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“You don’t need to hope,” Leo says. “It’s done. We got what we wanted.”
“But how could the Knights just let them take it?”
Leo chuckles. “They didn’t let them. They’re damn good at their jobs. I’m telling you, Alaric. It’s done.”
I blink at him, noticing he’s called me Alaric and not Barclay, as if we’re slowly disassembling the walls we’ve put up since childhood. I can be Alaric to him. Not a nemesis to fight over wealth and power.
I still can’t fathom that we have it. I want to believe. I want to hope. I want out of this shitstorm so fucking bad I can’t stand it. Not only for Eden’s sake, but for my own. When you grow up in this world, you don’t think having real love is for you. The idea of true friendship even seems foreign. My father is “friends” with so many other men in this world, but they’re just as happy to stab you in the back if it means pulling ahead of you in the rat race.
Now that I’ve been given a glimpse of happiness, I want more.
“You can come with me to retrieve it,” Leo offers. “You’ll see.”
“Let’s all go,” Eden says. “I need to get my hands on that file.”
She squeezes my arm, and I hope that Leo’s somehow pulled this off for her sake.
I steer the car toward Leo’s go-kart place as the three of them talk animatedly about what they’re going to do with the information in the file when we get it…after we find out who killed Delilah, of course. Eden wants to expose everyone, but Oliver seems less certain. He wants to do what he came here to do and take Eden away with him like he’d planned.
I agree.
We don’t need to dismantle the group. We need to get the hell out of here with our lives still intact.
Eventually, I pull up the rocky drive that leads to the go-kart hangout. No one’s here this time of year. The rope across the beginning of the driveway has been taken down, and a lone, black, nondescript van idles in the lot.
As we park, a girl gets out of the driver’s side with a beanie pulled low over her forehead, her chestnut brown hair peeking out around the sides. She slips her hand into her jacket as all of us get out, and I call for everyone to stop.
Leo moves forward, though. “It’s me.”
She eyes all of us with dark suspicion. “Who are they?”
“My…” He peers around to gaze at all of us and then he turns back. “They’re my family.”
She doesn’t react to that, but the doors on the van slide open and three more women step out. They’re about my age, each of them wearing some variation of red lipstick. The first girl keeps her hand in her jacket, most likely wrapped around a gun, and I’m wondering who the hell they are. The military team’s secretaries? The gophers that start and end a job? “This is my family,” the first girl says.
One spits on the ground. She’s wearing spikes on a wrist cuff and looks bored as fuck.
“You should’ve come alone,” the first girl says.
“They’re harmless,” Leo shrugs as he walks toward her. “They’re just excited to see what’s in the file.”
After eyeing us up some more, the first girl switches hands and reaches into the other side of her jacket to pull out a brown leather notebook. I eye it, almost shocked when it makes an appearance.
Holy shit. They did it.
It’s definitely The Secret File. It’s what I had to write in when I became a full-fledged Knight. I want to ask a million questions. I want to know step-by-step how they pulled this off. The Knights would definitely retaliate if they knew we had this.
“Alaric?” Leo asks, peering back at me as he flips through the book.
“That’s it,” I confirm.
“Of course it is,” the spiked-cuff girl says. “You wanted the book, we got you the book.”
“We?” I ask.
The first girl smiles. “Ahh…my favorite part. You didn’t hire a bunch of ex-military dudes with broad chests and killer instincts.” She almost laughs. “You hired four tough-as-nails women. Congratulations.”
Leo quirks his head, stunned. “I— I thought—”