by C. L. Stone
Corey frowned. “If that’s true, and he’s involved, I’m afraid this whole thing needs to be dropped. And quickly.”
This surprised everyone.
“What do you know about him?” North asked.
“I’m not at liberty to say. Not yet. It might not even be connected.” He motioned to the list North provided. “But he wasn’t on your list before, was he?”
“No.”
“Then add him, but if he shows up to this event, I have to take over.”
North frowned, looking at the others.
Odd. “We weren’t aware Volto had connections to other groups.”
“We’ve never seen Volto,” Corey said. “But we have Wil’s sister with us. So if there is some connection, we take over. Case closed.”
“So far, our top contenders are Karen Newman and Jay William,” North said. “And... someone else.”
“Mrs. Lee should be at the top of the list,” Mr. Buble said. “Despite our feelings, this is as close as you’ve gotten, and it’s likely she knows more, even if it isn’t her. Where is she now?”
“At home. Kota’s there now.”
Mr. Buble nodded. “We’ll wait as long as this concert if you can establish that it might not be her. But if there’s nothing to suggest she’s not, we’ll be forced to check the data that’s been obtained, and any other device she has.”
Victor hated this plan. The others continued to talk, but in a way, it felt like kicking the hornet’s nest by allowing things to be stolen from Nathan’s house. It was no longer just Volto against their team. Volto was going to find himself facing all of the Academy, and maybe authorities if it was proven it didn’t risk Sang.
And if it was Kota’s mom... just so many questions on what would happen to her, and Kota, and what it meant for Sang and the rest of their team.
Ma Non Troppo
(But not too much)
Victor
A phone was buzzing on a table nearby. Victor turned over...
And fell face first into carpet.
The fall shook the bunkbed he’d dropped from. His body ached. His muscles hurt.
Life was too hard right now. Maybe he could ignore the phone.
“Are you okay?” Nathan’s tired voice floated to him.
Victor twisted his head, finding Nathan looking down at him from the top bunk, pressing his cheek to the edge of the bed, dark circles under his eyes.
At least Victor had been on the bottom bunk. The fall hadn’t been too bad.
He grunted shortly. “You get it. I don’t want to.”
The phone was still ringing, but then silenced as it switched to voicemail.
There was a soft moan from the other bunkbed in Mr. Buble’s house. Sang threw the blanket over her head.
No one was in the mood to wake up yet.
Nathan smacked his lips like his mouth was dry. “If it’s Academy, they’d call me next.”
Yet the phone on the dresser across the room started vibrating again, the case making a loud reverberating echo.
“It’s yours again,” Nathan said to Victor.
“Tell them we don’t want any!” Sang’s sleepy cry came muffled from underneath the blanket.
It was tempting just to ignore it, but two calls so quickly to just his phone had him worried. He got up on all fours, crawled across the carpet on his hands and knees, reaching up for the phone. Why did he leave it so far away from the bed anyway?
The screen of the phone flashed.
His mom.
She was calling.
Victor rolled his eyes, putting the phone aside, flopping back on the carpet. His bare legs itched a bit, the boxer shorts he wore became cold against his body. The room had a slight chill. “I really don’t want to.”
“What does she want you to do now?” Nathan asked. “Besides getting you to kiss her ass and beg to get taken back?”
Victor, despite not wanting to, answered the phone, wanting to get it out of the way and done with. “Yes?” he said when he answered. “Also, how’d you get this number?”
“Young man,” she said in a tone he had not heard from her in years but could tell was serious. “You are to get here right now.”
“I’m a little far away at the moment.”
“I have our lawyer here. And a guest.” The way she said the last part was very clear she didn’t want this particular guest.
Victor sat up sharply. “What?”
“Someone is suing this family. Very publicly.”
Victor pressed a thumb and forefinger to the bridge of his nose. He wasn’t totally sure this wasn’t some panic that didn’t even involve him, just her precious reputation. “Why me? I don’t...”
