“Alright, alright. I can see you want to be left alone.”
“Yes,” I said, taking another sip.
“Have you gotten to the good part yet?” Beau asked.
I raised a brow. “What’s the good part?”
Beau grabbed the book on the table, and began flipping through the pages.
“Help yourself,” I sighed.
“Ah, here it is,” Beau said eventually, satisfied with a certain passage. “Here, read it.” He pointed to a sentence with his index finger.
I took the book back, took a deep breath, and read it aloud. “It would be so nice if things made sense for a change.”
He nodded. “Sound familiar?”
And that was when the light exploded in my head. While Shadow and Lincoln were fighting, Beau had said those exact words.
I swear, I’m living in a looney world. It would be so nice if things made sense for a change.
It was Beau.
The traitor was Beau.
Immediately I leapt out of my seat but found my legs had turned into liquid.
“Sorry sweetheart. Running ain’t going to work. I slipped a little something in that coffee of yours. It’s potent stuff really.”
I looked at him helplessly. I tried to scream but found that no words could come out.
“Now don’t you worry, what I gave you was a tranquilizer; nothing life threatening and nothing permanent. I know it sucks being drugged twice in a day. You have to believe me when I say I’m sorry.”
You bastard. You fucking bastard.
I prayed for someone to come—anyone, please.
Beau lifted me by the arms and then tossed me over his shoulder, fireman carry.
“When you grabbed Alice in Wonderland, I wondered what the chances were that you had deduced there was something in that book that had set Shadow off. And then, I thought to myself, that Aria is a pretty smart girl. If anyone could connect the dots together, it’d definitely be her.”
He pushed open the side door leading outside.
Please, help me.
Suddenly I felt my eyelids go heavy. I had to resist. Find a way to fight.
That’s what I did, right? That’s what Isadora had taught me to do—fight.
It was just so hard when the rest of your body wasn’t cooperating.
“So, Aria Valencia, hats off to you. You figured out the mystery of the Midnight Society’s traitor. Well, not really, actually. I decided to reveal myself to you before you figured it out, but I still give you full marks on that front. Not to worry.”
I felt my body relax and my mind soften.
Beau had opened up the trunk of his car. “Oh, and what’s the prize for figuring me out? I guess the truth is always a good one. Here’s one truth—one of many that you don’t know yet. My name’s not really Beau. I killed the real Beau—Donald’s bastard—a long time ago.”
He laid me gently down into the trunk. It was funny how for a split second, while in a semi-conscience state, my mind failed to differentiate the between the trunk of his car and a coffin.
“I was blessed with the last name of Rose,” he said.
Rose…why did that name sound so familiar?
Oh yes, I remember now…
Chapter Thirty-Three
Lincoln
I put the book down for a moment and listened to Isadora’s gentle breaths as she slept naked next to me.
It would be easy to fall in love with a woman like Isadora—the perfect physical specimen of sexy, danger, and mysterious all rolled into one beautiful package.
But love was something I’ve failed at repeatedly. To be honest, I was done with love. When it came to women, it was back to good ol’ no-strings-attached, one night only mind blowing sex.
Isadora rolled over, shifting the thin white sheet that was draped over her body, exposing a single perfect breast.
She was quite the sight to behold. I felt myself go hard again and had to restrain myself from taking her nipple in my mouth.
I couldn’t help but wonder if Delilah’s ghost was actually real. Was it possible that Isadora created her as a way to cope with her grief?
I hoped so. It was creepy imagining a restless spirit watching me ravage her past lover. I couldn’t restrain myself from looking around the room, peering deep into the shadows to see if anything was staring back at me.
I was creeping myself out and I needed to stop.
“Ridiculous,” I muttered aloud as I turned my attention back to the digital version of ‘Alice in Wonderland’ on my phone. I wondered how far along Aria was in the book.
I had planned on finishing it earlier tonight but my extended fuck session with Isadora had sidetracked me.
It was well worth it though.
My eyes scanned the pixelated ink on the screen, drifting through words while simultaneously forming images in my head.
And then I came to a single line.
“It would be so nice if things made sense for a change,” I read aloud.
It didn’t take me long to put two and two together.
“Beau, you son of a bitch,” I announced as I leapt out of the bed.
Isadora opened her eyes and sat up.
“Lincoln?” she asked. “What’s wrong?”
“The traitor’s Beau,” he said. “It’s been that bastard all along.”
“You sure?” Isadora asked.
“Trust me on this one.”
She nodded. “That’s good enough for me. Let’s go find him then.”
It took us all of thirty seconds to get dressed and bolt out the bedroom door. Shadow greeted us out in the hallway, a duffle bag in his hand.
His eyes shifted from me, to Isadora, and back to me again before shrugging.
“We’re leaving in an hour,” he said. “You two finished packing?”
“The traitor is Beau,” I announced. “I know the exact phrase that sets off your trigger as well.”
Shadow frowned. “Beau?”
I nodded.
“Shit. Alright, gather everyone else. Meanwhile I’m going to find that bastard myself,” he said as he tossed the duffle bag aside.
