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Sean huffs out yet another bitter laugh, his gaze sliding carefully to Rae just once before he shifts his attention back to me. "Of course she knows. How could she not?"

  The revelation stings worse than I thought it would. I should've expected it, should've known it was coming, but the blow slices right down to the bone. My eyes squeeze shut, wincing from the impact.

  "Sorry to burst your bubble, big brother," Sean smiles ruefully, his hands folded tightly on tight of the table.

  All the air sucks right out of the room and I plummet headfirst into that black hole, spiralling out of control. I'd managed to hold on to the illusion for as long as humanly possible with an iron-clad grip, but that hold was slipping fast. There had to be an explanation for all this, something that would make sense, but right now I just didn't see it.

  "I told you," Sean grits his teeth and glances over his shoulder yet again. "Stay out of it. I'm up for parole in three years. Let's just deal with everything else then."

  Rae shoots forward in her chair and I don't have to look at her to know that fierce determination has flooded that forest in her eyes again.

  "I'm not waiting three years and neither are you. If you know something, if you saw something, you have to tell us. Please, Sean...I know you saw something. You had to. Don't you want justice? Don't you want the right person to finally pay for what happened to both of us that night?"

  He eyes her silently from across the table, taking careful inventory of his sister, who's so much like our father I can't believe I missed the connection until now. Maybe Rae was right about my family after all—we're all too good at sweeping problems under the rug and acting like it never happened. I guess I learned from the best.

  Whatever Sean finds in Rae, he finds it quickly. He pushes out a rough sigh and runs a weary hand over his face.

  "Gianotti," Sean whispers. "That's who I saw that night and that's all I know. Like I said before, all you have to do is follow the money."

  THE NEXT DAY I find myself drumming on the center console, waiting impatiently and desperate for a little release. Sitting here by myself, parked inconspicuously out of the way a good five blocks away from City Hall, isn't helping. It's not so much being in this part of the city—Beacon Hill and all the government maneuvering that happens here doesn't faze me.

  I'm alone in Bennett's little Prius while I wait for him and Rae to come back from their little recon mission. Sure, I could've left them to their own devices today, but I just needed to do something, needed to be around someone, even if it had to be them, so I wasn't alone.

  That's the part I can't handle. Being alone in this car with nothing to keep me company but these dark thoughts clouding my judgment. I just don't know how to process everything I've heard and a half hour alone in a car that isn't mine in a part of the city that isn't mine isn't going to be enough to clear my head.

  What I need is to get in the ring and work this out the old fashioned way: with blood and fists. But seeing as how it's only Monday, I've got a long way to go before I can get in there.

  For now, all I've got is this quiet. All I've got is the noise raging in my head, screaming at me to just accept what I know is true. If I do that, if I really think about it for too long, I just don't know what will happen next. I feel like I've been torn and tattered into pieces. Part of me needs to cling to the lie, clawing and tearing my way back toward some kind of truth again.

  But hearing the truth, whether or not I want to believe it, has shoved me out of that safe, dark space I've been living in my entire life. I don't want to believe my parents are hypocrites. I don't want to believe my dad would take me in and adopt me at the exact same time he chose to ignore his daughter. I don't want to believe that my mom knew and did nothing. I don't want to believe that she's stayed married to a liar, a cheater, and a coward because...what does that make her?

  Luckily for me, I don't have to answer that question, at least not yet, because Bennett and Rae open up their respective car doors and slide into the Prius.

  "How'd it go?"

  Bennett just lifts a shoulder as he starts up the car and glances at Rae in the back seat.

  "Well," Rae answers quietly. "It took a little convincing, but his secretary pretty much gave me his schedule for the next month. All I had to do was act like I missed spending time with my daddy and she caved."

  My eyebrows shoot up into my forehead. This girl is way more resourceful than I gave her credit for.

  "That's the good news," Bennett adds next to me. "But the guy's basically booked solid. It all seems pretty legit, too."

