AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“I’m not asking you to. Blake is.”
I pressed my lips together. “Are you in contact?”
“Not since before he blew up his house,” he said. “But it’s the last thing he said to me. Get her out of town. I was going to go see you after I took care of this.”
I stilled, looking at the pile of rubble, thinking about the blown-up house in South of Broad.
Thinking about Alice and her phone call, and the dead body she tried to pin on Blake. And now Sam, her own thug that admitted to the murder, was dead.
She’d tried to kill us. Blake was so scared he was in self-destruct mode.
She wasn’t afraid to do things I would never do. To kill someone. The police weren’t catching up with her just yet.
So we couldn’t leave. Because if she wasn’t after us, she’d be after innocent people next perhaps. Academy people. Anyone who had helped us. She’d find them to find us, then kill them.
Raven was right. She needed put down.
And running like this wasn’t a good idea. It separated us. It made us weak. She probably wanted this. Pull us apart, and she’d off us one by one.
It’s what I would do.
WITH BATED BREATH
On the way back to downtown Charleston, I slumped in the back seat, crossed my arms at my torso and glared at the roof of the Tesla. For a few miles, I was silent, contemplating what I wanted to do.
“What were you two talking about?” Corey asked.
Avery angled the rearview mirror to look at me better as he was driving. “Yeah, what’s the plan?”
I hadn’t said much other than we should get going when we’d gotten into the car to head back. I was trying to think. “Is Marc okay?” I asked. I looked toward Corey. “Can you confirm?”
He tilted his head and blinked at me, but then pulled out his phone. “Just a quick call I think.”
It only took a few minutes.
“People say he’s fine,” Corey said and hung up on whoever he was talking to. “He’s not actually in a jail cell. He’s in an office doing some paperwork. It’s just going to take a while. They were backed up with reports and short on staff, especially with the house explosion downtown.”
My heart settled down a little. If she got to Sam, she could get to us. I was trying to formulate the picture in my mind. If I were her, what would I do to make sure the people who tried to screw up my business and life…what would I do to them?
“Every time we’ve failed, it’s because they’ve managed to split us up,” I said to him. I tried my best to show some confidence in this theory. “Axel wanted to pretend to hide. I think we should get ourselves out of town a bit. I don’t think we should split up like they said. We need to stick together.”
“I don’t know,” Corey said. “I want to agree with you, but she could also put us in a space together and get us in one go.”
“I don’t think she can. There might not be that many on her side right now, and that’s why she kept trying to get us apart. I think we need to stop letting her bait us into separating. We can still hide until we can figure out what to do next, but do it together. As many as we can get.”
“The water would be the best idea,” Avery said. “A ship. Something small you can navigate.”
“Not a car?” Corey asked.
“I usually prefer a car myself,” he said. “But take a boat out into the middle of the ocean and sit a bit. A big enough boat would keep you all together. You can pull into any port. You can run a lot on the water, and no one knows where you are. Especially if you leave off GPS and phone signals. Buy new ones in every port if you want some sort of connection.”
Corey smirked at him. “Look at you, planning an escape.”
Avery made a cheek-puffing grin. “I’m learning.”
“You’re not wrong though,” Corey said. “Waterways are the best option if we’re going to do this.”
My lips twitched. It was on the tip of my tongue to say more, but I held back. Avery was here. He had enough to deal with getting back to Ethan
The way back into Charleston, the sun was setting and the roads had cleared up.
Doyle and what he said echoed in my mind.
Organized crime.
I knew they had to be now that he said it. They’d kidnapped Corey for some elaborate plot, a lot more sophisticated than just random thieves.
Out of our league.
I was a pickpocket. A no one. Corey was just trying to be a better person. We had no idea who they all were, just that they were very dangerous.
However, I couldn’t help but think they were still human. And it seemed like if Alice and old Mr. Murdock were still out there, they were the ringleaders, everyone taking orders from them.
And if that was the case, it was cutting the head off the snake, right? The body dies after that. We didn’t need to get everyone in the organization. We get them, that’s all that mattered.
“The police are already looking for them,” I said. “Shouldn’t we just find them and lead the police to them?”
“She may have a friend or two with the police,” Corey said. “At least I think so. Someone let that one guy get killed under their protection. We need someone higher up.”
I leaned forward, putting my chin near his shoulder as I stretched over the back of his seat. He was sitting back, gazing out the window, but turned his head a little when I was close.
“Don’t you know people?” I asked him.
“Personally? No. But I might know a guy who knows a guy.”
It wasn’t long before Avery had us back at the Sargent Jasper. He dropped us off at the door.
“You go right back to Ethan,” Corey said. “Don’t leave him and have security around at all times. Don’t get caught alone.”
“I got you,” he said and touched two fingers to his forehead in an awkward salute.
Before I went inside, Corey stopped me and turned me to him. “Listen,” he said. “I think you’re right.”
My jaw twitched as it tightened. “Shouldn’t we talk about this inside?”
He frowned. “I just think convincing the others might be a bit difficult. And I think we need more people. I’ve been doing the numbers in my head.” His hand twitched, raising up and making motions like writing numbers with his fingertips. “I’d like to work on it though. Can you give me some time to figure it out? Don’t mention it until I’ve got something.”
I’d never really witnessed him doing his math calculations for this sort of thing. I was interested in watching.
I didn’t know if he’d be able to do it soon enough, b
ecause I wasn’t very good at hiding what I was thinking from people. “Tell me how math helps you figure out solutions to things like this?”
“It’s complicated,” he said. “Let’s go in. I’ll get started.”
We had to get past security, but what surprised me was that Corey had to undo a small gun that he’d tucked into a holster at his waist.
I hadn’t even noticed.
I’d been so stressed since we’d been running around after Marc got picked up. This scared me because this was Corey toting around a gun. Anyone else around us could have been carrying and I was just too out of it to notice.
I didn’t say anything about it until we got to the elevator.
“When were you going to tell me about the gun?” I asked.
He shrugged, the material of his blue shirt bunching up at the shoulders. “Raven said I need to if we’re going out.”
“It’s weird,” I said, crossing my arms and leaning against the side of the elevator. “I thought I was taking this serious before. But just the last few hours, I feel like I was playing before and now…”
He pursed his lips and looked down at the floor. “We underestimated her before. No chance this time.”
“What are you going to do? If you see her, you shoot her?”
His blue eyes lifted, meeting my gaze.
“Seriously?”
“She’s already tried to kill us. It’s what she wants now. We see her, we shoot.”
I frowned. “Can you do it? Kill her?”
His lip quivered. “I don’t know.”
It was something I was hoping we wouldn’t have to find out, but he was right to think we might have to. But Corey wasn’t a killer. “Maybe we let those friends of a friend of yours in on this sooner.”
He didn’t answer, but he seemed to consider what I was thinking.
The elevator door opened on the seventh floor. The hall was empty.
“Do many people live on this floor?” I asked him.
“Just a few now,” he said. “As people moved out of this floor, they haven’t moved anyone else in. Just for now while we’re getting ready to move out. I think our people wanted to give us space…you know, while things were happening these last few months.”
