Chapter 59

Chapter Fifty-Nine

GREY

"You were amazing on that interview," Sol says.

Finn dips his chin in silent agreement.

Cadence is sitting behind the counter, swinging her legs and watching Dutch while he cuts a sandwich for Viola.

I turn to her. "Any word from Jarod Cross?"

"He hasn't said anything to us. Finn?"

Finn shrugs. "Even if he wanted to text me, he's blocked."

Sol laughs. "I wish I'd seen your dad's face in person. Finn told me how you swept that dirt on Micheals right from under him."

"He's not going to be happy," Dutch grunts as he sets a plate in front of Viola. "We should prepare for what's coming."

"What's coming?" Viola asks, taking a big chomp.

Cadence pats her on the shoulder. "Go eat in the living room. This conversation doesn't involve you."

Viola huffs. "You always keep me out of everything."

"There are some things little ears shouldn't hear," Sol says, swiping the knife off the counter and sliding his thumb along the razor-sharp edge of it.

Viola rolls her eyes. "Are you trying to look scary? Because you're not fooling anyone."

Sol sticks his tongue out at her.

Viola does the same.

Footsteps thump down the stairs.

I look up and meet Zane's sparkling blue eyes. My heart twists like I'm looking at a painting that's too magnificent to be real.

"What'd I miss?" he asks. As Viola walks past him, he tugs on the end of her hair. "‘Sup, squirt?"

"I'm not a squirt," Viola snaps. "I'm fourteen."

"Thirteen," Cadence corrects.

"Thirteen and a half," Viola yells back.

She disappears into the other room as Zane draws near to me. His arm closes around my shoulders as if it was meant to be there. As if we're two puzzle pieces finding each other after an eternity of being apart.

"Hey," he says, his eyes glistening with unrestrained admiration.

"Hey."

"You good?" Zane mouths.

I nod, biting down on my bottom lip and trying not to stare at his biceps that are flexing as he squeezes me.

"Uh. They're making googly-eyes." Sol throws his hands up, knife still wedged in his grip. "Someone stab me."

"Hand over the knife," Zane says, all without looking away from me.

Cadence coughs. "Zane, you still got a little sand…" She gestures to his hair.

Heat flushes over my face.

Cadence and Dutch were the only two in the formal living room when Zane and I snuck inside. They saw my ransacked hair, wrinkled clothes, Zane's satisfied smirk and said absolutely nothing to us.

Yet, that silence was extra loud.

"Where?" Zane asks, brushing elegant fingers through his raven locks.

"Let me," I say softly.

Zane bows his head in front of me and I get the sand out of his hair for him, wincing when I notice the scratch marks on the back of his neck.

Dutch spots the marks on his twin's neck too and he glances at me, an eyebrow arched.

I cough. "Anyone else need a drink?"

Three hands go up.

I frown at them. "I take that back. No drinks for under twenty-one year olds."

"Since when—" Sol's protest ends in a gasp as Zane elbows him square in the stomach.

"You heard her. No drinks for us."

Sol flips Zane off.

"Grey," Cadence calls as I set out four glasses of cranberry juice, "have you thought about how you want to handle going back to Redwood?"

All the eyes in the kitchen fasten on me.

"What's there to discuss?" Zane's jaw flexes. "Everyone will respect her because she's my wife. I dare anyone at Redwood to say a negative word about her."

"Actually, I have thought about it." I speak slowly and measuredly, already anticipating Zane's response.

His blue eyes are hot as flames on my skin and I glance away from him.

"I'm not going back to Redwood."

The silence that descends on the room would make a pin-drop sound like a gong.

"What?" Zane explodes to his feet.

"I'm handing in my resignation tomorrow morning."

"Grey." Zane storms around the counter to stand in front of me. "You don't have to quit."

"He's right." Dutch tips his chin up. "We're The Kings. Redwood is still ours until we say otherwise."

Sol flips the knife in the air and catches it by the hilt. "Anyone who has a problem with that can burn."