While Isadora sought out Braydon and Leah, I bee-lined it to Aria’s room.
It was empty.
I checked the rest of the rooms before heading to the main floor. It took about five full minutes of dedicated canvassing before I accepted the truth.
Aria was gone.
Meanwhile, Isadora was caught in an argument with Braydon.
“You’re shitting me,” Braydon said. “Yeah, he’s an asshole sandwich but come on, the traitor?”
“Aria’s gone, Braydon,” I announced. “Beau took her. Do you know where he planned on going?”
Braydon shook his head. “I’m still surprised by your accusations.”
Shadow joined us in the room. “Beau’s car is gone. The motherfucker fled.”
Leah, who had been sitting on the couch quietly with a grim look on her face, spoke.
“Beau was the mole for the CIA,” she announced. “He was the person we had on the inside of Calisto’s organization.”
What the fuck? It was just a circus from this point on.
“What did you say?” Shadow said more of a demand than a question.
Leah rose from her seat and frowned.
“Beau was the mole we had planted in the Revenant’s. He was working for the CIA.”
“That doesn’t make any sense,” Shadow said. “If he was working for the CIA, then what’s he doing here? Why did he sabotage us?”
Abel, who had been standing by the doorway, arms folded across his chest, spoke. “Perhaps he’s turned,” Abel suggested. “It’s not a stretch of the imagination for some undercover operatives to defect. I imagine the payout working for the Revenants is far more lucrative than a government’s salary.”
“It still doesn’t add up,” Shadow said. “Is it possible he was the one who put out the hit on Elena Zhao?”
It was then that Shado
w’s phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out.
“Fucking cocksucker,” he muttered under his breath.
“What is it?” I asked.
Shadow showed me the text message on his phone.
My heart sank to my stomach as I read it aloud. “Yes, I’m responsible for Elena.”
“Beau has this place bugged,” Shadow said as he glanced around the room. “We’ve got to get out of here. Everyone, grab your essentials. We’re gone.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Shadow
“Where are we headed?” Leah asked as she rode shotgun next to me in the car.
“McDonald’s,” I replied.
“Seriously? You’re girlfriend got captured and you think the best thing to do is to stop off and get a six pack of Mc Nuggets?”
“You still remember I have a thing for Mc Nuggets,” I pointed out.
“Yes. And I still remember how you enjoy dodging my questions.”
I glanced in my review mirror and caught a glimpse of Abel, who sat in the backseat, frowning.
I rubbed my chin and sighed. “If you were Beau or Yuen Xi or Calisto or lord knows whoever the hell else is after us, you think a McDonalds would be an obvious place to find us?”
Leah sighed. “I suppose not,” she replied, easing up on her line of questioning. “I assume the rest of the Scooby gang is meeting us there?”
I nodded. Lincoln and Isadora had taken off in the spare Lexus in the garage while Braydon insisted on taking his own Harley. He didn’t take to the idea of abandoning it.
“What then?” Leah asked.
“You’ll find out once we get there,” I replied.
“What’s the difference if you tell me now?”
“Why can’t you just wait?”
Leah snickered. “Same old Shadow; always insistent on keeping everything to yourself. It was one of the many reasons why I broke up with you in the first place.”
“Are we seriously going to go there?” I asked.
“I’m just saying.”
“Well don’t say anymore.” Some things would never change between us, like the way we argued. She still enjoyed pulling her passive-aggressive bullshit on me. And I still didn’t want to hear any of it.
Communication had never been one of our strengths.
“Look, I know you like playing the dark, brooding hero but for Christ’s sake, let someone else in for once just to alleviate some of that burden you put on yourself. You’ve been doing everything on your own thus far and look at all the lives lost because of it.”
Was she implying that I was responsible for all that’s happened?
I pulled over the vehicle to the side of the road. I wanted to hate her at that moment and cuss her out with a string of profanities. I wanted to be angry.
But the truth was I wasn’t angry.
I was sad because she was right.
I knew a small part of her still blamed me for Lucien’s death, and deservingly so. I was the one who physically killed him, despite being brainwashed.
Maybe if I wasn’t doom and gloom all the time and allowed someone to help me sort through my emotions none of this would have happened. Someone who loved me would have seen the writing on the wall and fixed me.
“Shadow, I’m sorry. Shit, I didn’t mean what I said.” she began.
I swallowed hard. “Everyone’s death is linked back to me somehow.”
She frowned. “You’re not the only person responsible for all that’s happened,” Leah said.
“Well, my bitch of a sister does have a role to play also,” I agreed.
“That’s not what I meant, but yes, your sister is evil and deserves a thousand deaths,” she shifted in her seat. “But think about it, Shadow. Think about the culture of the Midnight Society where money and power take precedence over everything else. Love, friendships, community, and most of all family, they all take a back seat to the glory of power and wealth. We were taught to lie, to cheat, to crush our enemies and do anything possible to come out ahead of everyone else. The strong survive and the weak perish. Living in this sort of environment, how can we possibly not create more people like your sister? How can we possibly not avoid all the chaos and destruction?”
“You saw this early on, didn’t you?” I asked.
