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Of course, my fatherhas demandedmeand Kane attend a number of pre-functions for his election night, but thanks to Elsa I have an excuse the public will understand for not being present.

But election night is another story.

I dress in a red dress and Kane matches me in a red tie. When I should be putting final touches on my makeup, I find myself standing at our bedroom window, staring out at the Manhattan skyline, lights twinkling, stars dancing. Kane steps to my side. “What’s on your mind? Ghost?”

“This.” I hand him the baggie in my hand, the earring and note Jay had found at Murphy’s place inside.

“1900. You know where,” he reads, his brow furrowed. “What is this?”

“I can’t believe I haven’t shown it to you before now. Jay found it in Murphy’s coat in the closet. That’s my mother’s earring.”

“Does it mean anything to you?”

“No. Tic Tac tried to find some sort of link to that number and failed. He just texted me. Elsa had consumed him but now that he’s free…he tried.”

“He’s very loyal to you.”

“He is. He really tried. The number must be a time, but I wonder if I’ll ever know all there was to know about that message, and so many things to do with my mother.”

Kane sets the baggie on the window ledge, and catches my shoulders, turning me to face him. “We will find the answers you need to find peace, Lilah. I will do anything to make it so.”

My heart squeezes and I push to my toes and kiss him. “I know or you would not be going to this event tonight.”

***

Not much later, we’re in a limo my father sent for us when Kane receives a text and I know immediately from the tension rippling through his body, something’s wrong.

I touch hisarmand he leans in close and whispers, “The mob’s best assassin is missing, as is my father.”

I jerk back to look at him. “You have got to be fucking kidding.”

“I wish I was.”

It feels like an omen for the night.

And true to that, not long later, we find ourselves standing among my father’s supporters, with pollnumberswhispered to us constantly. It’s not even a race and my father will be the next Governor. It’s a long tedious night but Kane and I decided we’d use this time to meet those close to my father, in the “hive” and find every usefulnuggetof information we can while here.

The race is close to being called and the crowd is rowdy with excitement. I’m shoved into Kane, even as he continues to talk to some door, and I feel someone shove something in the pocket of my dress. Disturbed and worried it’s Ghost, I retrieve what is a white piece of paper and read: Red, white and blue, the land of lies. But SHE has the truth.

Junior, my long lost note writer, why are you back now? And at least your poem isn’t as ridiculous as some of them have been. I shove it back in my pocket and Andrew catches my arm. “We’re about to announce but he wants to see you before he goes on stage.”

Whatever , I think, but I push to my toes and tell Kane before I follow Andrew. We end upbackstage, where there’s a door that I assume is my father’s dressing room. “He said just go in.”

“Where are you going?”

“I need to make sure the press is in position.”

“Liar. You just want to throw me to the wolves.” But he’s already walking away.

I open the door and step inside, buthave topull back a curtain to truly enter the room. That’s when I stop dead in my tracks. My father is sitting in a chair with Ghost holding a gun to his head, this time with a full brown beard but the extra weight is gone.

Adrenaline surges but I feel no fear. “Ghost. What are you doing?”

“You know him?” my father snaps. “What the fuck, Lilah?”

Ghost ignores him. “I told you I’d do this for you, Lilah,” he says. “I owe you.”

“Do what?” my father demands.

“I didn’t ask you to do this,” I say, and because I want my father to feel the pain of this, I add, “I didn’taskyou to kill him.”

“Kill me?! What the hell?!”

Ghost yanks his hair back and says, “Scream and I stop asking Lilah what she wants and end you. You sent someone to rape and kill her.”

“That’s not what happened,” my father objects. “I didn’t do it.”

Ghostssquats to his ear level and growls. “Then who did?”

“I can’t tell you.”

Because it was him. AndPocher. I hate him, but I still say, “This is unlike you, Ghost. You can’t get away with this here.”

“You still underestimate me. Why?”

“Don’t do this.” My voice is steady. I’m steady.

He narrows eyes on me, blue eyes , I believe this time. “Ever? Or now?”

I consider that a moment and let the truth, my truth, form my response. “He’s mine. When the time is right, he’s mine.”

Ghost studies me, really looks at me, and says, “You have a reason to keep him alive now.” It’s not a question.

To take down the Society , I think, but I don’t speakit. Isimply say, “Yes.”

“All right then. He needs to know that if he touches you again, if he speaks against you about this tonight, he’ll meet me again. And he won’t live to meet me a third time. He needs to know some of the pain he caused you or I can’t walk out of here.”

He waits, as if waiting for my approval. “Okay.”

“Leave the room.”

“He has to go on camera in a few minutes.”

“He will.”

“I’m staying.”

He shrugs and before I know his intent, he grabs my father’s hand and then leans to his ear again, whispers something I don’t understand before speaking to me again. “Until next time, Lilah.” He breaks my father’s finger and then just like that, he’s out a back exit, and if I’m right, he won’t look like the same person he does now when he leaves.

My father doesn’t scream as if Ghost hasforbiddenit. He cries, like a baby.

And just like that, Ghost is gone.

And Junior is back.

The End…