Page 29 of Wicked Brutal

Something in my chest shifts. “Thanks.”

“Yeah, congrats, man,” Xander says, and Kaiden nods, and Danny’s eyes meet mine.

“Congratulations, Ry,” he says.

“Thanks.” And that’s enough of that before somebody actually hugs me and I have to transfer schools. I open my laptop. “The pregnancy changes the Tremblay problem.”

Every trace of humor drains out of the room. Kaiden’s face hardens. “Because he expects her pure.”

“Yeah.”

“Fucking psychopath,” Xander mutters.

They already know most of it. They know about Tremblay, about the marriage, about the fact that Roman promised his daughter to a man older than our fathers like she was a line item in a deal. They know Tobias is the reason she hasn’t already walked out, that Jane isn’t going to save anybody, that Roman’s name keeps surfacing around exactly the kind of people we’ve spent the last year dragging into daylight.

“Tremblay thinks Roman is delivering him a virgin bride,” I say. “That’s a term of the deal. Untouched. Pure. Whatever word those two use when they talk about a teenage girl like she’s a car with the plastic still on the seats.” Danny’s hand curls into a fist on the table. “So the second she starts to show, there’s no explaining it away.”

Kaiden ignores both of us. “How long can she hide it?”

“I don’t know. She’s ten weeks. Her uniform skirt already stopped fitting — she had to size up in secret.” That kills the room.

Xander swears under his breath. “How noticeable?”

Edgewood notices everything eventually — new shoes, missing earrings, whose car you get out of, who leaves lunch early, who stops drinking champagne at parties. A pregnancy is not going to stay invisible forever.

“I’ve been digging harder since Valentine’s,” I say, and turn the laptop around.

They’ve seen most of the Roman and Tremblay files before, but not all of it. I’ve added folders since — companies, properties, payments, political donations, nonprofits, names that keep surfacing around both men often enough that coincidence stopped being a serious explanation weeks ago.

“I can connect Roman and Tremblay financially. I can connect them both to people we’ve already looked at. There’s money moving between companies that have no business touching each other.”

“But?” Danny asks.

“But I can’t prove what the money’s for. I’ve got the shape of it. I don’t have the thing that makes a prosecutor stand up.”

Kaiden scrolls, jaw tight. “Arthur needs this.”

Iz immediately reaches for his phone, and I say, “Not yet.”

His hand stops. “Why?”

“Because Ally gets to know the boys know before your dad gets a phone call. She doesn’t find out her whole life is moving because you got excited and dialed.”

Iz lowers the phone. “Fair. Yeah. That’s fair.”

Xander looks at me. “Why didn’t you tell us on Valentine’s Day? You’ve been sitting on this alone for a month.”

There it is. “I needed more first.”

Kaiden’s expression goes flat. “Ryan. We already knew about Roman. We already knew about Tremblay. We already knew about Tobias. What, exactly, were you waiting for?”

“Something useful. Something that actually changes the board instead of just proving what we already know.” He stares at me, and I shove the laptop away. “I knew exactly what happens the second I tell you. You tell Cat. X tells Penny. Danny tells Becca. Iz calls Arthur. Then every parent we’ve got knows, and suddenly there are twenty people moving at once, and if we move before we’ve got enough to actually get Tobias out clean, we blow the only shot we get.”

“That’s generally the point of having twenty people,” Xander says.

“Not if we move too soon and Roman sees it coming.” Nobody talks for a second. “Ally can leave that house tonight,” I say. “She’s eighteen. Roman can’t legally drag her back.”

“But Tobias can’t leave, and she won’t go without him.” Danny says.