14. Ryan #4
“Could be both,” Callum says. Arthur nods.
For a few seconds the only sound is the clock in the hall. Four fifty-eight. We have school in a few hours. So does Ally. She’s going to put on that uniform with bruises under it and walk into Edgewood like her father didn’t hit her last night. My hands curl under the table.
“There’s one more thing,” I say. “Jane knows Ally’s pregnant. Jane saw her stomach last night. Ally told her the truth. Showed her the ultrasound pictures. Jane knows the baby is mine, and she told Ally to hide the pictures and get out.”
Dad sits back slightly. “Does Roman know Jane knows?”
“No. As far as we know, Roman still doesn’t know about the baby at all.”
“We need to keep it that way,” Kaiden’s dad says.
“Yeah.” I look back at the files. “We do.”
Arthur exhales. “Then we find out exactly what the transaction is. And we get her out before it matters.”
“Tobias too.”
“Yes.”
“And Jane,” Dad says. Arthur pauses. Just long enough. Dad sees it. “What?”
“Jane is an adult.”
“So is Ally.”
“Different circumstances.”
“She stepped between Roman and those kids last night.” His voice rises for the first time in a while. “Got thrown into a goddamn table trying to protect them. We are not leaving her there because she’s harder paperwork.”
Arthur’s face changes. “I didn’t say we were.”
“Then all three.”
Arthur nods. “All three.”
Something settles in my chest. Not relief. Close enough to keep me from losing it.
“We still have the other problem,” Callum says. I know which one before he finishes. “People keep finding out.”
The room goes quiet. We don’t need the recap. A move gets planned. Somebody reacts before we make it. Pressure shifts, and someone on the other side already knows where it’s coming from. Every time.
“Which means what Ally gave Ryan last night stays in this room,” Arthur says. “Anyone we contact gets only what they need. No complete picture — not until we know whether it’s one leak or a dozen people passing information through the same circles.”
Dad’s eyes narrow. “Cassandra?”
“Doesn’t need the specifics yet.”
Dad doesn’t like it. Neither do I. But he nods.
Arthur checks the time. “After five. We need decisions.” He counts them off. The photographs are preserved; he has the originals. Ally documents everything while it’s fresh — somewhere safe.
“At school,” I say. “I can set that up without drawing attention.”
He nods. Jane’s injuries stay with the evidence. He starts on what last night gives us for Tobias the moment the people he needs are awake.
“Wake them up,” Dad says.
Arthur stares at him. Dad stares back. Arthur sighs. “I’ll wake them up.”
Callum will make quiet inquiries about Celeste without using her name.
Gideon takes Tremblay’s marriages, re-read through Jane’s information.
Thomas thinks he knows someone who can tell them what kind of agreement would fit Roman and Victor’s overlapping interests — only what they need, Arthur tells him, twice.
Dad hasn’t said anything. He’s staring at Tobias’s picture again.
Arthur notices. “We’ll use it, Walter.”
“Tell me what you need.”
Arthur pauses. “Right now?”
“Any time.” Dad looks around the table. “Money. Lawyers. Investigators. Security. Somebody who can get into records you can’t.
Somebody who keeps Roman from getting within fifty feet of them once they’re out.
I don’t care what it costs.” His voice is completely calm now.
That’s worse than when he wanted his keys. “You tell me what it takes.”
Arthur nods slowly. “I will.”
Dad’s eyes drop to my phone. Tobias. Then Ally. Then Jane. His mouth tightens. “You get my kids out of that house.”
Nobody corrects him. Nobody asks which kids.
Five thirty-six. The meeting breaks fast after that.
It has to. The dads leave with names and pieces instead of the whole thing.
Arthur stays long enough to forward himself something from my phone; Iz waits by the door for him.
Kaid and X are already talking low. Danny hasn’t moved.
Clifford stays beside him. So does Theodore.
I walk over. “You okay?”
Danny laughs once. “No.” Fair. “But I will be.” His eyes lift to mine. “If she has any bleeding—“
“I know.”
“Ryan. Don’t fuck around with it.”
“I won’t.”
Theodore puts a hand on his shoulder. “Neither will she.”
Danny looks at him, and for a second I can see Becca between them even though she isn’t here.
Then Clifford squeezes the back of his son’s neck. “Come on. You still have to get dressed.”
“That’s fucking cruel.”
“School tends to require pants.”
“I have pants.”
Clifford looks down at his sweatpants. “Debatable.”
Danny flips him off. There he is. They leave.
Within minutes the driveway empties, headlights disappearing down the street one by one until the house is quiet again. Dad stays at the table. So do I. My phone sits between us, Tobias’s picture still open.
Dad reaches over and locks the screen. “I want him here.”
“I know.”
“Both of them.”
“I know.”
His eyes come to mine. “And that baby.”
My throat tightens. “Yeah.”
Dad gets up. “You’ve got about an hour before you need to get ready.” He starts toward the kitchen, then stops. “Ryan.” I look at him — tired, furious, scared. Exactly how I feel. “You see her at school, you make sure she’s okay.”
“I will.”
“And you don’t do anything stupid.”
I stare at him. “You tried to leave twenty minutes ago to murder her father.”
“That’s exactly why I’m qualified to recognize the warning signs.”
I almost smile. Almost. He disappears into the kitchen.
I pick up my phone. No new messages from Ally.
Good. She needs to sleep. In a few hours she’s going to put on her Edgewood uniform and cover Roman’s fingerprints as well as she can.
Tobias is going to wake up in the same house as the man who hit him.
Jane is going to wake up bruised beside a husband she’s spent years learning how to survive.
And I’m going to school. The thought makes me fucking sick.
But last night Roman did something he hasn’t done before. He gave us proof. Jane gave us a direction. Victor showed us Roman isn’t standing beside him — he’s standing underneath him. And whatever agreement sits between them runs back into a web we’ve been cutting pieces out of for months.
We still don’t know what Victor gets. We don’t know what Jane knows and hasn’t been brave enough to say. We don’t know what Roman keeps. We don’t know why Bella knew to look at the wives. And we still don’t know who keeps whispering warnings before we get where we’re going.
But for the first time, Roman is losing control faster than he can hide it. Victor already lost his in front of half of Edgewood. Good. Let them unravel. Let them get scared. Let them start making mistakes.
Because I’m done waiting for these men to decide what happens to Ally. They’ve had eighteen years. Now it’s our fucking turn.