the stuff over us. They’d made the back look almost like a hoarder’s minivan. It was perfect.
I began climbing back. “Drive north. They’ll expect you to go south or even east. Go the opposite direction. We can hit the interstate and make up time that way.”
Carol shot me a look in the mirror. “Pffft. You act like this is my first day on the job.” She waved me down with her cigarette. “Get down, you mafia-kept woman, and let me rescue your madamhood.”
I grinned at her. It was nice to see them again.
Blade tugged me the rest of the way, and a second later he’d pulled the boxes and everything over us. A wood frame held everything in place and kept the weight off of us. We had a cozy little cocoon down here.
A second later Carol was coughing. She muttered, just loud enough for us to hear, “I’d make the worst smoker ever.” Another smattering of coughing. “Okay, guys. It’s about to get cold. I have to open the window.”
A draft hit us moments later.
Blade tucked the blankets more firmly around us.
He lay beside me. In the past he would’ve suggested we share a blanket to conserve heat. He didn’t make that suggestion today, and I knew Kai was the reason.
There was a sadness in Blade’s eyes, one I hadn’t seen before and was hard to see now.
“Are you mad at me?”
He closed his eyes, rolled to his back. When he opened them again, he wasn’t looking at me. “No.”
“You’re sad, though.”
Did Blade love me? I didn’t know. Kai said he did, but it wasn’t my place to ask. The only thing I could control was whether I stayed with Kai at the end of all this. I should’ve regretted what I’d done, but I didn’t have it in me. Not anymore. Not after being with him for the last week, waking up in his arms, being claimed by him. I felt all those dark and delicious sensations rolling around inside me all over again.
No. I couldn’t regret Kai. At least not yet. Not until he did something so bad there was no turning back.
Was that wrong?
Even that question felt bleak to me.
Kai had a pull over me that I couldn’t put into words.
“What does the Network think?”
“I don’t know what—”
“Come on, Blade. Like you haven’t hacked your way into those emails. This is me asking.”
He was quiet a moment.
“They think you’re compromised, but there are some who want to bring you back in, make you an asset.”
They wanted to use me, turn me against Kai. While I stayed with Kai.
“He traffics in women, and drugs, and guns. I mean…” Blade turned to me. His words were fierce. “How can you be with him, knowing that? He is what we stand against.”
I could’ve explained that Kai didn’t traffic those in, except guns. I could’ve explained that he wasn’t a bad man; he just did bad things. That he was the leader of his family, of the council, and he did both of those jobs to keep his family alive.
But I didn’t. My loyalties were now with Kai, and he would want me to say nothing. An ache formed in my chest at that realization.
I loved him. I had fallen in love with him. Even now, even as I was sneaking to follow him, I would go back to him.
I couldn’t explain any of that to Blade, one of my oldest friends, who had done so much for me and was currently risking his job for me.
Wait. Was he?
“What does the Network think you’re doing this weekend?”
He hesitated before responding, his voice dull and low. “They think we’re at a festival in Cowtown.”
He was lying.
I knew Blade. I knew his tells. He’d hesitated. Blade. Did. Not. Hesitate.
I had one guess: they were already moving forward with bringing me back in. They wanted to turn me against Kai.
Well, then.
“He has people in the Network.” I rolled my head to look at Blade directly.
There was no use pretending. I didn’t want that for this friendship. He and Carol were too precious in my heart. I could not be fake, letting their mission wedge even more between us.
“If you’re going to try to turn me against him, you have to know that. He has people inside. He knew things even I didn’t.”
“What are you—why are you saying this to me?”
“You know why.”
He flinched before looking back at me. His eyes were haunted. “It’s the only way I could keep my job. If he