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“What changed then?” Scar demands.
I cock my head to the side. I feel like it would be pretty obvious. Romano attacked them because of us. Why wouldn’t she turn to us for help?
She must sense the question coming not only from me but the others as well. “She showed up here demanding to see Jade. Convinced I already had her and begging to see her sister. All while bleeding.” She looks at Alec coolly. “So what changed? What made her throw all caution to the wind and show up here putting all her cards on display?”
Alec shrugs like the answer doesn’t really matter, but I can see in the tightness of his features he knows exactly how much his answer can determine Scar’s reaction.
“She had nothing left to lose. All she wants is her sister. Worst case, you had no idea what she was talking about and she had to pay the consequences of disrespecting you.”
“That could have been death,” Luca interjects before Scar can.
Alec flinches, ever so slightly. “It’s a risk she was obviously willing to take. She knew you declared war on Romano. It was confirmation enough that you were working against him. That maybe his suspicions against you weren’t so unwarranted after all. That it most likely wouldn’t have been a new and reckless move on your parts. The recent bust made sense to be connected to you and just maybe you weren’t opening up to us about it not only to protect yourselves, but to protect the girls you saved. Rachel’s sister.”
“That hasn’t been proven,” Scar throws in dismissively. He starts to argue back but she doesn’t give him the chance. “You haven’t given us anything to prove it.'“
He grits his teeth, leveling a glare back at her. One that would normally have my hackles rising but only amuses me right now. “That’s not my story to tell.”
Scar shrugs again, like it can’t be helped then. I can tell it chafes him, but he knows better than to keep pushing.
Luca catches her attention and nods. “You have to admit it makes a lot of the pieces come together.” She doesn’t acknowledge his words either way. Far too protective over Jade to give anything away until we have a chance to talk without anyone else here.
Kade looks around, clearly debating about whatever he wants to say. He must decide to fuck it cause it’s only a moment later he asks, “Except we still don’t know what made Romano snap? He had backed off of us for a while.”
I know he means after we handed over that file on Rachel’s guy. But I’m not sure if we want to expose that to Alec or not.
I’m not sure that it wholly matters at this point, but still. I hold my tongue and wait to share what I know.
I keep my focus on Scar and she tilts her head to the side as she studies me. After a moment she arches a brow in silent question. I casually lift a shoulder and look at Alec where he’s still looking between all of us.
She trades looks with both Luca and Kade before turning back to Alec. “Christian Ortega.” There’s a flash of surprise that crosses his face before he locks it down. It was enough to confirm what we had already assumed. Scar sees it too as she continues nonchalantly. “Yeah, we handed him over to Romano to get him off our back.”
Kade chuckles behind her while Luca coughs into his hand. “We didn’t know he was your guy.”
“We assumed though.” Scar smirks as she says and Alec rolls his eyes. With every back and forth it seems he falls more into the guy I’ve started to get to know the last couple of months.
I’ve only had brief interactions with him and Rachel since we’ve been keeping everyone at arm’s length to protect both Jade and Roe. But he’s hardly ever this on edge. He’s normally much more at ease.
Luca intervenes, bringing our attention back to the question everyone still has on their minds. “That doesn’t help us figure out why he kidnapped Noah.”
“Umm,” I hesitate, focusing only on Scar, “actually it kind of does.” Everyone’s eyes flash towards me as I drop that bombshell. I’ve been sitting on this information all night, but to be fair we had a lot of other things going on. “Christian Ortega was at the safe house they were keeping Noah at. I killed him.”
Everything clicks together for Scar and Luca first but Kade is only a moment behind. Understanding dawns on Alec and Noah almost instantaneously as they both go, “Ohh.”
“Right,” Scar nods, her tone clipped. “He was never really your guy at all. He only fed you what information Romano wanted you to have. We gave him the wrong answer to who was leaking his information and yet it still stopped. Of course we had to have something to do with it.”
Kade scoffs. “He used it as a test. Didn’t think the old bastard had it in him.”
Luca sighs, running his fingers through his short hair. “It doesn’t matter now. We now know that we don’t have someone on the inside working against us.”
Alec hums and flinches. “That’s not entirely true. Romano has eyes on you, just not anyone who’s privy to much.”
Luca shakes as he aims a thunderous look toward the man who just reminded him of that fact. Every week Scar and Noah are coming up with new people throughout all of their businesses that have taken money from Romano. “We are aware of the situation and it’s being dealt with accordingly.” His tone leaves no room for any type of response, not even an agreement or acknowledgement.
Declan breaks the tense silence. “She’s fine now, just needs rest. You should take her home and let her sleep it off.” He pauses to look around the room at everyone else. “We can reconvene tomorrow.”
Noah helps Alec get Rachel to the car while the rest of us sit back and watch. As soon as we hear the front door close behind them Scar turns to Declan with a grin on her face.
“Why did Rachel seem more than just resting? She shouldn’t have stayed knocked out from fainting after you gave her a blood transfusion.”
