“Pack up the money,” I growl.
Dutch smiles.
Sol puts his lighter away and grabs a bag. Zane smiles uneasily, but he grabs one of the bags too.
I start walking to the kitchen.
“Finn.” J scrambles behind me. “I tested it. The mirroring architecture works. Look, at least let me come with you and give it a shot?—”
I turn and put a hand on her shoulder. “I’ll let you come along.”
She grins. I don’t know why she’s so excited. This is extremely dangerous.
“I need you to scrape their phones for data, the same way you did with Ace. And then…” I look over her shoulder to check that my brothers and Sol are occupied. In a lower tone, I confide, “You’re going to sync those phones to the server. Get my laptop from upstairs.”
J’s blue-green eyes turn dewy and soft.
I haven’t seen anyone look at me with that expression before, so I’m not sure what it means.
But I like it.
“Keep it quiet,” I warn her.
She pulls her lips into her mouth, makes a zipping motion, and hurries to the stairs. There, she grabs the railing and does the fastest grandma-crab-walk I’ve ever seen.
My lips tremble, fighting to curl up. But I can’t let the warmth spread through my chest.
I have to focus.
If things go south tonight, if I make the wrong decision, Ace and his crew will come back for J and for my entire family.
I can’t be the reason my unborn nieces or nephews grow up without their fathers.
Chapter Forty-Seven
FINN
Sol and Zane load the bags of money into Sol’s grandmother’s van. It’s one o’clock in the morning, and everything in the world is extremely still.
Other celebrities live inside the gated community, so there aren’t any close neighbors, but I still look over my shoulder as they fill the car with money bags.
We’ve never had this much liquid cash before.
At least it’s not a body.
Goosebumps roll over my skin, and I inhale shakily. What if I’m making the wrong decision? Should I let Ren and Hayato do what needs to be done? Like Sol said, the blood won’ttechnicallybe on my hands. What if…
J’s soft fingers touch mine, and just like that first night we met, it pulls me from the darkness.
“You worried?”
I look away, refusing to admit it out loud when the truth is, I’m more keyed up than the time Sensei had me learning how to fall. I couldn’t get the tuck right and kept running and freezing right before the drop.
Back then, I couldn’t name what I was feeling, but my body was screaming that I shouldn’t attempt anything Sensei was teaching me or I’d break my neck.
“It’s okay to admit that you’re nervous,” J advises. She leans in to whisper, “I won’t tell.”
“Feelings have nothing to do with this. I’m doing what has to be done.”
