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  Marc turned on me the moment they were out of sight. “We need to talk?” he asked.

  It wasn’t a great start, but at least they weren’t demanding to leave immediately. Maybe it was better to say it outright rather than tiptoeing around to feel out if they might be interested. If they were going to tough-guy me, then they could handle the flat truth. I stood taller, trying to appear more serious. “I have been hired by Ethan Murdock to check out some suspicious company activities. He’s put me in charge of the team. We’re supposed to listen in on important CEOs and find out who is stealing money and making possibly illegal investments.”

  Marc stared at me. The silence between us grew, like he expected me to say more, but I was waiting him out to see how he felt.

  He rubbed his palm against his chest, over his heart. “There’s a punch line somewhere, right?”

  I threw my hands up in the air, rolling my eyes. He couldn’t even take me seriously for a minute. “Oh my god, Marc.”

  “Bambi,” he said louder. “You can’t just get hired by Ethan.”

  “I just did,” I said, and pointed to the large open expanse of the foyer. I hadn’t wanted to lose my temper, but it was how he was saying things that was irritating. “He was just here. I didn’t make it up.”

  “We were gone for twenty minutes and you get hired to be private security?” he asked, his voice remaining loud and echoing in the quiet halls. He stepped away, pacing, his boots scuffling around the carpet. Then he stopped short and refocused on me. “Quit.”

  “No,” I said.

  “Then we can just go,” he said. “If we leave, he’ll get the picture.”

  He wasn’t even going to give me a chance? He didn’t think I could do it? I couldn’t believe him. How could he simply walk away? I hadn’t even started talking about what was going on. “Marc!” I bellowed at him. I pointed a finger toward his mismatched eyes. “Stop bossing me around. I was hoping to talk to you about what was going on and see if you wanted to come along, but if you’re just going to bully me, then I’ll stay and you can go.”

  “We can’t be here,” Marc said. He spread his arms wide, and turned in a circle before facing me again. “This isn’t for us. We aren’t allowed to get involved.”

  I squinted my eyes at him. There was something he wasn’t telling me. He hadn’t asked about Ethan and what was going on. He wasn’t at all concerned. He was too coolly saying no. “You knew,” I said, my voice lowering to a normal volume. “You knew Ethan’s company was in trouble.”

  Marc clenched his jaw, glaring at me but not talking. Either he didn’t want me to know, or...or he wasn’t allowed to tell me.

  I snapped my fingers in his direction and pointed, connecting the dots. “You know what’s going on. Did the Academy tell you not to step in? How can they control your life like that?”

  “There’s more going on than you know about,” Marc said. “And please don’t talk about them like that. Not here.”

  I turned to Raven, who had stepped back. He was frowning as he stared at me. “And you knew?”

  He shrugged, but took another big step backward. Possibly stepping out of hitting range.

  I pressed my palms to my eyes, turning toward the fireplace. They knew what was going on and couldn’t help at all? They wouldn’t. They weren’t allowed to. I hadn’t considered the Academy would say no for them. “I can’t believe this.”

  “We aren’t idiots,” Marc said. “Once our team was safe, we were told to recover. When we did ask what would happen, we were told things would be taken care of and to just allow all of us to lay low and take care of ourselves. The only thing we weren’t aware of was that they’d called in Future-Fancy.”

  “Which is why Fancy was allowed to call me?” I asked, whipping back around. The anger I’d pushed down into my gut now burned all the way up to my eyes, flaring outward. I stepped forward, glaring right at Marc. “When did I ever agree to have my calls blocked from anyone?”

  “You were in the hospital. And there’s no reason to get involved with them now. It’s better if you don’t.”

  I pulled out my cell phone and held it out. “You didn’t tell me,” I cried out. “You didn’t even ask what I wanted.”

  “You couldn’t tell me,” he said. “You were sick and puking your guts out in the hospital because of all the medications you had to be on to get the poison out of your system.”

