Total pages in book: 111
Estimated words: 110273 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 551(@200wpm)___ 441(@250wpm)___ 368(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 110273 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 551(@200wpm)___ 441(@250wpm)___ 368(@300wpm)
“Kash.”
He frowned, a sadness shining from him. “I had to make a choice.”
I caught my air again. “Between?”
“You and my brother.”
I flattened my hands on his arms, my lungs still ceasing from relaxing. “And?”
“And…” He drew in another sharp breath. It sounded painful. “You’re not going to like it.”
FORTY-NINE
Kash
Three weeks.
We waited while the family got used to having Chrissy back.
There was a media shitstorm over Chrissy’s “back from the dead” situation. How that news got leaked, I didn’t know, but it was on the list to find and punish.
For three weeks, people were afraid to ask Chrissy what she went through.
Bailey did try, but Chrissy folded into a nearly catatonic state. She stopped talking for two days. It was enough to scare everyone, so for the rest of the time, Bailey basked in her mother’s presence. Peter got laid again—a lot, judging by how he was the one glowing all the time. Seraphina’s laughter didn’t echo in sadness anymore. Cyclone was living up to his name; he was literally a cyclone again, running everywhere in the household.
Payton looked nervous when she saw Chrissy, and I made a point to check in with Marie.
“It’s like she’s been trained to be invisible. She’s here. She’s spending time with the kids. But the second Chrissy shows up, Payton scatters like a scared mouse. I’m now fine with the lady, realized I was wrong to get all up in my feelings the first time, but yeah. It’s the oddest thing.”
Chrissy never balked. Bailey never said a word. So Payton was excused from my mind.
She wasn’t a problem.
Another person that wasn’t a problem: Matt. He was hanging out and seemed to be stabilizing. He mentioned an idea for a company and wanted to talk to me about it later. He also mentioned a girl had caught his eye, but that’d been the only mentions of either.
It was during those three weeks that we all chose to forget about Calhoun and Quinn’s trial, and we all chose to forget that Chrissy was home after enduring something so horrific that a mere question about it would paralyze her.
It took them that long to finish questioning my brother, before they were content to move him to a different holding facility.
After I told Bailey my plan, she wanted to help. I didn’t want her to incriminate herself any more, but I had to be honest. I couldn’t lie to her, and that meant she did it without my knowledge. I woke one morning and she was sitting there, cross-legged and beaming at me. She was waving a piece of paper in the air. “I have what you’ve been waiting for.”
“Tell me you didn’t.”
“I did.” She sounded so smug. “And don’t worry, I really made sure nothing could be traced back to me.”
I was afraid to ask what else she’d done.
She heard that they were able to trace her and hadn’t liked it, not one bit. But they didn’t realize that the choice was always going to be Bailey.
So, I was waiting.
In the meantime, I pulled my team from Calhoun.
Once we got the signal, I was moving in to grab my twin.
I sat up. “When and where?”
She handed over the paper. “He’s being moved at one tomorrow morning and that’s the address. I looked it up. It’s a house. But from what I hacked, it sounds like they’re only holding him there for the night. Then he’ll be driven to another safe house outside of state lines.”
“Can you track where the second house will be?”
She paused, biting her lip, before she shook her head. “I don’t know if I’ll be able to. I’ve looked at other trips where they’ve moved a high-priority subject, and some messages weren’t relayed over the internet or technology. Coordinates were given to one agent, who then traveled to the house and gave the message face-to-face.”
That meant we had one opportunity. And that also meant they’d be watching.
Her hand fell to my arm. Her thumb stroked over my pulse on the inside of my wrist. “It’ll all work out. We have Chrissy back. You can grab Chase, and then maybe you can find out everything you need. You can move in on your grandfather, finally.”
That was the hope, but I was tired. I was tired to the bone.
“Tell me you wiped everything, because they’re going to come after you.”
She nodded, her teeth sinking into her lip again. “I did. I will.”
No one else was looped in.
“You’ll have to stay back.” I exhaled sharply, bending forward so my forehead was resting on her knee.
Her hand came down on the back of my head and held me there. Her fingers slid through my hair, and she began massaging the back of my scalp.
“It’ll be okay.”
I grabbed her shirt and fisted it. “It’s not. Leaving you behind is never okay.”