Page 118 of Kings & Chaos

When we were done with the stew, Rock brought out a pot of decaf and from-scratch brownies, and I bit into the chocolatey goodness feeling like the luckiest girl in the world even though my dad was gone, my sister was still missing, my mom had turned into a Real Housewife, and a psychopath or three was out there trying to kill us.

In the candlelit dining room, rain battering the cedar-shingled house, it all felt far away.

Rock reached over for my hand. “Get enough to eat, kitten?”

“I don’t think I could ever have enough of those brownies,” I said, “but I can’t fit anything else in my stomach without exploding.”

“There’s another pan in the kitchen.” He grinned. “You can work on those tomorrow.”

“It’s a dirty job, but somebody has to do it,” I said.

“Do we have enough oil to get through this storm?” Oscar asked Neo.

“Full tank,” he said. “Enough to get through ten of these storms.”

I looked around at the dining room, taking in the old wallpaper, the worn brass chandelier, the mahogany dining table. It wasn’t remotely like the house in Blackwell Falls, but the Kings seemed just as at home here.

They were chameleons, and I was starting to accept that I’d never known them at all.

“Why did you buy this pace?” I asked, leaning back in my chair to give my stomach room to stretch out.

“For the same reason we’re here,” Neo said.

“In case we needed a place to hide,” Oscar added.

I studied them. “Why would you think you’d need a place to hide? Especially back when you bought this place.”

That had been before I came to Aventine, before I’d even known my mom was getting remarried to Roberto Alinari, before I’d known I was coming back to the States.

“Ours is a dangerous business,” Neo said quietly.

“Did you learn that in Sicily?” I was curious, trying to find the connective tissue between the boys I’d grown up with and the men sitting around the table.

“Among other places,” Neo said.

“Have you ever had to use it before?” I asked.

“No,” Rock said, “but we’ve been here before, exploring, setting things up so it was ready if we ever needed it.”

“It needs a lot of work,” Neo said. “We just haven’t gotten to it yet.”

“And you’re sure we’re safe here?” I asked.

“No one knows we’re here,” Oscar said. “We can regroup, figure out what to do while we wait for the security fence to be installed at the other house.”

“Whatcanwe do?” I asked, my frustration at the lack of progress in finding Emma resurfacing.

“Aloha is working to untangle the shell companies that paid off Zachary Walsh,” Neo said. “That information could come through at any time, and when it does, we’ll have more answers. In the meantime, I have someone at Aventine making a list of people — ones who are still alive — who have access to the school database. That will narrow the field on who might have reached out to Connor.”

“Do you have any guesses?” I asked, because the Kings hadn’t exactly been forthcoming with the info so far.

Then again, neither had I. I still hadn’t told them about my recon mission at Dean Giordana’s house. I told myself it was because I hadn’t figured anything out — which was technically true — but deep down I thought maybe I was getting back at them for keeping me in the dark.

And they were keeping me in the dark. I could feel it. Maybe not about the things they knew for sure, but about their hunches.

“We’ve wondered about Josh Ryan,” Rock said.

It took me a second to connect the name to the teacher who’d come on to me at Ruby’s and paid with a beating from the Kings. “Professor Ryan?”

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