“Did you get someone fired from their job last night?” She paused. “Don’t answer that on the phone. In fact, don’t say anything. Just get here. Right now.”
Victor was now wide awake, blinking as she hung up on him. He dropped the phone onto the carpet.
Suing... Mitch.
Mitch knew his name. His family. That they had a lot of money.
Of course. And he didn’t have to drag it into court because his parents would want to keep their reputation intact and they’d want to settle. He was mostly surprised Mitch had pieced this together so quickly and talked to his parents. Did he go without a lawyer?
Victor groaned and faceplanted himself into the carpet, and starfished his limbs out.
“What up, bud?” Nathan asked from across the room.
Victor didn’t answer. He didn’t want to. Tired. Not in the mood. They had stuff to do today, and he totally didn’t feel like dealing with this right now.
There was a noise of Nathan moving and Victor turned his head in time to see Nathan nearly falling out of the top bunk, catching himself and slowly lowering himself down until his feet were on the floor. He wore only his boxer briefs. Once he landed, he shifted over to the bed Sang was in and poked at her through the blanket.
“Get up. Get Victor up,” he told her. “Find out what’s going on.” He left to go to the bathroom first.
This room was eerily like Kota’s bedroom. It was almost like they were at his house.
Sang moaned from under her blanket. “I’m getting up. I just don’t want to.”
“You don’t have to get up,” Victor said from the floor.
“Yes, she does!” Nathan called from the bathroom.
Victor was amused at the back and forth of Nathan getting on Sang’s case. They’d lived together for a while. He was sure this is what the term ‘acting like an old married couple’ was.
Sang rolled herself up for just a second, enough so she could get momentum to slide to the floor and crash onto the carpet, half sprawled out, legs still hanging onto the bed. She gazed up at the ceiling. “I know Mr. Buble said no coffee, but I need some.”
“You can have some coffee, princess,” Victor said in a half-deflated tone.
“No coffee!” Nathan’s voice echoed this time. A minute later, the shower turned on.
Victor flipped over and army crawled on his elbows with legs sprawled behind him, until he reached Sang, and hovered over her upside down, super close.
“I’ll go get coffee,” he said in a whisper.
“Don’t...” she said, and her cheeks turned red.
He gently kissed her forehead. She tried so hard to do what they wanted her to do. “You can have coffee. You don’t have to do anything, just sit in the car with Nathan while I go figure out what my parents want from me. You can sleep the whole way.”
“You can’t go alone,” she said. Her eyes fluttered open. He was still close enough that he could feel her lashes tickling his forehead. “We have to stay together.”
The way she said it made his heart light up in such a way. It was like she was saying they, him and her, had to stay together.
He wanted that. Forever.
“We’ll go together,” he said. “But... I have to go in alone. They won’t allow anyone else in on this.”
/> “Does she want you to go with Brie?” she asked in a cracked voice.
Victor half choked on a laugh. “That’s not what this is about.” He rolled over until he was laying on his back again and could simply turn his head to look at her face.
She turned to look at him, eyebrows crinkling in confusion. “What is it?”
“Mitch,” Victor said. “Apparently, he’s there threatening to sue. Or something like that.”
Her eyes widened. “Right now?”
“I’m sure it’s a bluff,” he said. “He just wants to extort money. And it’s his lucky day, my parents would pay him off to keep silent, despite him not deserving it.”
She pressed her lips together and her eyes narrowed. She wasn’t happy, but she wasn’t going to say so.
He turned his head until he was looking at the ceiling. “I don’t like it either.”
Guerriero
(War like)
Victor
Within the hour, they’d all gotten dressed. Mr. Buble was informed of what was going on.
“I can’t go in with you, unfortunately,” Mr. Buble said, “unless you feel it’s needed.”
“It’d be hard to explain why you were with me, and the truth is likely something they won’t want anyway,” Victor said to him. “They just want it to blow over.”