  I don’t know what irritated me more, that they actually did block calls or that he had too good of an answer for everything I questioned. It made me feel more like an idiot for being blind to it all. I threw the phone at him, hitting him in the chest. He caught it automatically. “I can’t believe any of you,” I yelled. “I’ve been out of the hospital for two weeks. You had time to tell me. That doesn’t fly.”

  Marc held my phone, pointing it at me. “What do you want me to say?” he asked. “We knew Ethan might be calling about this but we can’t help him. You’ve been laying around the apartment for two weeks, and the first instance of anyone asking for your help, and you jump right in without thinking?”

  “And that’s my decision to make,” I said. “Mine, not yours. I’m not your kid. I’m not some puppet.” I could appreciate them doing a lot of things for me, but not telling me wasn’t something I wanted. If they wanted me to trust them, that wasn’t how trust worked. I counted off on my fingers. “I don’t need someone monitoring my phone calls. I don’t need anyone making a decision for me as to what I can do or not do. I don’t need to be sheltered.” On this last point, I pointed right at him. “And I don’t need someone yelling at me like it was all my fault that I’ve been kept in the dark.”

  Marc raised his arms in an I-give-up motion. “Then maybe we don’t need to be here. Forget that, one: we were already aware what was going on and were ordered not to get involved. And, two: you said no when I asked if you wanted to go to work with me to see if you were up to doing anything. That included filling you in on what was going on now.” He lowered his arms and waved my phone at my face. “How was I supposed to know you were ready to be caught up to speed? This is the first time in weeks you’ve shown interest in anything other than sleeping and being sick.”

  I swallowed the thick ball of emotion in my throat and turned away from him toward the fireplace again. The warmth added to my already burning cheeks. What he’d said hurt so much. Yes, I’d been sick. I tried to recall when he’d asked me to follow him to work, but I’d assumed it was to fix a roof or something. I realized it was at the beginning of this week and I’d said no due to the nausea and that he was leaving at six a.m. It was more an excuse not to get up early. How was I supposed to know if I’d said okay, he’d tell me about all of this?

  I folded my arms over my chest, staring at the embers of the fake fire and finding it easier to talk to it than to his face. “It’s no excuse for blocking phone calls,” I said. “There’s no excuse for not telling me what was going on. That’s not right. You can’t keep me a prisoner like that.”

  “Did I treat you like a prisoner?” he asked, his voice dropping to something else: sadness, desperation. “Please. Don’t do this. Don’t vilify us for trying to look out for you.”

  Silence filled the room. My emotions shifted and I found it difficult to look at either of them, afraid to back down from my anger, and yet suddenly not angry. Other emotions whirled around in my head: Disappointment. Sadness. Hopelessness.

  I blinked back hot tears. I would walk out before I would cry in front of them. I couldn’t block the onslaught of memories of the last few weeks, even though I desperately tried. Flashes of Marc scooting over in the bed when Corey was going out for the day and I needed to sleep in for an extra hour. Of him making me breakfast nearly every morning when I finally started eating solid food again. He’d even snuck a hamburger into the hospital at my request once. I’d puked it up later but didn’t tell him that part.

  I wanted to believe him, that he was only looking out for me, but my pride wouldn’t al
low me to back down and admit that he might be right. Maybe before, I wasn’t ready.

  Was I ready now? I didn’t believe I could go back to the apartment and ignore all of this.

  “Little Thief,” Raven said quietly, surprisingly calm. “What did you learn while you were here? Why do you want to help?”

  I pushed my palms into my eyes, rubbing out the sadness and trying to pull myself together. At least Raven was listening. “You know about the accounts he discovered? The spreadsheet?”

  “We know about Ethan cancelling a lot of his appointments and plans to travel out of the country to stay here in Charleston,” Marc said, his voice as calm as Raven’s now. “And that there were occasional meetings the last few weeks as he requested to get familiarized with the different corporations. And we know tomorrow he’ll be inviting some of his CEOs aboard for the annual shindig they do. There was an assumption within our… special group of friends that with his new interest in the company that he was taking steps to correct his father’s bad deals.”

