"It's supposed to make you understand. This isn't about control. It isn't about keeping you in the dark for the sake of power." He held my gaze. "It's about making sure you survive it."
The word hit me like ice water. Survive.
"People have died from this?"
He didn't answer. But his silence was answer enough.
I left without another word.
With every step, I felt the bond between us stretch. Tight. Strained. Like a rope pulled to its breaking point.
Chapter twelve
Iheard Rae's house before I saw it.
Voices spilled through the windows—deep male tones overlapping, Rae's exasperated reply cutting through, Alexandra's high-pitched shriek of delight. The kind of noise that only came from too many people crammed into one kitchen.
Ash opened the door before I could knock. "The twins are back."
"I gathered."
"They've been insufferably smug for the last hour. Refuse to say anything until the whole family's here." He rolled his eyes, but there was warmth underneath. "Rae's about to kill them both."
I followed him through the hallway. The kitchen was packed—more people than the space was designed for, all of them talking at once.
Kane stood by the counter, Alexandra perched on his hip, her small fingers tangled in his hair. Kade leaned against the refrigerator with a mug of coffee, watching his twin with the particular fondness only brothers shared. Silas sat at the table, silver hair loose around his shoulders, his expression unreadable. Tomlinson occupied the chair beside him, still in his teaching clothes, a stack of papers forgotten in front of him. Luca was at the stove, stirring something that smelled like heaven.
Rae stood in the center of it all, arms crossed, patience visibly fraying.
"Finally," she said when she spotted me. "Now will you two please tell us what you found?"
Kane grinned. "Patience, love."
"I've been patient for weeks. My patience has limits."
"Noted." Kade set down his coffee and reached for a worn leather bag on the floor. "Alright. Everyone's here. Let's do this."
The room settled. Alexandra was passed to Luca, who carried her toward the living room with promises of cartoons. The rest of us gathered around the table, the playful energy shifting into something more serious.
Kade pulled a thick folder from his bag and set it down. The edges were worn, the surface covered in stamps and seals I didn't recognize. Foreign. Old.
"We found the European repository," Kane said. "Hidden archive in Prague, buried under three centuries of bureaucracy. It took some convincing to get access."
"Convincing?" Tomlinson raised an eyebrow.
"Money changed hands," Kade said flatly. "Don't ask how much."
"The important thing is what we found." Kane tapped the folder. "Council records from before the restructuring. Documents that were supposed to have been destroyed decades ago."
"Most of it is useless," Kade continued. "Redacted. Damaged. Fire, water, deliberate destruction. Someone went through these archives thoroughly and removed anything valuable."
"But not thoroughly enough," Kane finished.
He opened the folder. Inside were pages—dozens of them, maybe more. Some pristine, most not. I saw burned edges, sections blacked out with heavy ink, documents that were more holes than text. The destruction had been systematic. Intentional.
"We spent hours going through everything," Kade said. "Looking for patterns. Names. Classifications. Anything that might explain what they were trying to hide."
"One word kept appearing." Kane pulled a single page from the stack and set it in the center of the table. "Seventeen times across different documents. Reports. Memos. What looks like research notes. And then, a few decades ago, it disappears completely."