Mr. Buble took the time to tend to the kids in his charge but insisted Nathan and Sang accompany him.
They needed to change into more formal clothes. Nathan had packed a pair of black slacks and the Armani shirt that Victor had grown used to wearing for years.
Victor touched the collar, feeling the starched crisp material in his fingers. But these clothes were the old Victor. The one that bent to their will for far too long. He wanted to show he wasn’t the same person who left before. He wanted to feel secure in himself and his decisions.
It was Sang that noticed when he seemed to hesitate putting the clothes on.
“Maybe try a different color?” she asked. “Or another brand?”
It was like she could read his mind sometimes. He considered this, and while they didn’t have much in the way of options, inside Dr. Green’s car was a collection of more formal clothes he’d wear as a doctor for meetings or for Academy missions that would require it.
Out of the collection, he tried on a light blue shirt, nearly the same style as his Armani but with thicker cotton fabric, and gray pants. They didn’t fit quite as well but looked fine. He could pass wearing them in formal circles.
The others got dressed into nicer clothes, too. As much as Victor didn’t mind, he assumed given the setting they’d be more comfortable dressed up.
At the Morgan estate, Nathan parked Dr. Green’s car near the garage in the back.
“I’m sort of surprised they let us in without questioning us,” Nathan said.
“The guards are still the same,” Victor said. “They’d let us in.” He looked gloomily over at the large, yellow, three-story home, at the expanse of a lawn, the pool, the pool house, the exterior buildings... all of it. Familiar and yet in the time he’d been away, he felt removed from all of it.
He’d told himself he’d never be here again. Never.
As much as he knew that wasn’t true. He knew, in his heart he’d have to come back eventually.
Knowing this bit of information didn’t help the tight knot in his heart that had formed days ago and festered.
There were other cars near the garage. One in particular was old, brown and without a rear bumper. He thought he saw it at the library and now it was familiar. Victor imagined it was Mitch’s.
“He’s probably inside. Lying to them,” Victor said. “Who knows what he said.”
“We’ll go in,” Nathan said, taking the keys out of the ignition.
“No,” Victor said, without much conviction.
Nathan turned to him. Victor had slumped in the passenger seat. Sang was awake but laying lazily in the back seat behind them.
Nathan put a hand on Victor’s shoulder. “We weren’t there for you when you really needed us,” Nathan said. “There was a mix up, sure, but we should have been there. It’s okay to ask for help. And we can go in because they know us. It’s not like Mr. Buble where they don’t know him at all.”
“And you’re supposed to put him on speaker,” Sang said from the back. She turned her head and then adjusted until she was sitting up. She’d twisted herself to lie down with her seatbelt on. “Should we get Mr. Blackbourne here? Don’t they know him, too?”
“I don’t even know why they’d want me here for this,” he said. He wasn’t normally called in for such meetings. He only heard about them after. It didn’t happen a lot but enough that he knew the usual process for when someone thought to sue the family.
He resolved himself to allowing Nathan and Sang inside, although he wasn’t sure how it would work. He continued, “However, if you’re going in, you’ll need to lay low in another room. They’ll say private family matter and close the door, I think.”
He was about to suggest maybe they could just wait in the car, but Sang reached out and put her small hand on his shoulder, like Nathan had done. Her touch was soft, lightly massaging, like a hug with one hand.
“We’ll go in and we’ll see. And maybe say something if you want us there, too.”
She was right. He needed to stand up to them more.
What would be the worst they could do? Kick him out again?
They left the car together, walking to the back door of the Morgan estate. The old house seemed so tiny to him, for the value it was. Kota’s home seemed bigger, better... a home. He hadn’t missed this yellow house with its very expensive things inside he could never touch.
Mr. Buble was on the line on his phone, the phone tucked into his pocket. Victor wore an earpiece, also connected to Mr. Buble, as did Sang and Nathan, just in case. Mr. Buble wasn’t saying anything for the moment.