  "Of course it is," I shake my head. "He's the mayor. He's not gonna have any shady meetings on the books that can be traced."

  My eyes shoot to the rearview mirror when Rae's voice chimes in. "That's what I was thinking. If we focus on the empty spaces in his schedule, we might be able to find something we can use."

  She flips through her phone, holds it out to the center console for both Bennett and me to see, and then points at an empty space on the photo of a calendar.

  "So his secretary just let you take pictures of his schedule, huh?" I ask her warily, shifting a little in my seat to put some more distance between us.

  "Yeah," she shrugs. "I got a little misty-eyed, told her how much I missed spending time with him, and when she showed me his schedule, I asked if I could take pictures so I didn't have to bug her again."

  "It was a Gaga-level performance," Bennett nods proudly from the driver's seat. "Not like American Horror Story-Gaga. I still don't get what the point of her character was. I mean, how does one win a Golden Globe for basically doing nothing? Leo had every right to give her the evil eye. No...I'm talking like Alejandro-scorning, Judas Iscariot-loving, meat-toting Gaga at her finest."

  I don't miss a beat. "Yeah. I don't know what that means. Anyway, what happens when his secretary tells him you were poking around in his schedule?"

  Again, Rae just shrugs like she's really got this all figured out and maybe she does. "Then I tell the mayor the same thing I told his secretary. He never cared too much before and he won't care now. He'll just make some excuse about being too busy anyway and that'll be it. And if he actually agrees to see me then I guess I'll just have to take one for the team."

  The way she says it so nonchalantly, so accepting of the reality that is her life, I almost feel sorry for her. But then again, I can't help but admire her strength either. The resolve it must have taken to compartmentalize everything else and focus on this one, singular goal.

  "Look," Rae gestures to her phone again. "There's a good two-hour gap on Wednesday right after his meeting before lunch. Maybe that'd be a good place to start."

  I just lift a shoulder. Sounds good to me.

  "Ah, yeah. About that," Bennett winces next to me and glances at Rae apologetically. "I, uh, actually have plans then. Well, before and after that too. So..."

  "What plans?" Rae frowns.

  Bennett rubs the back of his neck sheepishly. "You remember that barista from The Grind?"

  "Yeah...?"

  "Well—"

  "Shut up!" Rae smacks him on the shoulder and I instinctively move closer to the passenger side window to get myself out of the line of fire. "When did this happen? Why didn't you tell me? What the hell, Benn?"

  "I don't know," Bennett shrugs from his seat. "I didn't know if it was gonna go anywhere and I didn't want you to get all excited for me just to have him flake out and it's not like you don't have enough to deal with right now anyway, just sayin'."

  Rae blows out a frustrated breath. I wish I could just disappear into the seat cushion. "Benn, you could've told me. This is great!" She smacks him on the shoulder again just for good measure. "So great! Seriously, this is the best news I've heard in a long time. Tell me everything."

  "Well, Aiden and I are going—"

  "Do you think maybe we could figure this out first?" I cut in and gesture with my head down to Rae's phone. "Save the girl talk for later? Some of us actually have shit to do tod
ay after this."

  That fierce look dominates Rae's face again and this time, a little bit of malice creeps in there, too. That's fine. That's good, in fact. I'd rather maintain all this animosity we had going before—it's just better that way.

  "Fine," she tells me, her voice clipped and cold and that's fine, too. "So what do we do about Wednesday then?"

  It finally dawns on me the implication of what Bennett's absence means, but I can't scramble quickly enough to fix it.

  "Doesn't look like there's that big of a gap again until next week," Bennett adds and then squints down at something on the picture. "Oh! And that fundraiser thingy next Saturday. Do we still have to go to that?"

  "I don't know, Benn," she sighs and rests her chin on her hand. "I'll try to get us out of it."

  He huffs out a laugh. "Fat chance of that ever happening, Clamato. If he wants you there, you have to be there."

  "I don't have to do anything," she fires back and Bennett's face immediately breaks out into a proud grin.