She nodded. “I saw it in my father, I saw it in my brother, and I saw it in you as well. And God, it made me sick to my stomach. I needed to leave the Midnight Society before its poison seeped into me as well.”
“I guess you leaving me wasn’t because I was the world’s worst boyfriend.”
She shook her head. “You were bad, but I loved you at the time. Hell, I still love you now, Shadow. You never forget your first love. But the environment we were in both made us worse people. You were bad for me, Shadow. I was bad for you.”
There was truth to that.
“So you up and joined the CIA,” I replied.
“It was all a matter of chance how that came about.”
Abel, who was silent this entire time, finally chimed in. “Intelligent people are always noticed by the CIA. They tend to stick out in society and radiate this light that you just can’t look away from. From the moment I saw her, I knew we needed her in the organization.”
“I totally forgot you were sitting there,” I muttered, realizing the earnest conversation between Leah and I had just been shared by the CIA’s psychoanalyst. I could only wonder what he was thinking with respect to our past relationship and to the Midnight Society itself.
“I’m assuming Leah has informed you about the Midnight Society then?” I asked. “Our big secret organization is not so secret amongst the CIA?”
Abel readjusted his glasses. “Well, yes and no,” he replied. “The suspicion of a secret, governing body outside of the White House always existed. However, every time someone took the first step to investigate this possibility an order would come from high up to squash it.”
I couldn’t help but grin. “Yeah, your Presidents have always been pussies. It doesn’t matter if it’s Republican or Democrat—though the Democrats seem to put up a better fight against us.”
Abel smiled. “I actually first learnt of the existence of the Midnight Society through another source, and not from Leah.” he said, “I did manage to deduce, however, that she came from that type of environment.”
I looked at Leah curiously. “Really? Well I guess Leah always had a poor poker face.”
“Hey, I kept everything a secret up until the point when I found out Lucien was murdered. I was pissed at the Midnight Society. Conveniently Abel asked me the right questions on a day I was in the wrong frame of mind. I’m only human.”
“It was my informant who also gave me Leah’s name as a former member of the Midnight Society,” Abel said.
I was starting to grow more curious of Abel and his interest into our organization. “Abel, you said that strict orders were given to not undertake any investigations into the existence of our organization,” I restated.
“Correct.”
“So it seems like you’re doing a whole lot of investigation.”
“That’s true.”
“Why?” I asked.
Abel removed his glasses and rubbed the corner of his eyes with his thumb and index finger. “Like Leah, I too have personal and emotional stakes in The Midnight Society.”
If he thought he could leave me hanging with that answer, he was mistaken. “And what’s your stake?”
“I had a daughter who had worked in a coffee shop in Moral City. It was an innocent job for an innocent girl. She was looking to make some money to pay for vet school. She was always bright that one,” he replied. “And then one day, she went to work and never came home. She was murdered, had her throat cut, along with several others in that coffee shop.”
I put two and two together almost instantly. The day Aria had called me telling me that Calisto had been kidnapped; it was inside a coffee shop. Everyone working there had been butchered.
&nb
sp; “Jesus,” I muttered aloud.
“Small world, isn’t it?” Leah said, “Or maybe not? Sometimes I’m convinced the Midnight Society has a way of spreading its misery to practically everyone on this earth.”
“I’m sorry for the loss of your daughter, Abel,” I said with sincerity. “My sister…”
“Has pissed off many people,” Abel finished, “And like any megalomaniac playing with newfound power, she made many mistakes. It didn’t take me long to trace my daughter’s murder to Calisto and the existence of not one but two organizations: The Revenants and the Midnight Society.”
“So now I understand why both you and Leah have beef with the Revenants: my sister has murdered your loved ones. But there’s a third person in play against Calisto: your informant, Beau. What’s his stake in all this?”
Leah and Abel cast a look at each other.
“This is where things get stranger,” Leah said. “For a while, I had no clue who the informant was. All I knew was that he had a personal vendetta against Calisto and had found a place within her organization in a prominent role—though not one where he came into direct contact with her.”
Abel thumbed his chin. “I’ve known Beau as a mole from the start, though now I suspect the identity given to me is false,” Abel said. “It was I who had offered him the chance to help us in our cause to bring justice to Calisto and to destroy the Revenants. He agreed, and thus he began providing us with vital information which in turn we passed onto you.”
And suddenly, the picture became clearer. “You were helping me all along with hopes that I’d succeed in taking out my own sister.”
Able shook his head. “I still believe in justice,” he said, “And not the brand of justice the Midnight Society invokes. Despite me working outside the confines of the law, I still fully believe in it. What I wanted was the opportunity to make Calisto accountable for her actions before a court of law, while enlightening the rest of the world on the existence of the Revenants and the Midnight Society.”
“You know that’d never happen. You’d be killed before you got a chance to speak,” I said.
“Maybe or maybe not. Beau had given me a lot of valuable evidence regarding the existence of the Revenants, concrete numbers and documents with the signatures of prominent people implicating them. It became a matter of conveying this information to the public in an easily accepted form.”
Revenant (The Midnight Society #3) Page 23
