Page 18 of Of Saints & Savagery
I gulp down my nerves and turn to my brother. “Saint?”
“I said I’d help you find her, didn’t I?”
“Okay,” I say, sitting up straight and pressing my palms to my thighs. “If that’s how it is, I can live with that. Now, let’s talk about what we know.”
“The DNA wasn’t mine,” Heath says quietly.
“They said it was enough of a match to be a half-uncle to Angel.”
“It wasn’t me,” he growls.
“Do you know who it was?” I ask because I’m sure there’s something they’re not telling me. When he doesn’t answer, I sigh. “I really do want us all to be on the same page, but it would help if y’all told me what you know. Saint already told me it was her idea. A pre-initiation. I know there were other people there.”
“It was Maverick,” Saint says.
Angel glares, obviously not liking that Saint ratted out his cousin to me. But it all makes sense now. I nod slowly, fitting the pieces into place. When Dynamo gave me the information, he thought it was a cousin.
“But again, what do you think you’re going to do with that information?” Heath asks. “You think we didn’t already exhaust all the possibilities? That we didn’t look for her? What can you do that we haven’t already done?”
“Well, I got a lot of information about the case,” I point out. “And I have a connection with lawyers in the family. Maybe we can find out something.”
“Trust, we tried,” Angel says. “Went all the way to the leader of the entire Skull and Crossbones organization.”
“He wouldn’t talk to me,” Heath grumbles. “But Angel got right in.”
“Not me,” Angel says. “My dad. He wouldn’t see me, either. The guy is just about impossible to meet, and even more impossible to impress. Only sees people by appointment, and even then, you better be fucking important if he’s going to give you ten minutes of his precious time.”
“What did you talk to him for?” I ask.
The guys all exchange looks, some silent conversation, and then Angel answers again. “Just to plead our case. Ask him to put feelers out, see if they knew what happened, where she was. But it was a dead end. He stonewalled, which means he probably didn’t know anything and didn’t want to lose face by admitting it.”
“Or he fucking knew, and decided she wasn’t important enough to do anything about it,” Heath grumbles.
“But you’re a member, right?” I ask.
“Yeah,” he says. “But I’m no one. Just meat, one more body on the roster. Angel’s important. He’s a legacy. His dad is high up in the organization. I’m the first person in my family to join. I’m basically cannon fodder. Why give a single fuck about my sister, who wasn’t even a member yet?”
“Okay, so he didn’t care enough to help find her,” I say. “So what? Neither did the legal system. But that’s where we have the advantage. Because we do care. And we’re not giving up until we find out what happened to her, and if she’s alive, until we bring her home.”
The guys all stare at me a long minute.
At last, Angel nods. “I’m in.”
“I already told you I was,” Saint says.
“Great,” I say, blowing out a breath before turning at last to Heath. “You?”
He hesitates, his jaw working back and forth. But I know that under that stubbornness is a boy who’s afraid to get his hopes up again because he wants this more than any of us. At last, he gives a curt nod. “Let’s do it.”
six
The Merciful
“So, tell us about your break,” Manson says, lounging like a lord on Annabel Lee’s pillows. “Did you slide up on Saint? Ronique will be so jealous.”
“He’s my brother,” I protest, but my cheeks burn at the memory of the silky sensation of his skin when he slid between my lips, the earthy taste of him. I can still summon it, a hint of it lingering on my tongue when I close my eyes in the dark, when I press my fingers to the places he’s touched.
My friends hoot, and before I’ve had a chance to explain, the door swings open and Ronique enters in a rush of cold, wet winter air.
