“Allwefound,” Gage said absentmindedly.
“Well, technicallyIfound it,” Storm said. “I just didn’t realize Versailles had a link.”
I recognized the sibling bickering and felt a pang of loss for Matt. Would we ever be this easy around each other again? Would we ever be able to joke around or argue or text each other like normal siblings?
“Either way, we appreciate it,” Jude said. “It’s way more than we had before.”
“You can appreciate it by paying,” Gage said.
His surliness rivaled Rafe’s. No wonder they didn’t like each other. Then again, I wasn’t sure Rafe liked anyone.
“We always do,” Nolan said, standing.
It was a not-so-subtle cue, and the rest of us stood too, including Storm and Gage.
“Listen,” Gage said, “I know you’re a bunch of crazy assholes, but this feels shady as fuck.”
“Yeah, we kind of got that,” Jude said.
“I’m backing Storm out, erasing her digital footprint.” Gage’s brow was furrowed with concern. “I’d tell you to do the same, forget the whole thing, but I have a feeling you won’t listen.”
“Yeah, thanks for the warning,” Rafe said, turning to go. “But fuck that.”
I was so shaken by what Gage said that we were almost to the exit before I realized Jude had taken my hand. It shouldn’t have felt normal, but like all the weird stuff that had started happening in my life, it did.
And that meant I was in serious trouble.
40
LILAH
I staredat my laptop screen, my mind churning. It had been almost two weeks since Storm and Gage had shown us the website for Imperium Fratrum and I was no closer to finding a way into the site than I’d been when I started. I hadn’t experimented with usernames or “invitation codes” — I’d been worried I might get locked out forever if I got them wrong — but I now knew more about historical secret societies than I’d ever wanted to learn and was fairly comfortable navigating the dark web even though a lot of what I saw there made it even harder to sleep at night.
And there was something else I’d learned: a lot of girls had gone missing in Blackwell Falls.
For decades.
I felt dumb that I didn’t know that, especially since some of it had been splashed all over the news after the scandal at Aventine University, but to be fair, I didn’t know much about anything. Following the news was something I hadn’t had the time or bandwidth for when I’d been holding down three jobs. I was a lot more broke now but also a lot more informed thanks to the hours I’d spent scrolling for news articles about the scandal atAventine and the murder of that rich guy Piers Cantwell who’d been killed at the old Mercer house.
And the crazy thing was, girls were still going missing.
Not a lot of them, not like before the whole thing at Aventine, but every few months someone was reported missing in one of the towns around Blackwell Falls. It was usually someone described as “troubled” — a runaway or a sex worker or a dancer at one of the area strip clubs.
Maybe that was why the news only reported on them once or twice before dropping the story. I tried not to think about that part too much because I had a feeling I would be considered just as disposable by society if I ever disappeared.
I sat back in my desk chair and remembered all the times I’d walked past MISSING posters on light posts and store windows, then I felt like a total asshole, because the truth was, I hadn’t thought about them much.
I mean, I’dthoughtabout it. I’d wondered what had happened to them, felt bad for them and for their friends and families, who were worried enough to put up a missing flyer.
But I’d never looked into any of them, had never dug deeper. I’d just hurried along, running to my next job or rushing home for a few hours of sleep before my next shift. And all the while, something poisonous had been happening around Blackwell Falls.
I tabbed to the last article that had been published about the killings of Piers and Gray Cantwell and the man named Arlo Kane. The lead investigator, a woman named Detective Rodriguez, had made statements in other articles, including after the alumni at Aventine were discovered to be running a trafficking ring, but there was nothing after an article dated six weeks earlier, when a statement had been issued saying the investigation was ongoing.
All of which meant I was stuck.
The Bastards said they were “working on it,” but of course they wouldn’t tell me more, no matter how pissed off I became. I hated relying on them for this like I relied on them for everything else, like I was a little kid who had to be sheltered from the truth, who had to be protected when I’d worked so hard to learn to fight for myself.
On top of everything else, I still hadn’t replaced either of my two lost jobs, and my savings account continued to dwindle. On the other hand, sex with Nolan was amazing and my body felt awake in a way it hadn’t before, my mind alive, like all the orgasms I was having had brought dead synapses to life.