40. Cyrus
Cyrus
The alert on my phone wakes me at a little past six in the morning, which is an hour later than I usually sleep in. Guess I'm not surprised after what happened last night. I slept better than I have in years with the two of them in my arms.
I've got crawlers parked on a dozen newsrooms, and three different aggregators that don't even know they're working for me. The buzz on my phone means one of them just spat out a headline with Todd Waterson's name in it that wasn't there when I fell asleep.
I'm awake before my eyes are fully open, reaching for my phone.
Ellie is still sound asleep against Jinx's chest, both of them tangled in the blanket we never made it off the floor with last night. Her pink streaks look rose gold in the early morning light, and I let myself enjoy the beauty of her for a few seconds before I look at the screen instead.
SENATOR WATERSON LINKED TO INFAMOUS SOUTHSIDE GANG
There we go.
The dominoes I've put into place for months have finally begun to fall.
There are dozens of other headlines just like it on all the major outlets now. Most cite the evidence I gave them in the package, but a few of the sloppier rags have spun even wilder theories out of the pieces.
Perfect.
I let myself feel just a moment of satisfaction before I stuff it down because none of this is finished yet and it won't be as long as Todd Waterson's heart is still beating.
"Jinx."
He doesn't respond. He sleeps like he's in a fucking coma, especially after fucking.
"Jinx."
"Mmh. No."
I sigh. "The story dropped."
That gets him awake. One honey-brown eye cracks open, his hair a disaster across his face. "S'good or bad?"
"Good. It's all over every major news site in the country."
Ellie stirs against his chest. She surfaces slower than he does, blinking up at the ceiling like she's not sure which room she's in or even which century, and then her eyes find me. She sits up sharply.
"It's out?" Her voice sounds rough with sleep, and she rubs her eyes.
I turn the screen toward her. I watch her read it instead of reading it again myself, because I already know what it says and her face is more interesting. Relief paints her perfect features.
"Cy, holy shit. This is it, he's over."
"That's just the first move," I correct, not wanting her to get her hopes up yet.
Not until we make damn sure she never has anything to worry about again. I want her to trust us because we've earned it. Because she knows, without a doubt, the four of us would burn this entire world down to make her safe.
Starting with her stepfather.
"The story takes his power, but it doesn't get rid of him," I continue. "So now we wait."
"For what?"
"For him to do something stupid." I sit back against the base of the couch, my phone balanced on my knee.
"He just went from being one of the most powerful men in the country to someone whose very name is poison.
By noon, half the people who owe him favors will have forgotten his number exists.
Rosman's going to flip the second a federal prosecutor offers him a deal, and probably before lunch.
Southside's already scattering after last night, which means Todd has exactly two options left. He either runs, or he hides."
"And if he runs?"
"Then I'll know," I say with a shrug. "Every account he thinks is secret has a flag on it already and I'm monitoring both his passports.
He can't buy a bottle of water or take a shit in a paid bathroom or board a plane without it pinging my network before the receipt is finished printing.
If his money moves at all, I'll see it move. "
Ellie is staring at me, the blanket pooled at her waist, and I can't read her, which is rare. Then she smiles.
"That's genuinely terrifying," she says. "You know that, right?"
I snort. "So I've been told."
"Like, deeply terrifying. You don't even look bothered."
"Should I be bothered?" I ask, genuinely curious.
I've never felt about anything the way people are supposed to.
I know that only in the way a lion looks at a gazelle drinking in the stream and knows they're not the same.
But last night… I think that's the first time I've ever felt what I was supposed to.
The thing normal people feel when they look at the two people they love most in the world, even if it's my own twisted, obsessive version of it.
"No." She tilts her head, and the glint in her eye brings that feeling back to life. "It's kind of hot, actually."
My body moves before I've decided to, leaning across the small distance between us, my hand finding her cheek.
And I kiss her.
She makes a soft sound against my mouth and her fingers curl into the front of my shirt, and for a second the news cycle recedes into background noise.
That doesn't happen often. There's not a lot in my life that quiets the constant low constant buzz of information and violence going in the back of my brain.
But Ellie does.
"So does this mean this is a thing now?" Jinx asks smugly, gesturing between the three of us.
Ellie laughs. "A thing?"
