Gideon stares at me from across his desk. His bodyguard stares at me from a corner of the office.
I stare back at Gideon, resist the urge to let my gaze flick to the bodyguard. The bodyguard is definitely the more dangerous one, but he won’t move without a signal from Gideon. I think.
“Your sister broke my ribs,” Gideon says blandly. He points to a wall. “Just out there.”
“Good for her.”
There’s a beat of silence.
The bodyguard breaks it. “And there was—”
Gideon holds up a hand. “No need to bring that up.”
The bodyguard, whom I haven’t been introduced to, mutters something I can’t make out. It almost sounds like he’s saying something about wearing a cup, which makes zero sense.
“You still like to give orders,” I say.
“Someone has to.” Gideon isn’t a bit apologetic.
“You going to introduce us?” I gesture to the bodyguard.
“Rustem doesn’t like you.”
Rustem. Sounds Turkish. I’ll have to do a search on him when I get back to my place. “You could still introduce us. If I waited for everyone to like me, I’d never meet anyone.”
Gideon chokes back a laugh. “Fair enough. Rustem, Tynan. Tynan, Rustem. This is Camber’s brother.”
Rustem nods. “I like her.”
“Even though she broke your boss’s ribs?”
“Especially because of that,” Rustem says.
And then Bishop walks in, looking like hell. I’d make a crack about it, but he looks like he might shatter if it hits too hard.
Hmm. I wonder if this has anything to do with keeping his information about LM from Raven. I guess he really did fuck things up with her.
Bishop takes the other chair, his jaw set. “Drive didn’t take you too long?” he asks as if he’s being clever.
“Not too long,” I answer blandly. So Gage is still trying to track down my location.
“See your sister yet?”
Oh, he’s going to chide me about that? I’d tell him to worry about his own family, but I don’t think he has any. “We’ve talked. How’s Raven? She seemed… unsettled last time I saw her.”
I haven’t actually seen her since that first night, but I don’t think he’s seen her recently either. And I don’t want them to know Morgan gave me most of the story a few nights ago.
“Pissed at me.” He says it like it’s a death sentence. “Pissed like I’ve never seen. I think I fucked that up beyond repair.”
“I know the feeling,” I say as if I’m talking about Morgan. Except she’s not pissed at me at all. After that kiss on the dock and all our texting, she’s the opposite of pissed.
Gideon looks deeply uncomfortable. “I’m sorry about… all that, but we’ve got to deal with other stuff.”
Bishop then tells his version of the story. Just as I thought, he’s done his own research.
“Raven confronted him?” I say with fake shock. I already know that, but I’m still keeping everything close.
“Over the phone, but yeah. Gage put more guys on her just in case.”
Finally Bishop did something smart. But he’s also right about one thing—Oscar needs to be dealt with.
“I went through the bugs,” I say. “The one in the old autonomous-driving computer we built and the one in Cassian’s car. The code matches. And it’s pretty sloppy for something either of you would write.”
“So you think it wasn’t us,” Gideon says, not bothering to hide his smugness.
“I didn’t say that—I said it was sloppy. Sloppy but effective. It’s definitely something Oscar could have written—he was never a great coder.”
But he was good enough to kill Ira. And almost kill me. It’s almost fucking insulting that something so amateur could fuck things up so badly. At least the guys would have made it elegant.
“No, he wasn’t,” Bishop says. “Which Ira knew. And apparently he was always capable of murder, which Ira knew too.”
Knew and condoned, it seems. “Which is why he did the notebooks and the encryption,” I say. “He knew Morgan and Raven would be in danger from Oscar.” And he didn’t want to let anyone know why he was suspicious because he would have had to confess how he knew all that.
Bishop catches the thread of my logic. “And why he gave them to us. So that we could protect them and help them take control of it. It’s also why he left us that money—so we’d have power of our own against Oscar.”
I drum my fingers against the table, sort through my memories of those last months with Ira. When he was dying but doing it secretly. So secretly I didn’t suspect a thing. “He never said a word about it the entire time. He never seemed sick. Not even tired, not once. Not a single cough.”
“Raven and Morgan never noticed either.”
