“Adam made his first kill at their age,” Calliope said, then winked at the twins. They melted like snowmen on the equator, giving her the biggest heart-eyes.
“I did, too,” Seven admitted. “It should be their decision. Well, and Mama’s. Obviously.”
His brothers suddenly clustered around him, hopping on the balls of their feet, hands clasped like supplicants. “Please. Please. Please, let us watch. Please?”
Enzo rolled his eyes. “Fine, but only if Ma says it’s okay.”
“Yes!” Elio shouted, fist pumping. “She’ll totally say yes.”
“At the rate we’re going, we’re gonna have to install stadium seating at our kill sites,” Seven murmured.
She looked at the twins. “As for you two…you seemed to have no problem finding the ruby slippers, but how about you let me pull back the curtain?”
They blinked at her stupidly.
“Say yes, and I’ll show you corridors most people don’t even know exist, how to chase a digital ghost the way trackers read broken tree branches and barely-there footprints.” They gawked at her like she was Morpheus and they were Neo and she wasoffering them a choice between a red and blue pill. When she sat forward, they leaned in, too. They were so enthralled, Enzo half-worried they’d tip over. She smirked at them in a way that raised goosebumps on Enzo’s arms. “You want power? I’ll teach you how to hack the unhackable. I’ll give you the digital skeleton key to the entire internet. What do you say?”
They continued to gape at her, slack-jawed. When the silence stretched, she grinned. “Is that a yes?”
They both nodded vigorously.
“Excellent,” she said, the dramatic tone bleeding away, leaving only the chipperness she’d had moments ago. “Send me your school schedules. I’ll have to double-check with your mother that it’s okay.”
“We’ll give you her number,” Elio blurted.
Calliope scoffed. “No need. I already have it.”
Of course, she did.
“She really is like a mythical being,” Enzo said quietly.
Seven nodded, eyes bright. “I know, right?”
“How are the boys?”
Enzo rolled his eyes as he hung up the phone. “Ma says they complained for hours after we left, pretty much proving they are definitelynotold enough to participate in a?—”
“Murder?” Seven said, the corner of his mouth twitching.
“Yeah,” Enzo said, shaking his head.
They’d dropped the boys at the house after their visit with Calliope and asked Mama if they could attend the midnight meeting Brioni had set up. It wasn’t Mama who shut the plan down but the boys’ father.
Dario had squashed the idea immediately, saying they should wait until they were adults. If they were caught, it could ruin everything, not just for them but for the whole family. Seven supposed he was right. Had he been caught at that age, he likely would have ended up in a cell right next to his father no matter how hard Jericho would have tried to save him. They didn’t have Freckles back then to use his money and influence.
Would he have survived a police interrogation? Seven liked to think so, but he’d barely endured the night terrors that haunted him back then, much less the reality of day-to-day prison life. Being an accomplice to murder sounded badass until you were sat in a cell and realized toughness didn’t pay for bail, cover commissary, or watch your back for you in the showers. The thought of metal bars and fluorescent lights made his stomach ice over. The thought of turning out just like his father was an iceberg in his guts.
“Are they pouting about it?”
Enzo kept his eyes on the road. The dashboard hummed, tires whispering over the highway seams, music playing softly over the Bose speakers. “No. Mama said they accepted their fate when she agreed they could train to ‘hack the planet’ with Calliope,” he said, amusement threading his voice. “They took off for the movies with their friends hours ago.”
“Well, that’s good, I guess.” Seven watched the streetlights blur past the window like smeared paint. The world outside felt distant and unreal, like a stage set, and he hated how much calmer that made him feel.
“Can you go over the plan with me one more time?” Enzo asked, sliding his hand down to take Seven’s where it rested on his thigh. The contact was small and steadying, but also stoked a heat low in his belly.
Seven nodded. “Sure. Brioni arranged to meet Grant and his bosses—who apparently go by Fritz and Caesar—at an abandoned port owned by Thomas. There’s nothing around for miles, so nobody will hear them screaming. I’m sure they think she’s the stupidest girl alive and they’ve hit payday with her wanting to meet in the middle of nowhere. There’s no doubt they’ll try to shut her up.”
“And she’s okay with that?” Enzo’s voice tightened.
