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Seven years old. Mother had sent me back to Grandfather’s after I spent one week of my six-week summer break with her. She had plans with Harper. The car had been broadsided. The driver was killed. I’d been trapped in the back for over an hour before the firemen had been able to peel me out of the car.
I gaped at Ezra. “You couldn’t have been more than fifteen.”
“No, we weren’t.” He shrugged. “We could have called it a coincidence, but it was less than twelve hours later. The panic that went through Adam…through me…We came home immediately, and we went straight to the hospital.”
I didn’t remember them there. Granted, my memories were patchy, and it had—terrified me. There had been a firefighter; he kept talking to me. Throughout the time it took them to get me out of the car, he talked. He let me wear his helmet and got a blanket through to me when they had to cut the side of the car open.
Sparks.
Metal screeching noises.
Soothing promises.
Then I woke up in the hospital to Grandfather’s ashen face and utter relief.
“I didn’t see you,” I admitted. “Or maybe I just don’t remember.” I hadn’t thought about that accident in a long time. Grandfather had taken me out every single day after I was released to ride in the car, with other drivers or him driving. Looking back, I got it. He didn’t want me to be afraid. “A lot of that is—shadowy. Grandfather was with me a lot.”
Mother hadn’t shown up that I could recall. There had been a phone call, and Grandfather’s fury had echoed down the hall even if I hadn’t heard the actual words.
“You were still unconscious,” Ezra admitted. “You were still, and pale, and you looked so small. Adam blamed himself.”
I frowned.
“We both did…an hour after we left the hospital the king called and said he’d heard about the accident. It was terrible when things happened to the people we cared about…”
“He used me as leverage.”
A single nod.
I didn’t think it was possible to dislike the man more.
I was wrong.
“So Adam accepted his offer.”
“So did I,” Ezra admitted. “I didn’t want Adam to have to do it alone, and he needed backup. I also didn’t want anything to happen to you. The plan was always to figure out who he was and eliminate him…”
“That didn’t really work out for you two, did it?”
How long had they worked for him? More than a decade. A headache nestled behind my eye.
“We did what we had to. He recruited a lot among those around us—the Royals. It was a tradition. Call it more of a secret society than a gang. But only those handpicked by the king were to be inducted. There’s always a test. A series of them, really.”
“Crimes.” It wasn’t a guess.
“It could be as simple as getting him information from one of the companies our families own or as complicated as killing someone.”
Killing someone.
I squeezed his hand, or maybe he was squeezing mine.
I didn’t ask. I didn’t have to, or maybe I didn’t want to— “Then you’re too deep to leave.”
“That’s part of it,” Ezra admitted. “The other part is there’s always another task. He wanted Adam killed because he proposed to Emersyn.”
I hadn’t forgotten that tidbit. “To protect her from her family.”
“We know that now,” Ezra said, bitterness trickling in between the syllables. “Then, it seemed like a power play. The Sharpe fortune is considerable and she wasn’t a Royal. Adam appeared to be amassing a powerbase to take him on.”
