TWENTY-SIX
By Monday afternoon,I’m a little on edge, waiting for yet another catastrophe to strike. But so far, with the exception of a slight meltdown from Chase at breakfast when he realized he wasn’t going to get pancakes or waffles every single morning I’m in the house, things have gone smoothly all day.
My morning classes passed in a whirlwind, especially since we’ve been exceptionally cautious about checking in with each other and mindful about arranging who needed to be where and when. Because no way in hell was Echo going to be on her own except for during her first two classes of the day. She’d rolled her eyes, but I’d also seen a look of relief in them that we still weren’t willing to allow her out of our sight.
I glance at her out of the corner of my eye. We’ve got five minutes left of our art class. We’ve moved on to watercolors, which is a tricky paint medium for most people. It looks easy, but it’s simply not. Not if you’re hoping to come up with something that looks like more than a wet mess.
Under her breath, Echo murmurs, “I feel like I’m doing one of those water painting books with Chase. Only I’m fucking it all up.”
“What?” My brow furrows as I peek at what she’s doing. Her colors are muddy, but it’s also her first experience with this medium.
“You know, they have those books for kids with image outlines on a page, and there’s some sort of ink on the paper that reacts with the water. So, the kid thinks they’re painting, but they’re really just playing with water and a brush. This is sorta like that. Only way harder.” She makes a disgruntled sound. “I keep forgetting to clean my brush between colors.” The adorable crease in her forehead as she concentrates makes me want to grab her and kiss her until it fades.
I clear my throat. “River and I actually used to paint with my mom. First fingerpaints when we were small, then watercolor, acrylics, and even oils as we got older. It was one of my mother’s many hobbies. Painting in particular, though, my father said was fucking stupid. A useless pastime. But I loved it. And that pissed him off even more because no son of his needed to participate in some activity for girls.”
“Shut up. He didn’t.” She frowns. “What an asshole.” Her face colors almost immediately, her eyes crashing shut. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t?—”
“Speak of the dead like that? Nah, go ahead. You’re right. My old man was definitely an opinionated, hardheaded asshole.” A vision of my dad upending the small table where my mother’s paints were sitting while shouting at me to get my ass into the house dances before my eyes. I shake my head, forcing the memory to the back of my mind.
Echo sighs, poking her brush into the water, cleaning it off. “I’m done for today. Did you say you had something to do after class?”
I pinch my lips together as I clean up. “Yeah. After getting a look at River again this morning before we left, I realized I have a lot of fuckin’ steam to still blow off.” River’s eye looks even worse today, but she seems more stable than she did yesterday. I clear my throat. “I thought it might be a good idea to get out of my head for a bit and head to my old gym with Royal. Get some of the aggression out. I haven’t been there in ages, and he’s never been.” And apparently now I’ll be alternating between whose face I see when I hit the punching bag. My dick-faced abusive brother-in-law or my sadistic asshole father. Two delightful choices, honestly.
Echo clenches her teeth, giving me a pained smile. “I can imagine it’s hard to see her like that. Did you”—she glances around us to make sure no one is listening—“did you tell her about the money?”
“No. Didn’t want to start an argument, you know?” I let out an aggravated breath, pull a tube of lip balm from my pocket, and slick it over my lips, then I automatically hold it out for Echo. “It’ll be there when she’s ready for it.”
She grins as she takes the tube from me, uncaps, and applies it. All the while, I can practically see the gears rotating in her head before she speaks. “But hey, isn’t it kinda fun that our sisters seem to get along pretty well?” Her lips twist as she slaps the lip product back into my hand, raising a brow.
“You’re sure Kara wasn’t just being ridiculously nice?”
She shakes her head. “She’s not like that. If she thinks someone isn’t cool or is full of shit or she doesn’t like them, she will make that known pretty quickly—at the very least, she’d privately tell me. From what Kara said, they talked until almost midnight.”
Well, thank fuck.I’d felt kinda bad leaving River… and equally as shitty about intruding even further on Kara’s home life. “Good. I’ll try not to worry about it, then.”
At the end of class, we grab our bags and scoot out the back door of Brandywine Hall, meeting Royal and Beckham on a bench under the tree.
Royal nods at me as he stands up. “You ready to hit the gym?”
I smirk. “Yeah. Ready to hit something, anyway.” I hook an arm around Echo’s neck, pressing a kiss to her temple. “Thanks for reassuring me about River staying with your sister.”
She winks as she puts her arms around Royal, going up on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. “I don’t say things I don’t mean, just like my sister doesn’t.” She steps away from him, taking Beckham’s offered hand.
He gives her a goofy smile. “Let’s go, Calamity Jane.”
“We’ll be back in a couple hours. Can you tell River where I went?”
“Yeah, man. We’ll tell her.”
