Page 54 of The Heart

This is not the way I pictured spending Christmas Eve, taking up the corner booth in a crowded little diner near the office instead of the restaurant downtown where I planned on introducing my sister to Sebastian and Luke.

I was just complaining about that dinner this morning, and now I would do anything to have Kathryn here with us. To have her safe.

Finding out that my father is training her to take over as The King of Hearts hurts almost as much as finding out she was kidnapped. Suddenly, there’s this burning need in my chest not only to get her back, but to talk her out of making the biggest fucking mistake of her life.

I take a deep breath once they’re quiet, forcing my voice to be steady instead of crying again like I want to. “We aren’t asking you to come with us. We just wanted to let you know that we will be paying you the same wages as if we were here, for however long it takes for us to get back,” I say, trying to calm everyone since they lost their fucking minds after Luke briefed them on the situation.

“I know she’s your sister, Leena, but you guys, this is really dangerous,” Ava says. “You’re flying into Deck territory, then what? You’re just going to try and hack into one of the Card’s servers? What happens when you find her? Are you going to sneak into one of their guarded headquarters and just ask them nicely to let her go?”

Sebastian, Luke and I glance at each other. We decided on going, but we hadn’t actually come up with a plan yet.

“And how do you plan on hacking their servers? They probably have the best firewalls money can buy, you’d be better off tying directly into one of their computers on site. And how are you planning to cover your digital tracks without knowledge of their interface?” Ryan asks, and again, we hadn’t gotten that far.

It’s Colton who speaks up next. “This is not fucking happening. Leena can’t just hang out in a hotel room in the Deck’s territory unprotected while the two of you run off to get yourselves captured orkilled.Especially after you all took down the Jack of Spades. Everyone fucking knows who all of you are! Doesn’t matter which Card you belong to, if they didn’t want you all dead before, they sure as hell do now. And they’ve already captured one of the Hart girls. Don’t think they won’t want the other as well,” he says, his concerned eyes meeting mine for a long moment.

I’m having a hard time breathing.

“He’s right. You need the muscle. And you need faces the Cards don’t recognize. Your mug shots are probably on their milk cartons by now,” Jace says gesturing between the three of us.

I take a deep breath, so do Sebastian and Luke. They’re not wrong.

“Ava said it, this is too dangerous for you to come along,” I say, needing them to understand.

“It’s not only dangerous, but whatever we wind up doing will probably be against the law. We can’t ask any of you to do this. We can hire some outside guys–” Luke says.

Colton quickly cuts him off, “You’re not going in without me.”

I stare at him, surprised how adamant he seems.

“I’m going too. If it’s really as bad with the Deck as you say it is, then you’re going to need people you trust. People who won’t turn on you if they get captured,” Jace adds.

“Jace, that won’t be–” I start to say, mortified by his words.

Sebastian cuts me off, “He’s right.”

I stare at him. Because it’s at this moment all of this starts to sink in.

“If there were someone better suited for hacking, then you would have hired them, not me. I’m in,” Ryan says.

“Me too.” Ava looks at us with a nod.

“Ava, listen–” I begin, and I’m cut off once again.

“No, Leena. I know I’m young, and I don’t have as many muscles as… well…” She looks around the table before her eyes land back on me. “I’m tougher than I look. And you and Ry have taught me enough that I won’t be a burden or anything. Please, let me help. It sounds like you’re going to need it.”

I’m overwhelmed with gratitude, but there’s a sinking feeling in my chest as I look around at our team. I know we need them, that they’re our best shot for getting my sister back.

But at what cost?

“Alright,” I finally relent. Because I know how I would feel if I were the only one left behind. And she’s right, we could use her help.

“We weren’t able to find any international flights this last minute with the holiday tomorrow, and we need more intel before barging into Deck territory anyway. We need to be smart about this, so there’s a lot of work to do before we leave,” Luke says, taking a deep breath.

He’s right. We usually spend weeks, if not months, planning an op this extensive, but Kathryn is in danger. We don’t have that kind of time to lose.

“We can help,” Ryan says and I give him a grateful smile.

“Thank you,” Luke says. “Everyone go home, enjoy the holiday. I’ll book us the first flight out and send you the details. We’ll be at my parents’ the next two days, but you have our cells. We’ll work from there when we can.”

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