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“I think he just did,” Sam said quietly from beside me. His face in the dim light was tight and closed off, but his eyes were steady and earnest.
I took a deep breath and ran a hand over my face. “This is not your fight.”
“It became our fight when Sofia walked into our lives,” Victor said simply from the back seat. He met my gaze in the rear-view mirror, his expression hard and determined. “And that’s her brother.”
I rubbed my head. “Guys, you don’t understand. I have to give him the Blades. I have to. He’ll kill her if I don’t.”
“So double-cross him,” Sam said quietly.
“And then what?” I snapped, my tone harsher than I intended. “What happens when he finds out? What happens to Sofia then?”
Nobody answered. The thought hung there, a dark spectre in the silent car.
“What happens to us?” It was Victor's voice that sliced through the stifling quiet this time.
I let out a frustrated sigh. “We’ll be dead.”
“Or worse,” Sam murmured.
Jace grunted, his eyes flicking up to meet mine in the rear-view mirror. There was a hardness in them that I hadn’t seen before, a grim determination that echoed my own. "Then we're already dead," he said softly, his gaze never wavering from mine. "Because if we hand over the Blades, what do we have left? At least this way we go down fighting."
“We want Sofia to be safe more than anything, Teo,” Grayson said. “We love her. You know that. But this? This isn’t the way.”
"Easy for you to say," I shot back, my hands tightening on the steering wheel. "If something happens to Sofia, I won't be able to live with myself. She should never have been involved in all this."
"Well if you're making decisions for all of us, we should have a say too," Jace said, leaning forward between the front seats. His voice was quiet but insistent. "And we say fight. Fight for Sofia, fight for us, fight for everything we've built."
"We need a plan," Grayson interjected, his calm voice bringing a sense of order. The car fell silent as we all considered his words.
"Yeah," I said finally. "We need a plan."
“I’m still on team double cross,” Sam said. “Then we kill him.”
Chapter Twenty: Sofia
Stephen told me that we had to wait until night had fallen before we went to HQ, so we drove to Orlando and then in circles for hours until the sun had set and the city lights were shining brightly. Finally, after he deemed it safe enough, after night had fallen and people had started to go out, he decided to drive me to HQ.
“Are you sure they’re here?” I asked as he parked across the street.
“Yeah, we have a tail on them,” Stephen said.
“Do they know we’re coming?” I questioned, my fingers twisting in my lap.
“No. They can’t know,” He switched off the engine and turned to face me, his eyes grim in the dim light. “You have to be careful about going in and you have to leave when I tell you. You ready for this?”
I nodded, swallowing hard. "Yeah, I guess."
“Here,” he said, handing me a cap and sunglasses. “Keep your head down when you walk. I don’t think the Viper has eyes on HQ right now, but better safe than sorry.”
Stephen gave me a long look and then nodded back. He opened the car door and got out, leaving me alone for a moment that felt much longer than it was. My heart pounded in my chest as I took a deep breath and followed him out of the car.
I pushed the cap down low over my forehead, trying to make myself as inconspicuous as possible. The night was mild, a soft breeze tugging at my hair and rustling the few leaves left on the trees. My heels clicked against the pavement, echoing starkly in the otherwise quiet street as I trailed Stephen across the smooth tarmac.
Stephen rapped on the door of HQ twice – two quick, sharp knocks followed by a pause and another softer one. From within, muffled voices could be heard growing louder as the seconds ticked by. I felt my heart pounding faster with every tick.
Then suddenly, the door swung open. Teo was standing in the hallway, cutting an imposing figure against the backlight of the corridor.
His eyes took a second to adjust to the darkness outside, scanning over Stephen before coming to a halt on me. For a moment, he just stared, surprise clear on his rugged face.
