “A…um…errr…huh?”
“The boys here are key witnesses to a crime,” Raymond continues, and I have to hold in my snort at that gross understatement.
A crime.
Ha.
Try a few hundred.
“We had to fake their deaths in order to protect them,” Raymond continues. “Ellie and the others agreed to help me find…information.”
“Information on whom?” Piper asks, fidgeting. She seems to be struggling to digest this sudden onslaught of information. “The mafia?”
“What is with your obsession with the mafia?” Victoria snaps.
“No,” I insert before Raymond can answer. The older man shoots me a glare, silently warning me to remain quiet, but I ignore him. If we’re going to make these three women prisoners, then they deserve to know at least part of the truth. Ellie is their friend, after all. “We’re taking down a cult.”
“A cult?!” Piper’s voice is an incredulous screech.
“A secret society,” Ryker corrects.
I frown at him. “I definitely consider it more of a cult than a secret society.”
“Could it be both?” Ryker ponders.
Victoria snaps her fingers in the air. “Focus, boys!” She then mutters something in rapid-fire French that’s impossible for me to translate.
“It’s not safe to divulge too many details,” I say, considering my words carefully. “But we’re trying to find information on their leader—a woman named Aria.”
Raymond goes ramrod straight at my mention of The Divine One and shoots me a glower that could curdle milk.
Jane also straightens, almost as if she’s been jolted by a bolt of electricity. The color drains from her face, making her appear as white as a sheet.
“Aria?” She barely whispers the word. It’s practically a breath of air.
Ryker’s eyes narrow, suspicion creating deep furrows in his forehead. “You’ve heard that name before?”
“There’s probably a lot of people with that name,” I tell him.
“Short? Spiky blonde hair? Blue eyes?” Jane fires off.
Is it possible, or is she even paler than she was a split second earlier?
Ryker and I both turn toward Raymond, because we have no idea what Aria looks like.
Raymond’s frown is chiseled on his face. “How the fuck do you know that?”
Jane, trembling, reaches for her phone and fiddles with it for less than a second before turning the screen in our direction.
Ryker pushes himself off the wall to come closer, and Raymond bends at the knees, squinting at the tiny screen.
It’s a picture of Jane standing beside an unfamiliar blonde-haired woman. They have their arms wrapped around each other and appear to be laughing. Or, at the very least, Jane is laughing, her eyes sparkling.
The unknown woman may be smiling, but that smile doesn’t reach her eyes, which are ice-cold and fathomless.
I swallow around the spike lodged in my throat.
“How do you have that picture?” Raymond is in Jane’s face in an instant, causing her to squeak and drop her phone. Piper and Victoria jump to their feet.
“Get the fuck away from her!” Piper screams.
“What is your problem?” Victoria adds.
“How do you know her?” Raymond ignores the other two women and keeps his gaze locked on Jane. A vein in his forehead begins to throb erratically, and his hands clench and unclench by his sides. “How the fuck do you know Aria?”
A single tear cascades down Jane’s cheek, but she doesn’t lift a hand to wipe it away.
“There must be some mistake… This doesn’t make any sense…” She shakes her head from side to side, almost as if she can physically remove the errant thought that popped into it.
“Raymond, explain!” Ryker barks.
Raymond points a finger at the phone—which is now face down on the couch, in the seat Victoria vacated.
“That’s Aria,” he growls. He barely sounds human—like a mesh between a guttural beast and a man. “That’s her!”
The Divine One?
That’s Ellie’s mom?
The mastermind behind this entire shit show we’ve found ourselves thrust into?
Intense anger crashes over me, chased by confusion and disbelief.
Why does Jane have a picture of her on her phone?
What the fuck is going on?
More tears continue to run down Jane’s face. The girl sniffles and uses the back of her hand to wipe at them.
“Jane.” Ryker speaks slowly, succinctly, a razor-sharp threat lacing each and every word. “How the fuck do you know Aria?”
Jane lifts her tear-stained gaze to first Ryker, then Raymond, and finally me.
Her voice barely a whisper, she confesses, “Aria… Aria is my older sister.”