  “Then you might want to know there’s over two billion dollars in different secret accounts, money that could have been taken from people from Charleston. He wants to correct it all and take out all the bad apples in his company. The city will be in trouble if Murdock’s company goes down.”

  “And we have people monitoring it,” Marc said.

  Just monitoring? Why when we could do something about it? I breathed out slowly, finding some strength in talking about someone else’s problems. I turned back to them. Marc was looking at the floor. Raven hadn’t moved at all, still looking at me, no emotion in his face. “Did either of you know about Michelle?”

  Marc lifted his head, appearing puzzled. Raven shook his head.

  I pulled the picture from my pocket and showed them the fair-haired Michelle at her home. “She filed a lawsuit not too long ago against the Nightingale nonprofit company that belongs to the Murdock empire.” I quickly went over what Blake had told me. He’d been right; pointing a finger at a specific person, a particular incident, would make them pay attention.

  “Okay,” Marc said after I’d finished relaying the story. “So he can fire all of his board members and start new. There’s no reason for us to be here.”

  “That’s going to attract a lot of attention,” I said. “And you’re looking at possibly firing innocent people.”

  “We really can’t do anything for him,” Marc said. He put a palm over his heart. “I sympathize with this, really. There’s other people more qualified for this. We’re just not allowed to step in.”

  “You aren’t,” I said. “I am. I was going to look for work soon anyway, and this will keep me pretty busy for a while, not to mention it will get me out of your hair. You can’t get involved, but there’s nothing to stop me. Besides, I’m in charge of the team. That means nothing happens unless I want it to. I can also walk away if I need to.”

  Marc sighed, and rubbed at his brow. “Kayli...”

  I strained, willing him to believe in me and understand why I felt the need to stay. “Please,” I said quietly, begging. “Marc. I’m already here. Let’s just look in on this.”

  He shifted on his feet, looking at the sofas, the lights above our heads. His eyes shifted back and forth, thinking. He was considering his options. I realized he might be trying to find a way to get around the Academy’s request to not get involved.

  Then I realized his saying no wasn’t his personal decision. If this Academy could tell him no, he’d have to walk away. He may not have a choice but to let me do this on my own and couldn’t get involved at all. I may have no chance at all, no need to convince them if the Academy controlled their actions like this. Blake and I might be on our own here.

  I wasn’t so sure we could do it without them.

  Raven stepped forward, putting his hands on his hips. The action caused his shoulders to round out more and his chest to swell. “Little Thief,” he said. “You are in trouble.” He said it so clearly, so sure.

  “I’m fine,” I said, confused. “I’m not in trouble.”

  “Shut up,” Raven said. “You’re in dumb shit.”

  “In deep shit,” Marc said. “It’s in deep shit.”

  “Same.”

  Marc looked at me, and then at Raven and back at me. His eyes brightened and he smiled. “Raven, you’re so brilliant. I love the shit out of you.”

  Raven beamed. “You should call the others in.”

  Marc put my phone in his pocket and when I opened my mouth to protest, he held up a palm to quiet me, then pulled out his own. He held it in his hands and looked at me. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

  I realized he might just be putting my phone down just so he could use his and didn’t mean to really keep it. I glanced at his phone. “Do what?” I asked. “What are you all talking about?”

  Marc wiggled his phone at me. “We can’t get involved with Murdock’s problems, but there’s nothing to stop us following you around when you’re in trouble and need help.”

  This must be some Academy logic he was following. “Won’t you get into trouble if I’m getting involved with Murdock?”

  “Not if you’re going off on your own,” he said. “Not if you’re insisting on doing something dangerous.”

  “It’s not that dangerous,” I said. “Right now it’s just information gathering.”

  Marc shook his head. “With the possibility of an escaped crazy old man out there, not to mention his partners who tried to kill you before and might try again.” He dialed the phone. “Like it or not, we’re your babysitters.”