Victor, hesitating to go in, double-checked his phone was still on, and rechecked the earpiece, just to be sure it was still in his ear.
Earpiece and phone on was something Mr. Blackbourne used to do when Victor had to confront his parents alone, so he wondered why he forgot to do something similar on his birthday. Maybe because it had been so long and he assumed the others would be there at any moment.
Inside, the house seemed a little too quiet to him. For a moment, he wasn’t even sure anyone was home.
He stilled in the back hallway. Part of him was willing to accept no one was here so they could leave.
It was Sang’s hand at his back, pressing gently, that urged him on.
He looked back at her. She had a finger at her lip, a thing she seemed to do when she was nervous.
He reached for her hand, held it, and kept holding it as he followed the hallway.
He was glad Nathan was there, too. His blue eyes seemed so determined and serious.
As they drew further into the house, they finally found the front hallway and to the right, the parlor. Voices emanated from it. The double French doors were closed, the delicate white curtains drawn behind the glass. From the outside, one could see shades of color, shadows of people, but not see who was inside.
Something his parents did when they had “undesirable” guests.
He was usually not at the center of these meetings, though. Most of the time, it was his father...
Victor didn’t knock, just tried the door. He wanted this to be over with. Bribe this guy until he went away. He imagined that was what would happen.
He opened the parlor door and looked in, with Sang standing beside him and Nathan at his back.
Near the back of the room was his father, his face darkening at seeing Victor. He stood by a wiry man with thin wire glasses and white hair wearing a tweed suit. The family lawyer, Mr. Perkins.
His mother was sitting at the settee, regal in red and wearing a lot of gold and diamond jewelry, with her hair well done. Her head turned, slowly, methodically, toward him, and while her face
seemed to not move, it was her eyes that seemed to explode with feeling, likely for him not knocking and also most importantly for bringing friends.
Across from her was another chair where Mitch sat, legs sprawled open as he sat back, at least until he spotted Victor and he sat up. “Here’s the brat,” he said. “That’s him. He got me fired.”
Victor stood taller, offended at the remark. “I believe you’re mistaken.”
The lawyer raised his hand a touch, a movement Victor was very familiar with. Don’t talk. Do not offer anything. He approached the door alone, ushering Victor back out into the hallway, away from his parents and Mitch.
“I do need you here,” he said, “but come talk to me in the other room.”
This threw off Victor, to be alone and to talk with Mr. Perkins instead of being involved. “Should they be alone in there with him?” Victor asked.
“They know not to say anything other than perhaps offering him another drink.” Mr. Perkins walked across the downstairs hallway, coming to a door and opening it. He had been at the house many times and knew the layout.
Victor followed him into what was an office, but it was set aside for Mr. Perkins and the house manager and head housekeeper to work out of collectively when at the house. The office had a narrow desk with a single computer, and filing cabinets along the back wall. There was only one rolling office chair behind the desk. Victor knew this was all here but he had never really been inside.
Mr. Perkins closed the door behind Nathan and Sang. Sang had trailed in reluctantly but Mr. Perkins included her as he spoke to them.
The old lawyer examined them through his glasses before removing the glasses entirely to put them into his front jacket pocket. “I don’t want you to agitate him further. I just need to know what he’s talking about.”
“What did he say?” Victor asked.
“He claims to want to sue for mental duress and financial damages after being fired when you lied to his boss. I tried to get him to give details, but he kept talking about you and not the situation.”
Victor nodded slowly. “He seems to be obsessed with being right and lording over young boys,” he said. He described a bit about what he heard about Mitch, and what happened with Sang. “We were literally only talking in the car before he approached. Luckily a tutor from school,” he almost said Mr. Buble’s name but then stopped himself, “was walking by. We both confronted the head librarian about him trying to grab me inside the car. Mitch only got suspended after he was belligerently harassing her and talking down to her. He could get fired, but I don’t know if it happened yet. I think he’s assuming he is.”
