Page 134 of Reasons We Break

And when he thought of it like that, for just a moment he understood why Simran loved it.

He’s halfway through the last grid when Zach rubs his face. “Shut up.”

Rajan falls silent. Thank god—he barely remembers any of the other ciphers.

“It’s him,” Zach mutters, almost to himself. “Shit, it’s really him.”

“Can we off him now?” Hat Stealer asks. Dude knows his priorities.

“No,” Zach snaps. “We have to bring him to our people first. They have to hear it from him. They’re not going to believe us if we just kill him here.”

Hat Stealer frowns. So does Rajan, but thankfully nobody’s looking at him. This is the tricky part. He cannot, under any circumstances, let these clowns take him to the Aces’ godfathers. Because those guys willreallycross-fucking-examine him on the bookkeeping, and his entire ruse will fall apart. He can’t afford that. No, Zach and his friends have to go back to their superiors with Rajan’s body in a bag. They’ll have to accept the story at face value—and the search for the bookkeeper will end.

Zach is the leader. Zach is the person Rajan has to convince to kill him.

“If we try to take him anywhere, that’s another chance for him to try to escape,” Snake Tattoo argues. “He almost lost us back there. They’ll have to believe us at our word. We’ll bring those calculations he did for us.”

Finally, someone on Rajan’s side. But Zach shakes his head.

“We’ll keep an eye on him. We’re so close.”

Rajan speaks up. “Close to what? Getting shot? Because that’s what’ll happen when your godfathers realize you tried to pull this operation without their green light.”

Snake Tattoo prowls closer. “Nobody will care about that. They only care about results. And we’ll have ’em.”

“Hate to break it to you, but they’ll take all the credit and leave you losers fighting over scraps.”

The others shift, as if that hadn’t occurred to them. Zach, however, doesn’t. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. Bring the truck around,” he tells one of his buddies, who disappears from the room.

Zach’s way too calm right now. New strategy, then. Rajan takes a deep breath and recalls what he remembers from when he was fourteen, reading Zach’s personal files on the principal’s desk. It’s a nasty play, what he’s about to do. But fuck it.

“I hope for your sake it works, Zach,” he says. “Still not a full member after all these years, huh? Kind of stunning.”

“Run your mouth, it won’t save you,” Zach says, bored. Rajan is undeterred.

“I guess, knowing your background, they don’t trust you to handle a lot of money.”

Zach goes still.

Rajan keeps going. “They probably think you’d steal some. You’re a little too desperate. Desperation is good in the low-level jobs, because you’ll do anything for a bit of money.” He knows that intimately. “But when you’re the onehandlingthe money, you actually gotta use your head. You’ve never had much experience with that.”

“Shut up,” Zach says, and Rajan knows he’s on the right track.

Hat Stealer doesn’t, though. “What’re you even talking about?” he says to Rajan. “Zach’s rolling in money. He doesn’t need it.”

Rajan grins with all his teeth, still looking at Zach. “Really?”

“Well, yeah.” Hat Stealer glances between Rajan and Zach, finally clued in that something else is going on. Zach hasn’t moved a muscle in like a minute. “Zach, your dad is a hotshot lawyer. Isn’t he?”

Rajan’s eyebrows rise. Zach really went all the way with this ruse. It’s sad, really. He had to pretend his family was rich to become respected as a leader among his friends. He probably feels like he’s so close to gaining that full membership. It would beterribleif someone came around and ruined his progress.

“You know what,” Rajan says thoughtfully, “now that you mention it, I remember reading that.”

Zach speaks then, his jaw clenched. “Where the fuck would you have read that?”

“Mr. Kerr,” Rajan replies offhandedly. “He used to leave student files out on his desk all the time. I read some of them. Like yours.”

Zach turns white so fast, Rajan has the impression that poverty isn’t the only secret he’s hiding.