  "That's my girl."

  "Alright, alright," I bat a hand in the air to get their attention. "We still gotta figure out Wednesday, but maybe there's something to this fundraiser thing."

  "Thingy," Bennett corrects me, but I wave him off.

  "We gotta get back into that office, don't we?" I ask, knowing I'm right but I figured the least I can do is give them some time to catch up. "Maybe this fundraiser is the night to do it. He'll be gone. Your stepmom will be gone. That'll give us some time to really dig around in there."

  Rae lifts an eyebrow at me. "Us?"

  "You heard me," I nod tightly. "Let's deal with that later. So...Wednesday."

  She chews on her bottom lip in thought and casts Bennett a quick look, probably hoping he'll toss her some kind of life preserver, but he doesn't deliver. Her eyes drop to the calendar again and I can see the wheels turning in her head, searching for every possible way out of this. But she has to see that time really is of the essence here. The sooner we can tail the mayor the better. The more we can find on the mayor the better. She knows this just as much as I do.

  "Well," she muses quietly. "There's a little bit of space on Friday in between that ribbon cutting he has to go to."

  My body goes rigid just at the mention of it. Friday afternoon, Val Moretti and Roark Callahan will come face to face and I have to be there to witness it whether I like it anymore or not. I'm not sure if Rae's gotten a whiff of the protest we have planned, but the fact that the mayor is opening a condo right in my backyard—and pushed a few long-time business owners out of said building by letting the rent and taxes on that building skyrocket—doesn't exactly sit well with me. In light of everything I've just learned about his home life, or lack thereof, this just intensifies the festering disgust and loathing I already feel for him.

  "Forget about Friday," I murmur. "It's gonna be off the table."

  "What's that supposed to be mean?" Rae frowns right back at me.

  "It doesn't matter. Besides, I still need some time to figure out how to get to the Gianottis."

  That was another thread I just didn't know how we were going to tie up. Sean was pretty clear about what he'd seen and I believed him. The problem would be getting in front of the Gianotti brothers in a way that didn't scream setup. That part is on me...somehow.

  "Oh-kay," Bennett drawls out dramatically and exchanges a furtive glance with Rae. "So, I'm just gonna go ahead and make the decision since neither of you can seem to manage such a simple task. You two kids will be just fine for a few hours by yourselves. If I remember correctly, you," he nods to me with a smirk, "said nobody can go looking for anything on their own. Since I can't go with her, you have to. Rules are rules. And I guess, if one of you kills the other before you have a chance to find what you're looking for, you have no one to blame but yourself."

  He grins and gives himself a little pat on the shoulder when neither of us can come up with a passable argument. Rae gapes at him for a moment and then inhales sharply. She glances at me and shifts her eyes away from the rearview mirror just as quickly.

  "Alright," she murmurs tightly, glancing my way one more time before slumping against the back seat in defeat. "Wednesday it is, I guess."

  "Yeah," I mumble, my eyes locked on the road in front of me. "I guess."

  Bennett just smiles in victory. "So. Who's hungry?"

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  Rae

  "You know, Denise," I glance at her out of the corner of my eye with a smile. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say he knew I was coming today."

  The mayor's secretary shifts in her chair outside his office, flustered and embarrassed at having been called out. Her eyes focus solely on the computer screen in front of her and I resist the urge to move a little closer just to see what she'll do.

  "I wouldn't say that," she says to her screen. "I just thought he should know that his daughter wanted to spend some time with him."

  I make a little show of checking the time of my phone and bite down on my lip. "His last meeting was supposed to end almost ten minutes ago, right? Where do you think he is?"

  Finally, Denise meets my eyes and sympathy radiates from her warm brown eyes. "He probably just got held up talking to someone after they adjourned. It happens all the time. He'll be here soon—just sit tight."

  This performance is shaping up nicely. Years of practice have perfected this act because I've got my Gaga face on, as Bennett calls it, and Jack is waiting for his cue on the other side of City Hall. All I need now is for the mayor to show up.

