“Open more,” Liv growled. “Open them all.”
We watched on in horrified silence as Sterling clicked through each and every picture. They all used one of three photos. The redhead, the brunette female, and the blond male. All of them.
All. Of. Them.
Someone had played us. They’d probably called each one of us into the office and showed us one or two pictures to instill our loyalty.
“I can’t breathe,” Liv said, as fresh tears rolled down her cheeks.
“Hang on, this … is a mistake,” Sterling offered.
“You didn’t see the app! They ordered us like a fucking cheeseburger!” I cried out, pacing the room.
Maz knew … she had to know.
“The other houses?” I stopped dead. “Are they all in on it?”
Sterling looked like he might be sick. “I don’t know.”
“We’re Shadow Bloods. We’re hired assassins with no morals who do it for the money.” My voice was devoid of all emotion.
Liv sobbed, and I wanted to comfort my friend, but I was having my own mental breakdown at the moment.
“Money,” Sterling said, and then his hands went wild at the keyboard. He smashed away at the keys, pulling up window after window while I tried to keep up. He muttered a few curse words under his breath, but was going through things too fast for me to keep up.
“What is it?” I asked.
Sterling looked up at me like a little lost puppy. “Maz … she has millions.Millions.And all of the senders had offshore accounts. Not … local grieving families.”
No.
Liv’s crying just … stopped, and I could see the moment she went numb.
She peered up at me, and it reminded me of the look on her face when she was fifteen and made her first kill. She’d looked so lost and confused; the first kill was always the hardest.
“Aspen, I want to leave, right now. I can’t … I can’t stay here.” Her voice was so robotic, I knew she was at the end of her rope, her sanity cracking.
“Okay. Let’s pack a bag. We’ll stay at a hotel and figure this out,” I told her.
Sterling put his hands out. “A hotel? If this is true … if … Maz won’t let you just leave with this knowledge. You need a credit card to book a hotel, and then she’ll find you.”
Liv slammed her fist on the table, causing both Sterling and I to jump. “I’m not staying here a second longer!”
“I know where we can go. Maz won’t find us.” My eyes flicked to Liv’s, and she raised one eyebrow.
I had to go and feed the bastard every day anyway. Might as well hole up with Luka while we figured this out.
“Come with us,” I told Sterling. “We need to see how deep this goes. Does every house know? Every country? I need to know everything.”
Sterling sighed, leaning back in his chair. “If you want to know how deep this goes, you’ll need someone on the inside. I’ll bring Vasquez in on it, and we’ll stay and get more information. Build a case to show the others.”
Emotion clogged my throat. Sterling was a good guy. He may have been a shitty boyfriend but he was a decent human. I rushed forward and pulled him into a hug.
“What will Maz think when we’re gone?” I asked him.
He shrugged. “I dunno … I’ll tell her you ran off to be with a vampire.”
I froze, chills running up my arms as I looked for any indication that he was kidding. He wasn’t.
