Page 45 of Splitting Secrets
I shut the thought down before he can hear it, then force a smile. “I’ll make sure he knows you’re around.”
Bane flexes his fingers, opening and closing his hands as he holds his arms up to allow the beetle to crawl up one, across his chest, and down the other.
“I like you, Nightmare Girl.” The smile he gives me reaches his eyes, lighting them up and revealing a dimple in his left cheek. Before I can respond, he flickers out and disappears, draping my room in darkness once again.
“I like you too, Bane,” I whisper, then lay back against my pillow and fall asleep thinking of two little boys playing in the woods.
24
Raze
It takes the Supremes forty-six hours to realize they’ve escaped.
Forty-sixhours.
Their disregard for human life is astounding. It’s as if they thought that if they ignored their prisoners long enough, they’d disappear altogether. Along with the obligation to make a fucking decision about what to do with them. It’s childish and negligent and irresponsible, especially considering the magnitude of what they’re dealing with.
A Landry legacy with full potential. A second chance to right the wrong they made when they slaughtered Constance Chevalier. No one else in that family line has come close to measuring up to what Sonny and her mother could do.
I’d expect nothing less from these so-called leaders who refuse to cover their hands in blood from the decisions they make, yet have no qualms about dowsing me in it. Like they’ve found a workaround that allows them to feel a false sense of morality for what they do. It’s all a ruse. The moment theytheatrically clap their gavel against their bench, they coat their very souls with the blood of their victims. It doesn’t matter what weapon they use to execute the punishment.
Each time they call me in that forty-six hour period is a form of torture in itself. It doesn’t matter if it’s to ask a simple question or demand I dig up dirt on the family members of the other prisoners. I’m constantly on edge, waiting for them to realize I played a part in their escape and turn on me. Sometimes, I wonder if it would be easier to admit my crimes myself. At least, then I could get ahead of their retaliation.
The only thing stopping me is the rebellion. It’s always the rebellion. All the lives that will be at stake when I reveal our movement against the suffocating hand of the Midnight Syndicate. They deserve the head start that they’re working like hell behind the scenes to give themselves.
Sonny’s capture set off the timer for the bomb that’s about to go off in Nocturne Valley. It’s now a scramble to usher friends and family into safety. To hunker down and weather the storm.
Because if there’s one thing I’m absolutely positive about, it’s that Sonnet Ellery’s rage will rip through Nocturne Valley like a hurricane. It’ll ravage every person who chose to feed power to the Midnight Syndicate over their own legacies. It’ll punish all who believed their nefarious lies instead of honoring the family who brought them here in the first place.
And she doesn’t even have a clue.
“You two were the last ones down there with them,” James is screaming into Brody and Niles’s faces as I enter their chamber.
Gone are the cocky smirks they usually wear. Instead, they look like they’re about to shit themselves. I have to turn away before anyone sees how happy that makes me.
With bulging eyes and reddened cheeks that suggest his blood pressure is probably double what it should be, James points toward the door I just walked through. “We’ve been inthis hell hole day and night to figure out the best way to deal with them, and you just fucked us all over because you can’t be bothered with shutting a goddamn door correctly!”
“Your level of incompetence should be studied,” Ashton agrees. Ironically, I feel the same way about him.
“Unbelievable,” Terry Florwyn grumbles.
“I swear we closed the door,” Niles insists. All James has to do is look at him, his eyes searing, and his mouth clamps shut.
Better them than me.
I almost feel bad. They’re clearly going to be punished for something they had no hand in doing. If they weren’t such a pain in my ass at every turn, I’d feel obligated to defend them.
But they’ve done enough bad to justify whatever retribution they get. They killed Matilda.
“Raze,” James clips my name, and I snap my attention toward him like the good little pet he wants me to be.
He raises his brow in silent communication.Kill them, his look says. Still, I open my mind to his thoughts to glean some clarity about what he’s actually thinking about the entire situation.
Does he truly believe it was them, or are they taking the fall before the Supremes turn on me?
A wave of relief washes through me as I listen to the chaos of his mind. He’s pissed at the two men before me, who he views as good as dead. Mortified at how weak this mistake will make him look to the rest of the Syndicate. And terrified of how Sonny will retaliate for her capture.
I continue to listen as I shed my suit coat and drape it across the chair behind me. The Supremes are saying something to Brody and Niles—probably warning them of their demise—but I’m completely checked into James’s mind. I’m unbuttoning my cuffs and rolling up my sleeves as he makes plans to have hisfamily moved to their vacation house out of the state until things settle down.
