Page 25 of Selling Innocence

The phone chimed, signaling another text. This phone can only send or receive calls or texts from Hayden, Vance, Char and myself.

“So no calls to family and friends, huh?”

Your history shows you don’t have any family, and from what we saw of you at the college, you weren’t close with anyone. Who would you call?

Telling him that I wanted to contact the head of a huge crime syndicate in California would probably not help me at all, so I sighed. “You’re right—I don’t have anyone to call. You can go back inside. I’m just going to watch the stars a little longer.”

I expected him to get up, to head back inside and leave me there. He’d done his job, had checked on me, had made sure I wasn’t going to run away or cause problems. Instead, the phone chimed.

I’ll stay.

And just like that, I didn’t have to look at the stars by myself for once.

* * * *

Vance

“This is a shitty idea.” Char sat on the sofa, his phone in his hands as if he’d grown bored with this entire meeting.

Which I understood. Meetings were dull, and I hated anything dull. Life was too short and too full of amazing things that I wanted to experience. The thought of spending it in things like meetings felt like a horrible waste.

It was like going to Paris and eating American fast food.

“Lorien is being careful,” Hayden said, his take-charge attitude chafing me as it always did. He was the golden boy, the good one, the one who liked creating rules and following them. “He wants to find out who has her, but he can’t figure it out.”

Boring.

“That doesn’t mean dangling her out there like a worm on a hook is a good idea,” Char snapped.

Our phones chimed, and I glanced down at the text from Tor. Didn’t think you’d care what happened to her.

Char snorted, the sound as dismissive as any sound could have been. “I don’t, but she’s a card we can only play once. If we fuck this up, we don’t get another shot. If he gets ahold of her, we’re done.”

“We’ll be careful,” Hayden pressed. “But waiting around isn’t getting us anywhere. Lorien wants her, is still looking for her, but he’s covering his tracks well. None of our contacts can follow the trial back to him. If one path isn’t working, running down it will only get you farther away from your goal. We have to change tactics.”

“So what are you suggesting?” I asked.

“We’ve kept her out of sight for her safety, but we need to let Lorien know where she is, now. If he sees her, if he realizes that she’s around, he’s more likely to make a move. Every time he does that, we get another clue, another attempt to nail him down.”

“So you’re telling us to, what? Just parade her around and hope he hears?”

“If he’s paying attention, he’ll notice the second she shows back up at school.”

It’s not enough to know she’s back—we want to give him a view of how to get her, Tor texted.

“So we need to make it clear who has her so Lorien has to make a move?” Char says.

“But in a way that keeps her as safe as possible,” Hayden added.

I frowned, the answer obvious to me. It was strange, since the others tended to be better at planning, better at such underhanded things, but here I was with the clear answer. “I’ve got an idea,” I said.

The other three turned their gazes toward me with questioning looks. It was a surprisingly nice feeling, really.

“And what idea is that?” Char asked, his tone incredulous.

I smirked, unable to help it. “I think it’s about time you finally let me have my way with her.”

Chapter Seven

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