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Best friends. Boss and his right-hand man. Well, Dare’s dad never killed Vinny, but maybe he just didn’t live long enough to.
Still, Vinny knew all the ins and outs of the family, same as Johnny had. And before the theater room that seconded as a safe room had been built, Vinny had helped hide the younger generation in smaller, hidden parts of the main house whenever threats had come.
He knew that house...
“Dare,” Kieran began, sounding hesitant for, I think, the first time ever, “I’m not dismissing your pain and anger, but you said it earlier: Something doesn’t feel right about this.”
A wounded laugh left Dare. “We were missing a letter and a body. Now we have both.”
“We’ve been thinking they were building up to something huge after they finished spelling out either traitor or traitors. And this—”
“Killing my mom isn’t huge?” Dare seethed at Kieran’s unconvinced tone, one of his hands smacking his dashboard to emphasize each word. He slammed on the brakes, the car fishtailing slightly on the slick road. In the next second, Dare was turned in the seat and had Kieran’s shirt in his grasp.
The fact that Kieran let him—that he didn’t have a knife aimed at Dare—said a lot of the assassin. Said a lot about how far we’d all come in the past few years.
From killing each other’s families to understanding and even sympathizing with each other’s pain. To allowing the reactions fueled by grief.
“Going after family is unforgivable,” Kieran said, voice low and threatening. “Killing family is asking for war. Clearly, or they wouldn’t be retaliating. But leaving your mom in the house for us to find later when every other body was a production? Think about it, Dare. Your mom was R. She was the last letter but she wasn’t the fallout we’ve been waiting for.”
“It’s raining,” I said suddenly as Kieran’s revelation had me seeing past the sorrow of losing the mother of our blended family. Shifting away from Tree, I smacked my hand on the back window and echoed, “It’s raining.”
“We fucking see that, Diggs,” Dare ground out.
“And Kieran’s right,” I snapped back, then gestured for him to drive. “Get to the house. Call Lily.”
Dare’s glassy eyes narrowed on me for only a second before my desperation had him turning and slamming the car into drive again.
“The others were a big show they made sure we would know about—that they left obvious signs for so I could and would track them,” I explained as Maverick called Lily.
Curling my hand around Tree’s when I felt her still-as-stone body beside mine, I tried pouring my strength into her when I already felt like my soul was struggling. Limping just to keep going as the realizations hit harder and heavier.
“And we’ve been feeding right into it,” I added solemnly. “They knew exactly what we’d do when we found the messages in Willow’s apartment and on my bike because we’ve been showing them with all the bodies they’ve left. I track. The three of you follow after searching the houses. Einstein comes later. Clockwork.”
Maverick looked nervously at Dare and then at me when Lily’s voicemail picked up, but Dare just pressed harder on the gas.
“They’ve been thorough in everything, they’re not on a schedule, and everyone’s known this weather was coming,” I continued as my brother tried again, fear exploding inside me as I hurried to explain the rest of my theory. “They left Sofia in the house because they wanted her to be found there. They wanted the four of us distracted so we wouldn’t be the ones to find her.”
Kieran hissed a curse and smacked the back of Dare’s seat, yelling, “Drive faster,” as I finished explaining, “They chose a rainy day so I wouldn’t be able to track them.”
“Get Lily on the phone,” Dare barked when her voicemail picked up again, horns blaring as he blew through a red light and narrowly avoided oncoming traffic.
“Trying,” Maverick said tightly.
But just as the ringing once again filled the car, the morning was rocked by a loud boom.
In less than a heartbeat, a ball of fire and debris filled the gray sky above the neighborhood we were approaching and faded into a thick cloud of smoke.
As Dare raced down the remaining streets toward the main Borello house, the pounding of my heart reached deafening levels. With each sharp turn, the accumulating burning debris had the iron grasp on my lungs tightening. With each strained acceleration that sent us tearing through the neighborhood, my mind screamed its denials and acceptances.
And then we made the last turn...and a chill as cold as death rolled down my spine.
I didn’t register Dare’s guttural roar when the remains of the large house that had stood tall and proud for generations came into view.
I didn’t notice the wrath and pain that poured from Kieran and weighed down the car.
I didn’t hear Maverick’s repeated denials or Tree’s horrified whispers.
All I could hear was the ringing in my ears. All I could feel was the wrenching of my soul and twisting of my stomach. Because that was Lily’s car, blown onto its side on the front lawn.
