EVIL VILLAIN (The Royal Court #3) - Rebel Hart Page 0,8

smiled at me. Nikita just watched me. She and I still weren’t on great terms, I imagined. If it wasn’t the fact that I dated the man she was in love with for close to four years, then it was the fact that we’d gotten into a fight wherein she had swiftly kicked my ass. It was a blow to my ego, but it was also the beginning of my realization that I’d gotten so far beyond myself that I needed to re-evaluate what was going on in my life. She was still upset with me for punching Colette until she passed out, so her list of reasons to remain upset with me was long.

“Hey guys,” I said, sitting down next to Sicily on the couch. “It’s good to see you.”

“I put your bag up in your room,” Nathan said. “Sicily said you’ve already had a long day, so we don’t have to do too much today, I was just hoping we could talk about what’s next.”

Right down to business—that was Nathan for you. “Yeah, that’s fine with me.”

“Sicily, how are the phones going?” Nathan asked.

Sicily let out an exhausted sigh. “It’s goin’, that’s about all I can say. The unknown number that called you and the one that called Cherri definitely came from the same phone, but it was meant to be a burner. Now, Deon ain’t some criminal mastermind despite the persona he puts on, so he didn’t have a traditional, untraceable phone. From what I can gather, he was using an app to do it, but the app still scrambled the signal enough that I’m struggling to pinpoint where it came from or where it might be now. It gives me a massive list of possible pinged locations and I have to research them all individually and check them against places Deon could have been most likely. It’s time consuming, but I ain’t givin’ up, I just need more time.”

Nathan nodded. “Okay. Thank you for doing so much work on it. Take all the time you need.”

“You say that,” Nikita cut in, “but that’s our only lead.”

“Not the only one,” Kyle replied. “We do have one other option. Brayden.”

“We haven’t been able to contact him,” Nathan replied.

“You haven’t,” Kyle said, and there was a hint of arrogance in his voice. “He called me yesterday.” I’d seen glimpses of it, but there was a new bond between Kyle and Brayden that I neither expected nor understood. Hopefully being around would give me a little more insight.

“Do you think you could get him to talk to us?” I asked. “I’d really love to talk to him.”

Kyle nodded at me, and it was then that I noticed how exhausted he seemed. “It’ll take some doing, but I can get it done.”

“Then while Sicily works on the phones, we’ll go talk to Brayden,” Nathan said.

“Not too many people,” Kyle said. “I don’t want to spook him.”

“Just the three of us then,” I said. “You, me, and Nathan.”

Kyle nodded. “Yeah. I think that’s the safest bet.”

“Tomorrow, then?” Nathan asked.

Kyle and I locked eyes in silent agreement, and said the same thing in unison. “Tomorrow.”

3

Deon

It felt weird not having my heart pounding out of control. For months, I’d constantly been on the run, constantly dodging the police, at the same time ducking the men my father had hunting me. I was trying to figure out exactly where my father was, all while being at large in the wake of violating my parole. Being stressed had become my new permanent state of mind.

Thanks to Venom, that was about to come to a stop, at least for a little bit. I stared out the window of my taxi at the large, three-story, green and white bungalow that he’d described to me. He wasn’t able to give me much when I took the risk to go and visit him in prison, but he was able to potentially give me the most important thing—somewhere to stay with someone I could trust.

“You good, sir?” the cab driver asked.

I jumped a little bit, but turned and nodded at her. “Yeah, I’m good. Thanks.”

I leaned over the seat and handed the driver the $500 that one of the prison guards had supplied me on Venom’s behalf to pay the taxi with. A nearly two-hour drive from upstate Maine to the Japanese-inspired city of Ushuru near Maine’s border was probably a little outside of the driver’s purview, but whatever the guard who Venom had help me told him was enough to