  I sighed, not liking how he rationalized getting involved, but if it meant they could work around Academy rules, then that was their choice.

  Marc stepped away to talk on the phone. Raven walked over, standing close. He smirked at me and shook his head. “Dumb shit,” he said in an almost loving tone.

  I shared a small smile with him. “You’ll stay?”

  “Always,” he said. “Even if he didn’t, I would have.”

  That made me feel better. Hashing it out with Marc had hurt a lot. It was the truth on both sides, but it stung. I hadn’t understood that he’d been waiting to catch me up and he didn’t understand that he should have at least warned me about what was going on.

  He did stay, though. He was trying. I had to give him credit.

  “Do you think the others will come along?” I asked Raven.

  “Corey will,” he said. “If I’m here and you’re here, he will. Brandon will come if Corey comes along. Axel will come if all of us are here. Kevin will show up, too.” He looked over at Marc on the phone and then nodded toward the stairs. “Let’s go outside.”

  I followed him, curious as to what he wanted out on the deck, but was relieved to get a break from fighting.

  I wasn’t sure yet if this was a victory, though. Raven seemed confident the guys would follow, but I wasn’t so sure.

  MONEY CHANGES YOU

  I followed Raven out onto the deck where I’d first come in. The bar was now clean, which meant in the time I’d been in the lounge, someone had cleared it. I wondered how many people work on the ship. I hadn’t spotted anyone I didn’t know yet and wondered if Avery had done it.

  Raven went to the rail at the side of the ship and leaned over it, looking down at the water, even though it was dark. I joined him, touching the cool metal. I’d forgotten the jacket inside, and while I was chilly, it felt good; it cooled my temper.

  Raven gazed out into the black for a long time. I thought maybe he just wanted some air or to get outside for a few minutes. “I almost punched Marc in there,” he finally said.

  My mouth popped open. I looked at him, but he was gripping the rail and staring out. Only then did I realize the tension in his hands and body. He’d been silent in there, but he had been holding back his own anger—restraining the wild bear.

  “Raven,” I said in a soft tone, unsure if I should speak at all. Would he punch me, too? I had been pa
rt of the argument.

  “You were sick,” he said. “They told me to not talk to you because of that. I didn’t think about it until now that you might want to know what was going on.”

  I sighed. He was taking it personally. “It’s not totally your fault, or his. I was sick. I was in the hospital. I probably would have said not now if they had called, and would have agreed with you about not talking to them then, but I wish you’d given me a chance to say no.”

  He broke his stare into the darkness, looking down at my face. His brown eyes were now black in the shadows, and I couldn’t read his mood. “Don’t take the money.”

  “What?” I asked. “You don’t want me to help?”

  “You can do what you want,” he said. “Just don’t do it for money.”

  “Why? You make money from the Academy.”

  “No,” he said. “We don’t make money from that.”

  He wasn’t telling me they worked for free, was he? No one does. “Don’t they...I mean they pay for...”

  He looked down at the floor. He sucked in a breath and blew it through his thick lips toward the ground. “Not like that. Maybe Corey can explain it better.” He lifted his head, meeting my eyes again. “It changes you, when you do it for money. You look to get the reward, and that’s not always the best result. Trust me.”

  I drummed my fingers against the cool rail. “Ethan offered. And I don’t have any money.”

  “You don’t need it,” he said. “If you take this job, everything else will be taken care of. Let him pay for necessities if you want. Food, clothing, whatever you need. Anything else? I’ll pay for it.”

  “I don’t want other people to pay things for me,” I said. “I want to earn it. I can’t live off of you guys forever.”

  Raven rubbed at his cheek and then wiped his fingers across his lips. “Thief,” he said. “I’ll figure it out, but for now, don’t take any money. It’ll change how you do things. If you can promise me you won’t take the money, things will go a lot smoother. Axel and the others will help.”