Page 187 of Until We Burn
Uncle Frederik lights up at the sight of Kai and me. “Oh, good you’re all here now. We can get started.”
Kai and I sit down, accepting mugs of matcha and coffee from Stella who hugs the both of us in relief.
Sophia stands up and clears her throat, “Alright, this is what you need to know.”
She and Uncle Frederik expose all the intel they’ve gathered about bàba for the last several months. Every emerging detail sickens and disturbs me. So much of what I believed was coincidental was actually calculated and deliberate.
“I’ve waited so long to finally get dirt on my brother,” Uncle Frederik confesses. “It was difficult until I got Sophia’s help.”
Sophia’s bold rebellion over the last few months makes sense now. She challenged bàba because she knew his downfall was coming.
“All we need to do now is expose my father’s crimes for everyone to see,” Sophia says.
“You can’t get a reporter to cover this, though,” Hans objects. “It’ll take too much time to pull a story together.”
“And documentation won’t be enough to bring him down,” I add. “We need him confessing to those crimes on record.”
“How are we going to do that?” Helen asks.
Suddenly, my phone goes off with an incoming call. I furrow my brows at the caller ID. “It’s Andrea.”
Wary and nervous, I answer the call and brace for the worst. “Hello? Is everything okay?”
“I broke up with Simon.”
I let out a relieved sigh. “About time.”
“I was staying with him because I needed to prove something and now, I have.” There’s a determined flare to her voice that I wish I could dig into, but the impatient looks staring back at me have me ending the call early.
“I’m sorry, Andrea, is there a way for us to talk about this later? I’m just trying to figure out how to deal with my father.”
Her tone shifts. “He’s business partners with Matthias Valdis now, right?”
I roll my eyes, blowing out an exhausted breath. “I wouldn’t be surprised if he was.”
“Then why take out one entitled dick when we can take down two?”
CHAPTER 74
DIANA
I stepthrough the elevator doors that take me up to bàba’s office one last time.
I close my eyes, my fingers tightening over the Go game board box in my hands.
From Sophia’s screenshot of bàba’s agenda, Uncle Frederik discovered that he and Matthias were meeting this morning at the HMG office.
Luckily, I’m not coming here alone.
Andrea and Kai stand beside me, while the others are outside providing…additional support.
Honestly, scheming with my uncle, three hockey players, a CEO of a tech company, my morally reformed sister, and my former nemesis is a crossover I never would’ve imagined.
But it’s exactly the team we need to take down bàba and Matthias Valdis.
The elevator doors open.
Bàba and Matthias pale in shock the second Kai, Andrea, and I walk into the office, but Bàba recomposes himself just quick enough to glare at Kai. “I thought I got rid of you.”