Christ, to keep that from your own daughters… I knew Ira wasn’t perfect, but seeing how imperfect he really was is pissing me off. He could have said goodbye, told them the truth about Oscar—if he was dying, what did it matter? They both loved him so much, they wouldn’t have cared in the end. “Ira kept both of them in the dark too much.”
And he’ll never have to answer for that. Oscar’s not the only one who needs to face some justice here.
“Well, it’s time to drag everything into the light,” Gideon says. “You’re going to meet Oscar. Face-to-face.”
Again with the orders. Like he’s going to snap his fingers and I’m going to jump. “I said I’d do that on my own schedule. Not yours.”
That pisses Bishop off. “Raven was brave enough to invite him to my unbirthday in a week. You can be brave enough to show up.”
If he bothered to open his mouth, Raven wouldn’t have had to confront Oscar on her own. Has he considered that?
“Are you sure you’re still invited to that?” I drawl, and he surges up out of the chair. “Okay, okay. Sorry. That was stupid.”
Really, I need to stop baiting these guys. If we’re going to deal with Oscar and keep Morgan and Raven safe, we have to work together. But turning off five plus years of hate is going to be hard.
Bishop falls back into his chair like his strings have been cut. “It’s okay. I’ve been on edge.”
More like the edge has sliced him right open. “Mmm.” I turn my focus to Gideon. “So I show up to this party, scare the shit out of Oscar, and then…?”
“And then we’re all there,” Gideon says as if this is an actual plan. “Ready to confront him. And then we see what happens.”
It’s certainly better than having Raven confront him on her own. We’re not so easy to intimidate, and his Good Old Uncle Oscar routine won’t work on us. Plus the shock of seeing me is going to be a big one.
“Possibly that would work,” I allow. “But Oscar’s hidden this for years. And if he did it, he hid the Meany thing even longer. My coming back from the dead might not be enough to do it.”
“We lay out all the evidence,” Bishop says. “And thanks to Raven, we can hit him with the Meany stuff too.”
“True.” Still, Oscar’s come this far with an apparently unbothered conscience. We can’t assume this will work.
“Have you met with Morgan yet?” Bishop asks. “Or Raven?”
“I’ve been in contact with Morgan.” I don’t elaborate on the kind of contact, which was hot as hell. “But I haven’t met with Raven.”
“Look.” Gideon huffs with impatience. “Are you coming or not? If not, let’s end this fucking farce. I’d rather be hanging out with Tess instead of you two.”
As if I’m wasting his time by being here. I was the one who almost died in that fucking crash, who went into hiding for five years, but Gideon wants to hang out with his girlfriend. Un-fucking-believable.
This is why I keep being a dick to them. Because even if they weren’t responsible, they didn’t suffer, not like I did. And they still want to call the shots.
“Okay.” I toss that out like I don’t give a fuck. “I’ll do it.”
“Jesus Christ,” Bishop mutters.
“Excellent.” Gideon rubs his hands. “RSVP to Raven then.” He gives Bishop a significant look.
“I’ll make up with her before then,” he says heavily. “At least enough that she won’t kick me out.”
“Good. And I’ll see you in two days for the other thing.”
Hmm, what other thing? When Bishop gets up to leave, I follow. That’s when I notice the bandage on his arm. Does he look like shit because he’s sick? Bishop dying on us could fuck things up.
I point to the square of gauze. “What’s that on your arm?”
“Nothing. Don’t worry about it.”
“Wasn’t worried, just curious,” I say neutrally. “Don’t forget to call Raven.”
“You too. If you don’t show up, you’ll break her heart.”
If Raven looks half as broken as Bishop does, he’s already done that.
I try to imagine breaking Morgan’s heart, leaving here knowing that she’s angry with me. That she hates me.
I can’t breathe for a second even though it’s only imaginings.
“I never wanted to hurt them.” I want Bishop to know that—we might not be on good terms, but Morgan and Raven never have anything to fear from me.
“Neither did I. But we somehow managed it anyway.”
We? No, not me. Morgan might have been hurt that I hid for all those years, but I came back.
For her.