"Let's all calm down. I don't want anyone or anything to burn." I give Sol a pointed look.

He shrugs as if to say ‘your loss'.

I take Zane's hand and give it a squeeze. "The world knows about what happened to Sloane, so my work at Redwood is done. If I continue to teach at Redwood, the rest of my days will be uncomfortable at minimum and wildly unpleasant at best."

"I'll make them ten times more uncomfortable than they make you," Zane says.

Even Finn chimes in. "It's really not a big deal. In twelve years when Zane is thirty and you two are still together, no one will care."

"Twelve years is a long time to wait for people to stop caring." I shrug. "I do love teaching, but not enough to disrupt the entire school."

Dutch opens his mouth to protest.

I lift a hand. "As much as you all control Redwood, you can't control an angry parent. I'm sure there will be lots of moms and dads who won't want me to teach their kids and who'll want to pull their children out of Redwood if I keep teaching there."

"All I hear are reasons that involve other people." Zane stares me down, his mouth clenched. "Is that what you want?"

"Right now, yeah." I nod calmly.

He squeezes his eyes shut. "Okay. Fine."

I smile. "Thanks. I appreciate you just listening and not over-reacting…"

Zane pulls out his phone and texts something.

My cell pings with an incoming message.

I see a parade of numbers on screen.

"What's this?" I ask.

"My bank number and password."

"Zane…"

"You don't have to work unless you want to. You feel like going back to college to study? Starting a business? Writing a book? You can do it. I'll give you all my bank info. And my black card. Mom has a modest trust fund set up for us. You can have that too."

I groan. "So much for not overreacting."

"Dutch, do we have any other gigs? I need to make money." Zane whirls around and faces his brother.

"You heard what the doctor said, Zane," Dutch says with a scowl.

He moves his hands up and down. "My wrist has been healed for a while now, and I ordered in those special drumsticks that amputees use. I might not be able to play the drums as long as I used to, but I'm getting the hang of them. So far, I've been able to play for as long as three minutes."

"Wow. Three minutes?" Sol says dully.

"Three minutes is longer than ‘never again'. Give me a few months and I can double that."

"Six minutes?" Sol gasps sarcastically.

Zane narrows his eyes.

"Don't rush yourself." I touch Zane's arm to reclaim his attention. "Besides, I do plan to earn my own keep."

Cadence leans forward. "Where? Let me guess… a bookshop?"

I smile at her because that would have been a really accurate guess before my world imploded.

"Actually," I watch as Dutch plucks his wife out of her seat, drops her into his lap and grunts as if that was where she'd belonged all along, "I want to…" I turn to Finn, who grabs a bottle of sparkling water from the fridge, "work for the yakuza."

Finn chokes on the water he'd been drinking.

Dutch almost drops Cadence to the floor.

Sol pricks his finger on the tip of the knife and immediately puts his finger into his mouth to suck at the blood.

Zane blinks slowly. And then laughs. "I'm sorry. I think I heard wrong. You said you're going to…"

"Work for the yakuza." I jut my chin at Finn. "Or more specially, for Finn while he's in the yakuza."

"Grey…" Finn wipes at the water that dribbled down his chin.

"I exposed Micheals and told the world the truth about Sloane. But the man who killed her is still out there. This is as far as I can go alone. I might not be powerful enough to take down the yakuza, but Finn is." I nod at him. "And I want to be a part of that in any way I can. No matter how long it takes."

Zane frowns. "No, it's too dangerous."

"I'm not changing my mind about this, Zane," I say firmly.

He studies me for a long minute and then he sighs. "Then you do it with me."

"With you?"

"You, me and Finn," Zane says.

"And me too," Cadence says.

Dutch glares at her.

She glares back. "You heard me, Dutch. We're going to take down the yakuza."

Dutch exhales so loudly that a napkin across the kitchen floats up in the air. "I guess we're taking down the yakuza."

Sol's eyes brighten with a Mad Hatter gleam. "Sign me up."