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The only sounds were the hum of the car engine and the sound of Jace’s phone keyboard. The silence was oppressive, a shroud wrapping us up in our own thoughts and fears. The weight of our impending battle hung heavy in the air.
As I drove on, each mile adding more distance between us and the decisions that awaited us back at HQ, I tried not to think about what was coming next. Tried not to think about the viper, about Sofia...about her life. About her safety.
About what she was choosing to do when she decided to go toe-to-toe against the scariest psychopath I had ever encountered.
This wasn't a fight. This was the damn apocalypse.
My grip tightened around the steering wheel. The radio played a low, mindless hum of static that nobody bothered to change. As we got closer to civilization, the radio picked up a signal. An old rock ballad by AC/DC started to filter into our silent bubble.
"Change that," Jace growled from the backseat, his annoyance clear.
Without missing a beat, Victor reached over and turned off the radio, plunging us back into silence. But it wasn't enough to mute the noise in my head.
Sofia was supposed to be safe. That was the rule, ever since we had found her bound to a chair in the storage room of Neon.
She had been beaten, bruised, but she'd looked up at us with those defiant brown eyes and I think there was a part of me that had immediately known: This girl wasn't a victim, she was a survivor. She was family.
“Fucking finally,” Jace said under his breath.
“What?” Grayson asked, barely interested.
“So this Stephen guy,” Jace said. “I’ve been looking into him. It’s been a nightmare. I knew that his father had to have some sort of association with Eduardo Reyes, but Stephen himself was squeaky clean and practically undetectable. No doubt because he’s a fed. But I found this arrest record for Reyes when he was a juvenile. It was sealed so it was hard to get my hands on.”
We waited for him to finish.
“Here’s where it gets interesting. He, uh, was arrested for attempted murder for two boys he got busted with? One of them is Stephen Matthews’ dad and the other is…uh, I mean, this might be a coincidence, but this kid had your name.”
I sighed. I hadn’t told them everything the Viper had said. “No, that’s my dad.”
A silence fell over the car. "Your dad?" Grayson finally asked, disbelief coloring his voice.
"Yeah," I admitted, a bitter taste on my tongue. "My old man and Stephen's were tangled up together since they were kids. It's how I got into this mess in the first place. At least that’s what Reyes let me know in the hospital. He’s targeting the Blades because of some weird revenge fantasy bullshit.”
"You're telling me your father was almost killed by Reyes?" Victor's voice was incredulous, disbelief etching every syllable.
"Seems so." I shrugged dismissively, hoping the nonchalance would fool them into dropping the subject.
"But that means..." Sam started, his forehead creasing in thought as he looked between me and Jace’s phone screen.
"Yeah," Jace cut in, nodding at the screen. "It means Reyes has been planning this for a long time. And if he's willing to wait that long..."
"Then we can't outwait him," Victor finished, his voice low.
"We're trapped," Grayson muttered, leaning back into the seat and staring blankly at the headrest in front of him. His fingers absently traced the stitching on the leather seat, his mind clearly elsewhere.
"But why target us now?" Sam asked, his brow furrowed in deep thought.
I shook my head. “You guys aren’t listening to me. This is about me. Not about you. You’ll get money, you’ll get—”
“I think you’re the one who isn’t listening to us, boss,” Grayson said simply. “I don’t think any of us care about that. I mean, I can’t speak for Jace and Victor.”
“You can speak for me,” Jace said.
“And me,” Victor added.
“Good, because I was going to anyway,” Grayson said, a ghost of a smile touching his lips. But it was fleeting, disappearing as quickly as it came. “We're Blades. We've been through shit together, seen things no one should see, done things we'll never be proud of. But if there's one thing I've learned from all this, it's that family sticks together.”
“Speak for yourself,” I muttered, my eyes fixed on the darkened road ahead.
