I put my hand in my pocket. The message is still there.
My legs burn as I run.
Rounding the corner, I look behind me.
No… oh my God… no!
I wake up in a sweat, looking around in fear, realizing I’m still in my dorm room.
Rett left after I started to doze off, hoping I’d get good sleep. Ha.
This is the first time a name has come to me. Not the mystery man, but someone who feels just as important.
I pick up my phone, wanting to text Siler, then thinking of Rippley…
I open social media, where I never post, but I’ve gone to Rippley’s page before to watch his crew videos and dances with his little sister. His last post breaks my heart all over again.
“What’s not meant for you will disappoint you a thousand times until you understand.”
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Hart
Don’t ever put me in a position where I have to show you how heartless I can be.
We’ve been in Italy, at Amadeo Cortini’s family home, for less than twenty-four hours. In that time, we’ve managed to lose someone, violate international laws, and drag a drunk asshole out of a fountain.
Clearly, we’re getting the important things done.
The Cortinis are part of the de’ Medici family, a well-connected Italian dynasty. Their home looks more like a castle than a house.
While their primary residence is in the English countryside, they also have homes in Cinque Terre, Italy, and Hallstatt, Austria.
Due to the Eights’ rule that we don’t all travel together, only a fraction of us are here. Not a particularly pleasing group in my opinion. Deo, JJ, Rett, Soren, and me.
Oh, and Ms. Elizabeth Ahrens. I’d hoped she didn’t have a passport.
“So, the key to a riddle is another riddle?” Deo asks before leaning over the balcony of his room to vomit.
Critical thinking is hard, buddy.
“When that result of a gas station condom set out to harvest your organs with a rusty spoon, did he give you any answers?”
“You should seek help, mate.” Deo laughs before throwing up more of the liquor he’d imbibed. He turns to lean against the railing, struggling to light a cigarette. “He babbled on about the four rivers, then some French horse. I don’t know.”
Great intel.
Soren strides through the door. “There’s a cipher.”
“Any idea where?” I ask, closing the patio doors while Deo continues to make a public spectacle of himself.
“If the history is right...”
“There’s no actual proof that what we’ve been told happened in history actually happened. We may have been lied to our whole lives.”
He follows me out of the sitting room and into the other wing in search of JJ or Rett. God, let them be decent. Not in the middle of sex acts with their problem.
“We’ll need a key even if we find the cipher,” Soren continues.
