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At risk of dropping the boxes of donuts—where had she gotten donuts this late at night?—she was forced to stop and turn.
Hannibal caught her chin and pulled her until she was facing him. One hard kiss on the mouth and a whispered conversation later, he was gone, and Hades was left dazedly staring at us.
“Hades!” I cried. “What are you doing here? I’m so excited!”
Hades grinned at us.
She walked forward and stopped a respectable distance away.
Eyes sparkling with life, she said, “I was hired to do some work in the city for the Cowboys! Can you believe it?”
Her gaze swept over to her twin.
Tony was leaking.
Her eyes were filled with tears.
She opened her mouth to say something, but her eyes closed.
“Keene, catch her,” Hades said casually.
Keene did, pulling Tony into his arms.
None of us reacted to her sudden reaction because we were all incredibly used to it.
Caristonia ‘Tony’—but also known as Ari to her husband, Slone—had narcolepsy. She also had another condition as well, pairing them together she went out like a light for no apparent reason. But, lots of emotion did trigger her, causing her to fall into these episodes more often if she wasn’t careful about getting overly excited.
We pushed into the elevator and went up three floors.
Keene was the only one on this level, which obviously meant his apartment was the meeting location for the day.
Everyone filed off the elevator, but it was me and Keene who were on it last, which gave him the opportunity to grill me.
“Where the hell have you been?” Keene asked. “We’ve been working our asses off here, and you’re off doing fuck knows what?”
I narrowed my eyes. “I’m off today, loser.”
Keene snorted as he carefully maneuvered off the elevator. “No one is off.”
“Everyone gets a day off. Those are in the new bylaws that we signed when we started this new venture,” I pointed out. “Literally last week. Have you forgotten already?”
We’d gone from having a traveling circus to having a permanent circus.
When we’d formed this new venture between all of the sisters and Keene, it was decided that there would be a couple of rules set in place. First and foremost, we all would have vacations and days off each week.
We’d also be more involved in the business aspect of the circus, freeing up Keene from many of the obligations he had for the daily running of the circus.
He’d been shielding us for a long time, and I had a feeling today’s meeting—which was about the business itself—was going to be the enlightenment that we were all waiting on from Keene.
He’d put us off, saying he was still doing some research—when we’d started talking about doing a permanent location, he’d done a deep dive into the business to make sure he had all his ducks in a row—but the longer the wait went on, the more I got nervous. Because it wasn’t like Keene to delay.
He was a get it done and over with kind of guy. Always had been.
So the hesitation was a bit unnerving.
We walked into Keene’s apartment and Tony was deposited onto the couch to wake up on her own time. Meanwhile, the rest of us descended onto the boxes of donuts.
Zip, echoing my earlier thoughts, said, “Where did you find donuts this late at night? And wow, is that bacon on them?”
“They’re called Hurts Donuts,” she said. “And I found them on my way into town. There was this huge truck that was selling them on the side of the road. Their ‘emergency donut’ vehicle. It was cute. And there was a line around the corner. We were the last ones in line and Hannibal bought everything they had.”
It was about ten minutes later, as we were all nursing glasses of milk, when Tony made her appearance.
“Hey,” she said as she walked into the middle of us.
Hades moved the box toward her, and she caught up one of the bacon maple ones.
We waited for her to eat before we started in on our meeting.
“So what’s going on, Keene?” Zip asked with a sigh. “You’re killing us here. Your part in this was supposed to be figured out weeks ago, yet you’ve put us off at each meeting saying you needed more time.”
He grimaced. “I…”
“Just blurt it all out,” I ordered.
He rolled his neck, pops filling the air.
Then rubbed his eyes roughly with two fingers off of each hand before saying, “You know that huge crew of men and women we lost right after dad died?”
I did remember.
It was the weirdest thing.
People who’d worked for us for years—even if at the time I wasn’t one hundred percent certain what they did for the circus—had all gotten up and left after finding out that my father was no longer alive.
We’d written it off as a weird coincidence.
Only, the way Keene was looking so ashen right now, it wasn’t seeming like so much of a coincidence anymore.
