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My stomach coiled tighter and tighter.
“You heard what she said,” Kai chimed in. “He had plans for Michael, too. And then nothing. Michael never got fingered for anything.”
“Because Trevor didn’t want his family embarrassed,” Misha said.
“Because Evans Crist didn’t want his family embarrassed,” Rika said instead.
I closed my eyes, not surprised at all. My friends picked up on things without missing a beat.
“Motherfucker,” Michael said. “It wasn’t about Will. Or his hatred of Will. His grandfather was coming up for re-election that year. He almost lost because of the bad press.”
“And Kai and Damon?” Banks pressed.
No one said anything, and I finally spoke up. “Evans knew that Schraeder Fane accounted for Damon in his will.” As executor of his estate, he would’ve known who Damon really was. “If he planned on marrying Rika to Trevor, he wouldn’t want to share the fortune with Damon—and by extension, Gabriel.”
“And Katsu Mori was forced to step down from the boards of Mitchell & Young and Stewart Banks,” Rika explained. “Both of which helped finance Evans’s real estate projects over the next several years.”
“Which my father might not have been inclined to support if he’d still been on the boards, since he hates your dad,” Kai said to Michael.
It had all come together. The past seven years spreading out before us in a maze that took all of us to complete, but finally made perfect sense once and for all.
The amount of people who had played us like puppets for their own end, and the amount of time I wasted being ignorant of all of it and floating with the current...
I almost wish I could go back to the nights at Delcour and fucking with Rika when we thought it was all her fault. How simple it was then.
“Alex?” Rika said. “You okay?”
I looked over my shoulder, realizing Alex hadn’t spoken since we boarded. She leaned into the windows, arms folded across her chest and staring off.
After a moment, she nodded but didn’t make eye contact, the usual square to her shoulders in an unnerving slump.
“Only three of you came on board,” Damon said. “Where are the other two prisoners? Our research said there were five.”
But neither Alex nor I answered.
I stared at the dazed look on her face, completely defeated.
She’d never see him again.
But just then, she pulled herself up straight, cleared her throat, and cracked her knuckles. “I need to spar. Now.”
“Rika or me?” Banks asked.
She shot off, toward the door where I stood. “I’ll take you both.”
She passed me and left the car, followed quickly by the girls with Winter’s hand locked in Rika’s as they all followed Alex.
I hesitated only a moment before I opened the door again. “I need to make those calls,” I said, leaving.
But Michael’s voice rang out behind me. “Is anyone from that house coming for us?”
But I didn’t turn back or answer. Aydin Khadir was problem six hundred fifty-three, and I was only on number four.
• • •
I ended my fourth call, setting the phone down as I rose from the chair. I was still in my semi-wet jeans, but instead of heading into the shower or changing into the suit laid out for me on the bed, I turned and stared out the window instead.
The night passed by quickly, the sea on the horizon calm and black as I ground my fist.
