“What about after? Won’t there be an investigation?”
“Absolutely. But by then, you four will be long gone, and all physical evidence will be ash. I’ll make sure the accelerant burns clean—nothing traceable. This will work, but you need to stick to the timeline exactly. Any deviation and the whole thing falls apart.”
My phone buzzes.
Kade:
On my way with confirmation from Sable.
“Speaking of timeline,” I say. “Kade’s incoming with the DSN piece.”
“Good. We need to coordinate this down to the minute.” CJ pulls out his own phone, opening what looks like a detailed timeline app.
Five minutes later, Kade walks into the library. He looks tense, which is fair, considering we’re planning coordinated arson and murder.
“Well?” Dredyn asks.
“Calling her,” Kade says, pulling out his phone and dialing. He puts it on speaker.
Three rings, then, “Kade. This better be important. I’m in the middle of convincing Dayton that no, we cannot adopt a dog.”
“It’s important. I’m at OCK with some friends—you’re on speaker.”
A pause. “OCK? The fuck are you doing at—wait. Is this about what I think it’s about?”
“Depends what you think it’s about,” Kade says carefully.
“I think it’s about the fact that OCK’s planning some insane party tonight.”
“We’re taking down the Syndicate leadership… tonight. But we need a diversion—something big enough to pull security away from the actual target,” Kade says.
“And you want DSN to provide that diversion.”
“We’re throwing a massive OCK party. We need DSN brothers to crash it, start a fight, create some chaos—the kind that draws every emergency responder and security guard on campus.”
“Why would DSN help OCK?”
“Because they’ve been using this college as a recruiting ground for their trafficking operation. Because they see your boyfriends as assets to be controlled instead of people to be valued.
“And because we’re offering you a chance for payback. We’re going after the three seats—James Steele, Edmund Mercer, and someone with DSN lineage. If we succeed, the Syndicate leadership dies tonight. If we fail, we die, and the status quo continues.”
There’s a long pause.
Sable says, finally, “They don’t participate. They’ve been through enough Syndicate shit. They sit this one out.”
“Agreed,” Kade says immediately. “Levi, Kai, Silas, Dayton—they’re not involved. But the other brothers?—”
“Okay, here’s what I can do. There are about fifteen DSN guys who’ve been chomping at the bit to cause problems. I can convince them that crashing an OCK party and starting shit is exactly the kind of problem-causing they need.”
“Can you control the timing? We need them there at eight thirty exactly,” CJ asks.
“Who’s that?”
“CJ. I’m handling the technical side.”
“And the fight needs to be real—convincing enough that when a fire breaks out, it looks like an accident caused by the chaos,” Dredyn says.
“My boys can handle real. What’s in it for DSN? Besides the satisfaction of kicking OCK’s ass and taking down the Syndicate?”
