He turned to Carly, “How much money would we be talking about?”
Carly turned her eyes to the ceiling as she calculated invisible numbers in the air. “I don’t
know,” she absentmindedly responded. “It depends on what kind of merger they’re proposing. I
need more details before I can give you a figure on a reasonable settlement.” She pondered a
few more seconds and then looked back at Cameron. “If we make this deal, it would give us
control over all of the Northeastern factions. Might even bring peace—end the war. That would
be worth a lot for the bosses. This could be the break we were looking for to make them forget
about everything else that’s happened.” Carly quickly glanced at me as she said this.
Cameron went quiet again and vacantly stared ahead. I could see that his mind was running full
speed.
But Spider grew impatient again.
“We don’t have a lot of time. There are over thirty of them out there. They’re armed. We can
’t stall them much longer.” Spider leaned further toward Cameron, his worried voice was now
audible only to the four of us. “Cameron, if we don’t go talk to them, they’re not going to
let us live to tell Shield about their betrayal. We don’t have enough men to cover us.”
Cameron turned and quickly whispered something to Tiny, who was sitting behind him. Hushed
shuffling ensued on the bench behind us, and Tiny produced two shortwave radios that he handed
to Cameron. Cameron turned back to me. He looked sickly.
“Take this,” he said, handing me one of the radios. He latched the other one onto his belt. “
You call me if there’s anything. I’m going to be right outside the door.”
I could hear the guards clicking the latches of their guns as they slowly filtered into the
aisle. At Spider’s low command, they hid their readied weapons under their shirts, tucking them
into the waistbands of their pants. They waited for Cameron.
He looked at me for a long minute and then turned his eyes to Frances. With an urgent whisper,
he called her name. She jumped and turned around. She looked terrified. I figured that I must
have looked much the same, except with fire-engine red hair and a lot more freckles.
Cameron ordered Frances to come sit by me, which she immediately obliged. As she glided her way
to the bench behind her, Cameron turned back to me, his eyes unyielding. He leaned in. “I’m
right outside,” he repeated, though I didn’t know if this had been for my benefit or his own.
He forcefully kissed me on the forehead. Frances warmly smiled at me as she spied us, but her
eyes were saddened.
Cameron walked to the lineup of guards, and they quickly encircled him into a cocoon of human
protection. As I saw Carly leave with the rest of them, I wanted to yell back and demand that he
take me with him, but I knew that now wasn’t the time and that his mind had already been made
up. Nothing I could say would change it. I definitely had no accounting skills to bring to the
table. The only thing I was good at was distracting Cameron and getting him in more trouble. I
forlornly watched them leave us.
The deacon, who had barely glanced in our direction during the commotion and departures en
masse, pursued his sermon without skipping a beat. I was a tumbleweed of emotions—terrified
that Cameron was out there, devastated with my loss of Rocco, angry that I had been left out,
again, and perplexed as to why Cameron would ever want to make a deal with those who might have
contributed to his brother’s death. As if she sensed my need, Frances slid closer to me and
took my hand. She seemed pleased with having been given a purpose. Even she had been assigned a
job, I silently griped. I then smiled to myself. Rocco and I had so much in common.
During my reverie, someone had slid in the bench behind us.
“Emily,” a hoarse voice whispered.
I turned around and hardly believed what I was seeing. He was older now—deep wrinkles mapped
his forehead and his blond hair had grayed at the sides, like he had grown wings.
Chapter Twenty-Seven:
Old Emily
“Uncle Victor?” He wasn’t really my uncle. Not by blood anyway. He was my brother’s uncle,
but I had always called him Uncle Victor, and, even though I was kind of an adult now, it seemed
weird and maybe a bit disrespectful to say his name without the word uncle preceding it.
“What are you doing here?” I asked—almost accused—him.
He was nervously glancing around the church, and his voice was hurried. “I’m here to get you
out.”
“How did you find me?” Even I didn’t know where I was.
“Your parents—” He jumped as one of the rambunctious children dropped or threw a book or a
bible on the floor out front. “It’s a long story. We need to leave now.”
“What? No, I’m not leaving,” I yelled, louder than I intended.
The deacon stopped his sermon. And then, with a look of annoyance, he continued.
Victor was beside himself. “What do you mean you’re not leaving? I’m risking my badge to come
rescue you!”