  "Okay," I smile. Maybe I should be careful not to lay it on too thick. I don't want her to suspect anything if I have to keep showing up here to keep this act going. "Thanks, Denise. I really appreciate your help."

  "No problem, sweetie. I just—" her voice dies out as two more voices round the corner of the hallway and her eyes flash excitedly. "See? I told you he'd get here."

  I can only nod and do my best to mimic her enthusiasm. She can't get even a whisper of how I really feel about the mayor because she has invaluable knowledge about him—mainly, his schedule. His deep baritone floods the entire hallway and I take a deep breath. I'm about to embark on the performance of a lifetime and there's no way I can fail. There's just too much at stake.

  The mayor breezes around the corner with one of his minions right at his side. He's talking a mile a minute, without so much as a glance at the person he's actually talking to, because his eyes are darting around the hallway. With each step, careful inventory of his surroundings is accessed, compartmentalized, and stored for future use. I can't imagine he knows any other way to operate. Dressed in a crisp black suit with thin pinstripes and a black tie, he projects the exact image he's worked to maintain all his years in office: composed, polished, and completely untouchable.

  When he spots me, he does a quick double-take and murmurs something to the poor aide next to him. A few months ago, my heart would've stood frozen in disbelief as he walks over to me. It would've stuttered and skipped at the simple gesture of him about to spend a moment of his time with me. My dad, actually willing to give me the time of day.

  Somehow, I manage to bite back the laugh before he notices. Bitter is a seed, planted in me before I even had a chance at a normal life, before I ever knew why I'd never find a way to earn his love, and it's blossomed into full-bloomed antagonism.

  "Raena," the mayor nods tightly, annoyance just barely visible on his aging face. "What are you doing here?"

  My mind wants to react one way, but my emotions have other ideas. A flash of hurt and disappointment vibrate through my stomach and there's nothing I can do about it. I hate myself in this moment just as much as I hate the man standing in front of me.

  "Hey, Dad," that name is a lie but I can't give it away, "I haven't really gotten a chance to see you since I've been back." I glance at Denise, who's watching this interaction like a hawk, and while I don't want to cause any problems for her with the mayor, she sort of brought this on hers
elf. "Denise told me you have a little bit of a break right now. I thought we could...I don't know, grab lunch or something?"

  I let that sit for just a moment. When he opens his mouth to shoot me down, I dig a little deeper just because I can.

  "I could go get us something and bring it back?"

  It's not really a question because I already know the answer, but the charade is the key.

  His dark eyes, calculating and just as cold, narrow ever so slightly. I ready myself for the inevitable.

  "Are you planning on attending the fundraiser gala next weekend?"

  Now that we're off and rolling, the rest comes more naturally.

  "I didn't get an invitation or anything."

  He doesn't miss a beat, especially not when other people are within ear-shot. "You don't need an invitation. Family is always expected to attend."

  My lips start to curl, but then I catch myself. "Benn can come, right?"

  The mayor's mouth tightens—this should be fun. There's certainly no love lost between the two of them and for good reason, too. "Raena, I'd prefer if you attended the fundraiser with just your sister. I don't want to have to field any more questions about who Bennett is to you anymore than I need him drinking my alcohol and eating my food all night. This event is for family, not family and friends."

  Of course, the term friend has a pretty loose definition around here. For the mayor, a friend is a person who he can benefit from and who he can have an advantage over. Bennett fulfills neither of those requirements and so, he's written off as a nuisance and a bad influence in spite of the fact that he's the only true family I've ever had, next to Lucy and now, Sean.

  This is a conversation we've had before and luckily for me, I know just what string to pull.

  "Well," I jut a hand on my hip just for good measure. "If Benn doesn't go, then I don't go."

  He weighs this internally, debating whether or not it's worth playing this out in public where people can see, hear, and ultimately write about. The debate is short-lived because reluctant acceptance clouds his eyes.