The smellof the gym is the same as it always has been. A little musty, a whole lot sweaty, but also a place where young athletes can hope and dream. And it sure as fuck is the place that made me who I am. The place that gave me the will to survive.
I grip Royal’s chin, looking into his eyes, then turn his head so I can get a look at his scalp. I don’t want to fucking hurt him while we’re messing around. “You sure you’re okay to spar today? We don’t have to if you aren’t up to it.” I gesture to the weights with a nod of my head. “We could lift instead, if you’d rather.” Eyeing the bandage on his shoulder, I grimace, and Royal bats my hand away.
“Okay, Nurse Wilder. Enough of that. I’m no idiot. I wouldn’t set foot in the ring with you if I didn’t feel up to it.” He’s got a look of gritty determination in his eye that I would do well to be wary of.
My lip curls. “Okay. Let’s go, then.” I shove in my mouth guard, and immediately drop into my fight stance. Still leery, I slowly begin to circle, waiting for him to make the first move.
It only takes one punch and a sneaky leg strike for me to realize he means business. Honestly, neither his head nor his shoulder seem to have any bearing on his performance, but as we blow off steam, I’m taking more hits than usual because I’m being cautious not to hurt him. Studying my friend as he gives me a snarling smile around his mouthpiece, I chuckle internally. He’s coming after me like a demon, fuck all that shit from yesterday. He might be trying to prove to me—or even to himself—that he’s fine, but it’s all good, because with every hit either of us land, I feel some tension release.
After five sweat-and-grunt-filled minutes, I hold my hand up, calling a stop to our sparring. We’re both breathing hard and, since no one else is in need of the practice ring, we walk around for a minute or two, stretching, before grabbing our water bottles and exiting the ring to unwrap our hands.
Royal gives me a furtive look as we stand side by side. “Hey. I gotta tell you something. I hope you won’t be pissed or offended that I haven’t said shit before this, because I’m not technically supposed to bring it up…” He throws out a hand, wincing. “But I feel like it’s important. A piece of this fuckin’ puzzle.”
Something to do with the Sin Keeper, then. Mother. Fucker.Tossing my gloves and wraps to the side, I exhale hard, waiting for the next bomb to drop, like I’d assumed it would. “Just tell me.” My stomach flips upside down while I wait, studying his pinched, aggravated features.
He clears his throat, finally meeting my eyes. Those pale greens hold some indecision, but also a desire to share whatever this is. “I’m in possession of something from the Franks’ house.”
My forehead creases as my brain whirs. That is not at all what I was expecting. “What sort of something are we talking about?”
He groans. “I transferred everything from Rich’s computer to an external hard drive. I’ve been sitting on it for weeks now, not knowing what to do, what any of it means or”—practically growling, he throws up his hands as he finishes—“if I’ve even fuckin’ figured out correctly what I was being told to do.” His voice is rough by the time he finishes getting that much out.
It’s clear he’s been worrying the entire fucking time this supposed information has been in his possession, and he hasn’t said a word. Fuck. We’re trained like goddamn monkeys to keep this Sin Keeper stuff to ourselves. And why? Seems like if we worked together it’d be a better plan, but what the fuck do I know? I run my hand over my face, in a state of disbelief, as he heaves out a breath.
“I was so overwhelmed when I first looked at it that I ignored it for a while. There are so many fucking files. The man runs a business. There was everything from information on personnel to company reports, the whole enchilada. And then all the usual personal stuff, too. Photos and other information. I felt like a fucking creeper looking at it. Then, when I finally sucked it up and decided to have another look, it was the night of the murders. Right before the party.”
Fuck. Well, that explains the hold up. Chaos had ensued that day, from the mess with Royal and Davis to the awful images of Beckham to Echo’s spilled drink and a motherfucking double homicide. My head is suddenly full of mental images that I could do without. Blood. Death. Vomit. Flashing blue lights. I exhale heavily, and when I finally glance up to meet his gaze, he searches my eyes, asking without words for understanding. “I get it. I wish I had known, but I get why you’d keep quiet.”
With his jaw clenched, he nods. “I know. I feel like a complete dick for not saying something. Echo caught me scanning the files that night, so she knows about it, too.” Royal closes his eyes for a second, wetting his lips. “Right before she found me looking at it, I’d opened this one particular file, and it was full of folders, each labeled with a first initial and a last name. We each have one. But it’s not just us. All the SIN brothers are there. I assume some of the names I don’t recognize are actually the sisters that the Sin Keeper referred to. Or maybe files on other people he’s tracking? I don’t fucking know. But I think this mess is so much bigger than we first thought.”
I sit in stunned silence for a count of three, then glance around us to make sure no one is listening. “What the fuck? Well, what’s in the folders?” I begin to sweat, wondering if there’s incriminating evidence in my file. It’s possible. Totally fucking possible. I feel the blood drain out of my head, leaving me feeling dizzy.
