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“This has to connect to the emails and the Jericho graffiti. It all connects, so why does Olly want to say his name is Theo? Why does he want to paint you as the bad guy in our eyes? And how does it connect to the girl?”
“It doesn’t connect to her,” Aiden rages. “She doesn’t connect to you people! But she’s in trouble, and I can’t sit in here any longer.”
“Hold up.” Alex slaps a hand onto Aiden’s shoulder to stop him. “We don’t know where to go. You’d literally get to your car and have no clue where to go.”
“Hotel?” Jay asks.
“They said he’s not there,” Soph says. “They said he’s never been there.”
“Under my name.” I look up. “Have them check under Griffin. Hehasstayed there, because he was there when I was there. But we book the rooms under my company name.”
Alex jumps up as though to make the calls, but Soph’s already doing it. She doesn’t need to call the hotel and ask the lady on the line. She easily slides into their accounts and checks for herself. “Yeah. He’s checked in under Griffin. Got to town yesterday.”
“Like the rest of us.” I meet Kane’s gaze. “He was in the valley with the sour-sisters, and now he’s here.”
“He followed us straight back,” Jay says. “He followed us.”
“He didn’t follow. It’s not like he hasn’t already been here with me. He knew where we were going.”
“Why would he try to get us into the valley to talk?” Jay seems to be speaking to Soph more than anyone else. “Why? Griffin was there, which means he would have been recognized right away. Why show his face?”
“Maybe he wasn’t on a peace-making mission like he said,” Kane inserts. “Let’s look at this logically; he had two Bishops, one Tate, and two Hayes daughters all in the same space at the same time.”
“Don’t forget Spence and Romeo.”
“And Soph.”
“Right, but they’re extras,” Kane argues. “Soph, Spence, and Romeo were nothing more than a tidy bonus, but those original five were around from when we were kids. So why did he want all the kids together?”
“You weren’t in the valley,” I say.
“No, but he wanted me there. He called me out. Those were my signs he was marking. He was calling me specifically, but he can’t have known I’d stay with Jess.”
“So again, why the original kids? And why Evie?”
“She’s an original kid,” Soph exhales. She looks to Aiden, then to me. “She’s a Kincaid now, but she was born a Frankston. Everyone knows Frankston was in that club when your mom was murdered.”
“Oh God.” Aiden slams his back against the wall and slides down until his ass hits the floor. “Fucking Frankston! Why does this continue to hurt us?”
“Frankston is in prison,” Alex says. “He’s locked up tight. He’s not doing this.”
“So who is Olly?” Kane says. “He must be someone. He knows shit about us that we don’t advertise. He targeted Griffin back in the streets, and Griffin has never muttered the words Bishop in front of him. Which means the kid knew, and he went looking.”
“No, it’s…” I press my thumbs into my eyes and try to fight what’s so obviously being laid out. “A twelve-year-old can’t plan like that. And that was so long ago. That’s a long fucking game.”
“If we’re talking kids of those gangsters, Evie is the last piece.” Kane looks to Aiden. “She’s the youngest, and she literally wasn’t even conceived yet when the shit went down for Griffin. But there’s no denying she’s Frankston’s, which makes her a target in Olly’s head. Why?”
“I don’t know.” Aiden’s voice cracks with pain. “She’s just a baby, and Sean has been locked up a long time.”
The door swings open so hard that Alex nearly loses a leg. Benny, that boy from the octagon, steps in with a bruised face and zero fucks about the fact he should knock before entering. “Here it is. Her daddy, the chief, and the Bishops. This is where the real shit is being discussed.”
“Get out, kid.” Alex stands and tries to turn the boy away. “You’re not part of this.”
“Fuck I’m not.” He turns and slams the door at his back, and without invitation, he leans against the same wall Aiden does and slides down until they sit side by side. “I’m here, and there’s not a damn thing you can do to remove me. I will snap your fucking necks if you try, so keep talking, catch me up, and then we find her.”
Aiden’s eyes, glassy and on the brink of tears, come up and look at the boy. He studies the teen as though in search of faults. The instinctual thing to say is that he’s a kid, and to go away. But instead, Aiden and Ben’s eyes meet, and after a moment, Aiden nods and looks back into his lap. “He’ll be with me. I’ll watch him.”
“Alright. Let’s break.” Kane claps his hands. “Hotel first. And while we do that, Soph needs to find the Hayes sisters. We know who they are, we know their names, and we know they’re with Olly, so they’ll be easier to track than he is.”
“I can do that and run.” She leaves her laptop behind, but snatches a Griffin cell from her pocket and goes to work. “Let’s go.”
