Page 33 of Rust of Control

Nate told him Rand had made an offer. Didn't say what the offer was. Watched Jude's face work through the math without being given it, which was faster than Nate expected, and then go still.

"He was going to sell me," Jude said.

"He tried to."

"To pay Varga."

"Yes."

Jude looked at the closed notebook. His thumb moved on the cover, back and forth, once. Nate had seen that before, in the war room when Ghost was walking him through the faces. He didn't say anything now either.

"Okay," Jude said.

"Okay?"

"I mean-" He stopped. The thumb stilled. "I'm not surprised. I think I've known, somewhere, what he was capable of. I just didn't have a word for it yet." He looked up. "What happens now?"

"We move fast. Ghost thinks Varga responds within seventy-two hours. When he does, we'll know what shape the operation takes."

"And Rand?"

"Rand's going to try to deliver. When he tries, we'll be there."

Jude nodded slowly. His jaw was set the same as it'd been when he read three years of embezzlement at the kitchen table. Not bravado. Not performance. Just where Jude was now, on the other side of two years and a board full of faces and a man who'd tried to sell him.

"I want to know when it happens," Jude said. "I'm not asking to be there. I just want to know."

"You'll know."

Jude reached for his pen. Opened the notebook. Not ending the conversation, Nate thought, just needing something in his hands.

"Go do your job," Jude said quietly. "I'll be here."

Nate stood. Put his hand briefly on the back of Jude's neck, warm, and let go.

He went back to the work.

Chapter 17

He called Kit first.

Not because Kit was the easiest but because Kit had come to him with the folder, in the cold on the steps, and that meant Kit had already been willing to walk toward the hard thing. Jude needed someone who'd already proven they could do that.

Kit picked up on the second ring. "Hey. You okay?"

"Can you come to the safehouse? And bring Sy and Mara if they'll come."

A pause. "Jude. What's going on?"

"I'll explain when you get here. All of it. I promise."

Another pause, shorter. "Give me an hour."

They came in Sylis's car, the three of them, and Marcus let them in without ceremony and put them in the kitchen with coffee and went back upstairs. Jude sat across the table from Kit and Sy and Mara, their temp drummer that he was pretty sure would be permanent, and looked at the people he'd been making music with for three years and told them everything.

He started with Rand and the money, which they already half-knew. Then the rest of it: the kids, the venues, the dates, the trafficking to Winsor. The seven faces on the board upstairs. He told them about the shows, the pattern, what Rand had been doing in the rooms after Jude finished performing. He told them what Hollow Bright had been used for without knowing it.

He watched their faces while he talked. Kit's went still first, jaw locked, moving slow through something large. Sy put his coffee down and didn't pick it up again, he excused himself and Jude was pretty sure he was puking. Mara's jaw tightened, then her eyes went wet, rage in their almond depths behind her bright pink dreads.