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“They need to pay,” I whisper.
Elmhurst killed those girls and my father and Lord know what else in the name of power. They can’t be allowed to continue. They can’t be allowed to one day pave the way for how millions of innocent people live their lives.
He presses his lips to the top of my head, breathing me in. “What do you want to do?”
I turn around and look up, his blue eyes bright, waiting for my answer. “We bring them down. Every last one.”
He cups my face, eyes flashing as he brushes his thumbs along my jawline. “All right. You lead, I follow.”
The four of us are quiet, the weight of the past and the fallout of the present making it hard to think and breathe. I have no idea what to do.
I shake my head, trying to think, when Cruz’s dad breaks the silence. “I have an idea.”
Momma, Cruz, and I turn our attention to Antonio and he grips his chin. His eyes are serious, his focus intense. He looks exactly as his son does when he’s focused on one thing—protecting those he cares about.
I can see why Momma loves him so fiercely, and why she trusted him with this secret.
“Elmhurst is a powerful society with hooks so deeply embedded in our lives and this country, that all it would take is one tug on a loose thread for generations of secrets to come tumbling out. I have a friend at theNew York Timeswho would be very interested in those secrets. I say, we let him tug on one of those threads.”
“Which one?” Momma asks, a smile lighting up her face.
“The one that holds together the whole damn quilt. Thebeginning.”
Chapter 28
Cruz
One month later…
“Rise and shine,” Jake calls while pounding on the door. “Bagels and coffee are in the kitchen.”
“What time is it?” Ellery mumbles sleepily.
“Early,” I groan and drape my arm over her waist, pulling her toward me. “Let’s go back to sleep.”
“We can’t,” she pushes back, yawning, cutting off her sleepy giggle. “We have a long drive ahead of us. How long is it again?”
“Long,” I nuzzle her neck. “Which is why all future trips will be by plane.”
I can’t believe we’re headed back to Highland today and Ellery’s coming with me.
When she told me the news that her mom had pulled a few strings and gotten her in, I was ecstatic. I never wanted this to end, and now that she would be with me, it wasn’t going to. She would be with me for next season and whatever came after and our future seemed bright and endless.
What wasn’t, however, was summer and I can’t believe it’s over. The last few weeks seemed to come and go in the blink of an eye. Thankfully, the whole thing with her birth control pills didn’t result in any surprises, but just to be safe, she tossed them out and got a new prescription. As for everything else, it was a bit of a rollercoaster.
After calling Coach to tell him about Cal, he pushed the start of conditioning off a few weeks. I didn’t tell him everything that happened, but shared enough that he didn’t hesitate when Jake and I requested to come back to campus at the end of thesummer.
He wouldn’t be telling the team about Cal’s departure until we were all back, however. Losing him would be a blow, and Coach wanted Jake and I there for morale. Plus, steroid use was not tolerated and he wanted all of us to get the message in person, loud and clear.
“So the south has grown on you after all, huh?” Ellery says with a playful grin.
“Sure has,” I groan. “But it’s not the only thing that’s growing.”
I pull her to me and when she feels my morning wood she laughs. “And to think I once believed you didn’t want me.”
I kiss the spray of freckles on the tip of her nose and reach behind me for the pack of mints on my nightstand. When I find it, I bring it overhead and pop one in my mouth. It takes a second to dissolve and once it does I kiss her.
“I could get used to this,” I whisper against her lips.
