“Yes, Ellery. She’s a bit of a shit, loudmouth, obnoxious, manipulative…”
“Ellery?” Kit asks, looking almost childlike in his enthusiasm. “They’re literally back at the?—.”
Bingo. Jackpot.
“Don’t,” one of them says, pushing him in warning. I’m going to think of him as the pretty one, because the shoe fits. Even though he’s glowering at me. “We don’t know if he’s telling the truth. We could put them in danger.”
Jesus, these fellas are going to fucking kill me with all this beating around the bush.
“Fuck off. I’m no danger to her. She’s my sister,” I say.
“It’s they/them,” Kit says, and I feel my irritation rising.
I don’t fucking care for being called out about how I talk about my sister. They don’t know her. They don’t know me. She’s mine.
It’s possible that there’s a little guilt fueling the hair-trigger I have on this. Ellery always used to want to talk about this stuff. It was something we shared, even if we had different takes on it, but I just had no interest in the theory or the self-exploration. I am what I am. I don’t care what people call me.
Ellery must have cared more than I thought, if my unwillingness to engage or be consistent about the pronoun thing pissed them off enough to leave. Or at least not take me with them when they left.
Still, I don’t appreciate these guys calling me out like they’re so fucking special and ethical, when we’re all murderers and arsewipe human beings anyway.
“For you maybe. But I shared a womb with her, so I get to call her whatever I want. Plus, she always calls me worse, I promise. And I still tore half the country apart so I could rescue her. So, where the fuck have you hidden her?”
They all stay fucking silent. My patience is getting thin.
“How about one of us calls and verify your story. And if they want to see you, then. maybe we can tell you where they are.” The pretty one glares at me, as if this is all some elaborate scheme to get my fucking sister’s phone number.
“Do you fucking believe this? This is fucking ridiculous. But fine. I’ll bite. Call her, tell her Fallow has been looking for her.”
I guess it is a scheme, kind of. But at least I’m not fucking lying.
“After we find Bane. We’ve wasted enough time.”
The Russian one is getting growly. It makes me curious who Bane is, even if I’m focused on finding Ellery. Again, with the intrigue…
“How long have you been looking for Ellery?” Kit asks.
“Too fucking long. I tracked her here from Missouri, and the East Coast before that. And the trail led me here, to all this.” I gesture around us. “Like I said, there’s a strip club right in the back. Lots of shady business done in those locked, soundproof rooms. If they were to take your man, he might be there. No one would see or hear him if he screamed.”
And if we go there, I can check on Colm. If one gangster has been taken today, it doesn’t rule out mine getting hurt, and that’s not something I’m prepared to accept.
“Fuck,” Kit says, before the tall one stops the angry Russian one from moving.
“We need a plan,” he says. “We don’t even know if we can trust him.”
Rude.
“Like the plan you had when you strangled the bartender and stuffed him in a closet. Right now, I trust no one but myself. Call Ellery, verify who this guy is so we can find Bane,” Russian man says, all thorns.
He pushes past all of us in the ensuing silence, until he gets to the door I just came through.
“Where is this club?”
Yes. Let’s go. Let’s go find Colm. And whoever poor kidnapped Bane is.
“I was just there. Follow me.”
We move through the hallways, with Kit and the other lackeys making some phone calls to confirm that I’m not lying about my sister. When it’s confirmed, my fucking heart sings.