“I don’t know. It’s all passcode protected. And Echo saw the E. Madden file, so she knows she’s being watched. But we knew that already, otherwise the Sin Keeper wouldn’t have invited her to stay.”
With my stomach churning, I raise my brows and quietly ask, “What about Beckham? Is he aware of this?”
Royal exhales. “No. We can tell him, or I can show you guys. I have no idea what else to do because someone has severely overestimated my computer skills if they think I’m able to crack files with passcode protection.”
I can only imagine what would be in Beckham’s file, and my heart squeezes painfully. The Sin Keeper knows so much, surely he knows about Megan, too. That entire debacle with her is how he landed here in the first place.
Shaking my head, I try to dispel the demons that creep ever closer. My brain ticks around, sorting through things for the thousandth time. We need to know what’s in those damn files. The possible solution hits me out of nowhere. “Shit, wait. I might have a guy who could help us. I’m in a class with him, and he’s really fucking smart. A computer genius. Want me to have him take a look? We have class tomorrow.”
Royal’s eyes have gone wide, worry filling them. “You trust him?”
I shrug. “I mean, do we have a choice? If it makes you more comfortable, I could stay with him while he looks at it. Or we all could. Bring your laptop with you to campus tomorrow.”
He blows out a breath, gripping the back of his neck. Finally, he nods. “Yeah, okay. It’s worth a shot.”
There’s a thundering boom behind me as the door behind us slams shut. On edge, I turn around, but a wide grin spreads across my face as I climb to my feet.
“How’s it going, kid?” My coach from when I was younger—a big, burly guy—stands there with his hands on his hips, surveying us. “Long time no see.” His voice echoes through the mostly empty gym.
“Hey, Coach Carson. Good to see you. But I’m not really a kid anymore.” He grips my offered hand, then pulls me in, thumping his hand on my back.
Once he’s let me go, I gesture to Royal, who has come to stand by my side. “This is my friend, Royal, by the way. He’s at SIN, too. We needed a good sweat session, so I figured I’d show him where I learned how to fight.”
His eyes glitter with interest, but if there’s one thing I know about my coach, he doesn’t ask questions. “Nice to meet you, Royal.” He’s always let me bring things up in my own time, spill my guts when I’m ready. At this moment, I’m not ready. There’s just too fucking much. And Coach knows the worst of me already.
“What’ve you been up to?”
Carson chuckles. “You know me, kid. I like to blend in. They didn’t call me The Ghost back in the day for nothing. You never fuckin’ see me coming.” He snorts out another laugh, then shoots me a wink. “I’ve been keeping track of you. Saw the fight last night. Lookin’ really fuckin’ good, honestly. Took down Bear Pierce. How the fuck did you manage that?”
I’m unsurprised he’s paid attention to what I’ve been up to, especially if it has to do with me being on the card for a fight against Bear. I shrug. “Got lucky, I guess.” I pat the four-leaf clover on my pec, the tattoo I got after winning my first fight. That time, I really had been lucky. This time, I feel like it was more than luck. Skill, definitely, and some odd extenuating circumstances for the other fighter. I’d actually like to have a beer with Gideon Pierce some day and ask him a couple questions.
Coach cocks his head to the side. “You know that program I was starting back when you headed off to KU?”
I do remember that. He specifically started a youth program for at-risk children after his dealings with me. Slowly, I nod. “I do. Trying to help out some of the troubled kids in the community.”
“Yep. The ones who would be getting themselves into trouble if they didn’t have anything better to do.” He pauses, squinting at me. At both of us, really. “Hey, maybe you should come down and help me train the little assholes. There’s this one kid who reminds me a lot of you.”
If that’s the case, I feel sorry for the kid. I used to show up at Carson’s gym at all hours to get away from what was happening in our house. I needed to be able to protect us, so I begged Carson to take me under his wing. And he had. I owe him everything. “Text me the details. I’ll see if I can work it into my schedule.”
“What the fuck are you doing here?” A semi-familiar voice rasps behind us, and Royal and I both turn to see who else has joined us. Surprise lights Royal’s face at the same time confusion clouds my head. It’s that Theo guy. His eyes are pinned on Royal, gaze moving swiftly over him. Assessing. “Holy shit, Royal, how’s your damn head? Tell me you haven’t been sparring. Wilder, you made sure he’s okay?”
“Of course, I did.” I shrug. “And I went easy on him today.”
Royal gives me a dirty look, and I laugh, but our eyes connect. I’d never fucking chance hurting you. I don’t know if he reads it in my eyes, but he winces before he answers Theo. “I’m good. Promise.”
Theo and Coach Carson exchange a glance. Carson booms, “Well, I’d do introductions, but it sounds like you already know Theo. He’s one of the other coaches helping me with the youth program.”