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“This society may be old,” she says gently. “But the secrets it keeps are much older. You and Cruz… you two are nothing compared to other truths.”
Cruz and I look at one another and the energy in the room seems to shift. Like a storm front moving in on a beautiful summer day.
“The other night, what happened with Royce…” She taps her cup, appearing to choose her words carefully. “It wasn’t because he was jealous, was it?”
I draw in a breath and hold it—not knowing how to answer. Sensing my apprehension, Cruz scoots his chair closer to mine and pulls my hand to his lap. “If this is too much…”
“No.” I look at him in neither fear nor sadness but defiance. “I have to know what this is about. I need answers.”
“Alright.” He brings our joined hands to his lips and kisses the top of my hand gently. “You lead, I follow.”
I turn to Momma, wondering where to begin? How do I dip my toe back into what happened the other night, without falling into the swamp of the truth?
“The night Royce attacked me…” I take a deep breath, then let it out slowly. “He told me Daddy betrayed his father, and those girls that went missing…it was him. He said he kidnapped them for me. But why? Why would he say that?”
Momma’s eyes flash and she turns to Antonio, a silent conversation passing between the two. Then she turns back to me and lifts her jaw in defiance.
“It starts with three words…Ex Multis Paucis.”
The way Cruz grips myhand when he hears it. tells me he is the one who knows something I don’t.
“What does it mean?” I ask carefully, a nagging feeling in my gut, telling me I am going to need something to hold onto when she answers.
Chapter 27
Ellery
The room falls quiet, as the pounding of my heart drowns out the world around me.
“Some of the guys on the team at Elmhurst used to say that.” Cruz lets go of my hand and places his forearms on the table.
“And I heard it growing up,” I add, nodding. Actually, I’d heard the saying so often over the years, I thought it was some kind of southern creed every family in Elmhurst knew and used.
“It is an oath,” Momma flicks her eyes from Cruz to me. “One taken and passed down for generations, by those who swore their allegiance in service to the cause. It is honored above everything. Friendship, marriage, careers…even life.”
I swallow when she says the last part, the way she says it, making my stomach flip uneasily.
“What does it mean?” I lean forward, wanting to know more.
She taps a nail against her cup, lips pressed into a firm line. “Out of many, few.”
“Like E Pluribus Unum,” Cruz claps his hands together.
“Yes,” she nods carefully, “but with less gravitas and more arrogance.”
“What do you mean?” I ask, needing to know more.
“It started in the early 1800s, and like many groups of kind, was born with a shared idea. Wealth and prosperity. That was its goal. And when Richardson, Vaughn, Webster, Bell, Cook, and Butler swore to uphold this shared vision, they sealed the oath and promised the blood of every future generation in their line, to live in honor of the vow, Ex Multis Paucis.”
“When you say group,” Cruz clutches his hands together tightly, “do you mean like a secret society?”
“Similar in concept,” she nods, “but worlds apart in practice.”
“How so?” I shake my head.
“Well,” she considers the question. “Unlike modern day secret societies, which tended to begin in academia, this group began on the heels of revolution. In the early years following this nation’s birth. Only, its promise was never prosperity for all, but a few.”
“And it began in Elmhurst?” Cruz asks.
