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Knight snorted. “Did we do something to him? You gotta be joking.”
“I’m not.” I shoved him for good measure, and a hand crossed in front of us, LJ. He physically pulled us apart when he grabbed Knight by his puffer coat, tugging him away and making him walk down the Mallick household’s grand steps. LJ followed after him after that, shaking his head at me.
I stood the high ground, watching them go. When Jax started to move that way too, I frowned at him. “You guys have some nerve coming here. After what you did to him, what Royal had all you guys do to him? You have some nerve.”
I wanted to say more, so obviously having the floor here. Even Knight and LJ had stopped at the bottom of the steps. Jax crossed in front of me, though, and this time, he shook his head.
“If only you knew what the hell you were talking about, Lindquist,” he said, frowning too. “Maybe if you did, you’d—”
“Jax?” LJ cut a hand across his neck, immediately silencing Jax. The blond waved him to come on, and despite doing so, Jax continued to stare at me.
Jax tipped his chin. “Maybe if you did, you wouldn’t be so hard on him.”
My brow twitched up at that, but even still, I wasn’t backing down. In any case, the boys left after that, and I was too busy running inside to make sure they hadn’t killed Ramses to read into anything he’d said. The first place I headed was up to his room, and when I found him sitting on his bed in front of his big-ass TV, I allowed my first breaths of relief. He was completely fine, sitting on his bed playing video games of all things. He was still in his bedclothes, aggressively fighting off some orcs or some shit on the screen, and seeing me, he shot me a look.
“What’s with that face?” he asked, his attention back on the screen. He shot more orcs. “You look like you’re about to kill someone. You get the ring?”
Dangling the bag, I showed him I had, and going over to his bed, I threw a pillow at him to make him drop the controller.
“I thought you might be dead, idiot, and yeah, I got the ring,” I said, putting the bag on the bed. I took off my coat. “I ran into Knight, LJ, and Jax at the door. Thought they might have killed you.”
With as skilled as he apparently was, Ramses not only didn’t drop the controller but leveled up when he threw a fist into the air. Moving onto the next adventure on the screen, he got back into it. “Why would you think that?”
I rolled my eyes, tossing my jacket before taking a corner of the bed. “I don’t know, because they almost did like a day ago.”
He chuckled. “That was before. But now, things are different.” He jutted a chin toward the bed, and by his feet were a couple of keys. He grinned. “Keys to Windsor House. Can you believe that?”
I didn’t, picking them up. “They gave these to you?”
“Yep. One to the main doors, the clubhouse—sorry, that part’s just for guys—as well as an access code into the whole facility.” He put a finger up to his head for that part. “All in here. I guess I’m in, and not only that, they wanted to make sure I was okay. I guess you guys scared the shit out of them by pulling me out of the woods the way you did. They were just trying to see what happened to me.”
Wild.
I threw hands through my hair. “Okay.”
“Just okay?” Letting his character die, he put the controller down. He raised his long legs. “’Zona, this is exactly what we wanted. Their trust?” He shook my leg. “With them out of the way, we can go into Windsor House and ask as many questions as we want. This is a good thing.”
Yeah, I guess so, and I watched as Ramses reached over and slid a hand into the bag.
“With this,” he paused, opening and unleashing that shine of his big-ass ring. He pulled it out, sliding the chrome over a knuckle. “We literally have the keys to the castle.”
“And that?” I asked, the red box peeking out of the top of the jewelry bag. “Something for your mom or something? I hope so. I had to talk to Royal’s dad to get it.”
“Really?” he asked, pull
ing that red box out. Without talking to me more about it, he opened his dresser drawer and slid it inside. “Surprised he left the bank for that.”
“He was already there, and he owns the bank?”
Ramses’ nod was subtle, but inside I said, Jesus. This was really what we were looking at here, people like that and with that kind of influence. I raised my legs, hugging them.
“What’s up?” Ramses asked me, pulling in. “You don’t look happy.”
I should be, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t intimidated. If I wasn’t scared to find out the truth.
I mean, look what happened to my sister.
If it was a haze gone wrong and people surrounding that haze got the authorities to keep silent about it, what could we do? “You really think we can do this? That people will listen to us?”