"Yeah, like a throuple," he clarifies.
She tilts her head again, considering. "I guess it does."
He kisses her, too, slow and lazy, that smug smile still curving his lips.
"I'm making breakfast," he announces, leaping onto his feet with a lot of energy for someone who was barely conscious a few minutes ago. "No fucking without me."
And then he's gone. A cabinet opens up, then the fridge door slams, and the sounds of chaos keep spilling out from the kitchen. He's going to leave it a mess because he always does, and I'm going to have to clean it up like I always do, because he can't be trusted to sanitize anything properly.
Ellie pulls her phone from somewhere in the wreckage of last night's clothes and frowns at it, thumbing through messages with the little purse of her lips she does when she's worried and trying not to look it.
"Tank texted while I was asleep." She reads, and her frown deepens. "Oh my God. The last thing he sent was at four in the morning. He says he's trying to keep Kade from escaping the hospital. Apparently, Kade's belligerent when he's high."
"Kade's belligerent when he's sober," I say. "I can only assume the morphine improves his manners."
"He also called the night nurse a fascist." She's typing now. "I'm telling Tank to tell him I said stay put. Both of them. Maybe Kade will listen to me."
"He doesn't listen to anyone," I remind her. "Don't take it personally."
"He listened to me in the car." I assume whatever she means that led to the collar not being around her neck anymore. It's a definite improvement overall, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't miss the way it looked on her pretty little throat.
The bacon hits the pan in the kitchen with a sizzle just as the front door bangs open hard enough to rattle the frame, and Kade Gallagher comes barreling through it.
He looks like shit. Like he shouldn't even be upright, let alone out of the damn hospital.
One eye is still sealed in a bruise that's purple and red and swollen, his arm in a sling he is clearly not wearing correctly, a hospital bracelet still snapped around his wrist that he hasn't bothered to cut off.
I'm honestly surprised he didn't tear it off in the car with his teeth like a trapped animal.
God, I hope he didn't drive.
"Is that bacon?" he asks, sniffing the air.
Tank fills the doorway behind him a second later, hands already lifting in the universal gesture of I tried.
Ellie turns and looks at him with her phone still in her hand. "I thought," she says slowly, "you were keeping Kade in line."
Tank shrugs and waves his hands. The meaning is loud and clear.
Lost cause.
"I signed myself out," Kade announces, lowering himself into a chair at the island with a wince. "It's a free country. Allegedly. Cyrus, what's the damage? Did it work? Give me something good before the morphine fully wears off."
I'm pretty sure he's so cracked out on his own insanity that the morphine itself wore off hours ago, but I bring the phone over and set it in front of him on the granite, the articles already stacked in tabs.
"It's everywhere," I say. "By tonight every cable network will have it too.
" I watch his good eye track down the screen as vicious satisfaction tugs at his lips.
"And the people I've got shadowing his usual haunts swear nobody's seen or heard from Todd since last night. Not since before the warehouse."
That stops the smug expression cold. "So he's gone gone?"
"Gone enough. He's either running or he's dug himself into a hole we don't have eyes on yet." I take the phone back. "If he's running, I'll catch the movement. If he's hiding, that takes longer."
"Are you sure he's not at the manor?" Ellie asks worriedly, counting again, her fingers tapping her outer thigh.
But I don't say anything.
Soon, she won't have reason to worry.
"There's been no movement on the property since the cars left for the hospital last night," I confirm.
She's quiet for a moment. Jinx comes in carrying two plates, and slides one in front of Ellie, the other onto the coffee table in front of Kade. Kade takes it without comment, which is how Kade says thank you to everyone but Ellie.
"Then I want to go to the house," Ellie says.
We all look at her.
Tank tilts his head.
"Think about it." She stands, still in my hoodie but all business now.
"He ran fast, which means he probably left shit behind.
If there's anything in that house that could tell us where he went, or what he's got left to hold over my mom, I want it.
And right now is the only window we have where he's not there and his staff is probably scattering along with everyone else. "
"She's right," I admit. "Anyway, if Todd is on the run, that house is the last damn place he'd show up.
Kade swallows a mouthful of bacon and grins around the stitches in his lip.
"Then let's go raid the senator's fuckin' castle."