“Wes.” I nod over to my brother as I head inside. “What’s up? Where’sTobie?”
“Out and about. Last I saw, Emily had her.” He glares at the desk as he thumps his fingers over it at a manic pace. “Coop says Laken is missing.” He doesn’t look up, still lost in his catatonicgaze.
“We’ll findher.”
“You won’t. I will. She’s nothere.”
“What makes you sosure?”
“I just reviewed the security footage.” He glances to the monitor to his left before reverting to me. “Chloe was here.” His brows rise. “It looks as if she was turning in one last angelic being to the government.” His gaze falls to the dark mahogany of our father’s desk—an antique he once told me. “Laken followed her to the edge of the driveway. Who knows what lie she fed her. A car pulled up, and Chloe evaporated. But they took Laken.” He looks up at me and sharpens his gaze. “She’s at Raven’s Eye as wespeak.”
“Shit. Does Coopknow?”
He shakes his head. His eyes are slow to drift from mine. “Cooper can’t saveher.”
“Let me guess. Only you can do that? I’ve got news for you, Wes—you weren’t there the last time we helped her get out of thathellhole.”
“They took her back, Gage. What do you think the future holds? She comes back to Paragon and resumes her life as if nothing happened? They want her there, in that cage so they can do those things to her.” His voice shakes with the undertones of rage. “But I’ll make sure she’s out long before morning. They’ll process her tonight, and I’ll make sure she’s back on Paragon soil before they ever try to harmher.”
There is something to be admired in my brother’s arrogance, in his self-assuredness in keeping the girl he loves safe above allelse.
“So, what’s the plan?” If I’ve learned anything about Wesley over the last few years, it’s that he is a man who always has aplan.
“I knew going into this that there was a chance she would be taken. Never in my wildest dreams did I think it would actually happen.” He belts out a manic laugh. “And so soon.” He tosses a hand in the air before pinching his eyes shut. “I had accounted for it, though. I couldn’t get too deep without making sure it wouldn’t backfire and bite me in the ass. I needed Laken safe no matter what. For her I made assurances. I knew there was one person able to help me—but she wasn’twilling.”
My heart jackhammers as I hang on his every word. Then it hits me. “Ezrina.”
“That’s right. Tobie is hers as much as she is mine, and I played that card over and over. Ezrina will do whatever I ask to have access to the child. And she should. She’s genetically hermother.”
My heart breaks for Ezrina, for the desperation she must have felt. “Ezrina stepped outside of her better judgment and turned Kresley into the clone you’ve alwayswanted.”
“And now that clone will take Laken’s place. Laken will have to be careful for a time. But the feds will be happy that she’s seemingly still under their charge—and the beauty of it is, it won’t be Laken at all.” He gives a dull smile. “And that, my brother, was theplan.”
A thousand different scenarios run through my mind, none of them good. “Does Kresleyknow?”
“She knows nothing.” He blinks back an inch. “And she won’t until the very last minute. She doesn’t have asay.”
My blood runs cold listening to him. This mirrored version of me, this blood relation, I can’t wrap my head around the fact he’s so ready and willing to be socruel.
“I’m not a monster,” hewhispers.
“How can you say that? You’re about to imprison Kresley to a life ofhell.”
“To spareLaken!” he roars, knocking down all of the knick-knacks Demetri hosts on that overgrown desktop of his. “Get out,” he whispers, his gaze once again lost in his ruminatingthoughts.
“Let me help you. We can find a way. We can free the Videns. Wes, don’t you see? You dug a hole deep enough to bury yourself in. This isn’t the way to claim victory over the Factions. Let me sit down with you, and we’ll think of a better way. We’ll shut them down without endangering our own people. Stop taking the rope. You’re about to hang yourself with it, and you don’t even realizeit.”
His eyes flit to mine, quick and curious. “You would help me?” His brow lifts as if he wereamused.
“Yes.” A surge of allegiance courses through me, and with everything in me I mean it. Skyla bounces through my mind, the boys, our people, and I come to, dazed as if I just stepped off of a demonic merry-go-round. “I’d better go find Coop.” I stagger from the office, my head still swimming in the conversation I had with Wes. How quickly I yielded to my father’s wishes. How quickly I stepped to the left and abandoned my wife and her people. I was right. It’s this damn house. It’s draining me of my good senses. I should get the boys, and my wife, and speed us the hell away fromhere.
I head down the hall and spot a sight for my sore and tiredeyes.
“Logan.” I clamp my hand down over his shoulder and lead him right out thedoor.
“Happy birthday.” He socks me in the arm as we step into the darkness of the enormous front porch. “I almost forgot to sayit.”
“Yeah, well, the boys should get all the attention anyway.” We walk to the edge of the house and take a seat on the cold stairs—a stoic marble lion sits on either side ofus.
