He turned to full on face me. “Who takes care of him now?”
“You made my point for me. No one is. In this game of world domination where you all move chess pieces, and Warden destroys bank accounts, Trace plans the exit from the planet, Kade watches anyone on satellites, Derrick executes with guns and baseball bats. And you… what will you do, Judson?” I didn’t even know.
“I run everyone. I’ve always been de facto leader. I am the tie breaker, the one they listen to when someone has to listen.” Well, then someone should inform Trace, but I wasn’t going to say that right now.
“Fine. You run things. You make yourselves richer. You gain power. You take control. Which one of you is thinking of him? Of that man and the countless millions worldwide like him? Which one of you does that?”
He didn’t answer for a second. “They’re not the point. The poor have always been poor, Everly. Since the dawn of time. I didn’t make them that way and neither did The Alliance. They are basically not players, not relevant in what we do.”
“Well, that breaks my heart.” I wasn’t even surprised by what he said. “And that’s why I’m crying.”
I didn’t know what Judson would have said to me right then because his phone dinged and he looked down at it. He stared at it so long that I wondered if he’d gotten lost in the words he read. Finally, he lifted his head. “Your dad’s done. We should head to New York.”
They’d told me it would take months and then every time we brought it up, less and less time. I guessed my dad was motivated, and given that I knew he killed my mother, he was more than capable of getting things done.
The fate of the world hadn’t changed in this one conversation. It might have been better if I’d never had it.
Chapter 23
We boarded Judson’s plane to head to New York City. When we got on the plane, Derrick surprised us by waiting for us on board. Judson must not have known either, because he startled next to me.
“Derrick?”
The baseball player spun in his chair. “Hey, brother.”
“What are you doing here?” Judson strode past me and set his stuff down under a chair. I followed him on. I really had no idea if Derrick and Jud were close. I knew they’d both loved Alyssa and they were in this mess together with The Alliance. But other than that? Did they like each other?
“I landed in Boston. I was on my way to get my girl from you when I got the message. Figured you’d be coming here. Beat you to it.” He held out his hand, and I took it. “Hello Everly. You look beautiful. Fancy. Like you could go to a gala with him. I love it, but I like you in your jeans, too. The ripped ones that you wear to bars.”
I sighed. “Lest I ever forget you stalked me before you kidnapped me.”
His smile was huge. “I am totally nuts. You know that. But I’m forever there for you.”
Judson groaned. “What makes you think I’d let you just take her?”
“You took her from Kade. I take her from you. That’s how it was going to go. Everly, you’re going to miss out. I was going to take you to Montana. Big Sky. That’s where I was born. You’d have loved it.”
I’d never been there. “I heard that place is beautiful.”
Derrick tugged me until I sat next to him. Judson walked over and took the seat on the other side. Twenty seats on this plane and we were lined up like we were sitting in coach where I’d officially gotten the short end of the trip by sitting in the middle seat.
Of course, it was Judson and Derrick. They were both gorgeous.
Judson stared out the window. “I wouldn’t have given her to you.”
“I’m not a doll you can just pass around.” Of course that was ridiculous. I’d pretty much been just that for some time.
They ignored me. “You have to share. That’s how this works.”
“Share, yes. Give in to your every whim when you feel like acting up? No.” Judson turned to me. “My sister made the mistake of thinking she could control Derrick. I warned her that was ridiculous. No one controls Derrick. He’s actually smarter than the rest of us combined. But he is really good at living in this constant manic state. It isn’t fixable. This is how he is. Don’t make that mistake.”
Derrick laughed, which startled me. “And Judson is really good at pretending that he controls the world. It bothers him when he can’t. He’s not king of the universe. We don’t have to bow.”
I closed my eyes. This was going to be a long fucking flight and it was supposed to be short. Their phones both dinged and they dragged them out to look before Judson jumped to his feet.
A wave of anxiety hit me. “Something wrong?”
“They’ve accepted our re-entrance into The Alliance. Haha, that of course means they’re acting like they ever had any valid reason to kick us out. But, whatever. They want to have a meeting to replace Henry’s seat today. So we’re not going to New York City, but all of us are heading to the meeting spot.”
I swallowed. “Derrick, you must be in such danger for killing Henry.”
“Nope.” He shrugged. “Alliance can’t kill Alliance. That’s rule number one. I wasn’t Alliance when I took him out. As long as they’re going to pretend that they could remove us, I’m going to use that ridiculousness to my advantage. They could turn me in to the police. They won’t. But they can’t come after me for it.”
I side-eyed him. “Derrick, they could always come after you. Even if it’s twenty years from now. Don’t you watch mafia movies?”
He grinned at me. “Not a bad comparison, but I think you’re overestimating their love of Hank. The four left had no great love for him other than he furthered their agenda. They weren’t friends or family. Now, we may have to manipulate some things to get Judson on there tonight. We don’t have the time we thought we had to basically sell everyone on accepting him. Shouldn’t be a problem, we have enough supporters, but it would have been nice to have run a campaign of sorts.”
Judson strode away, calling over his shoulder. “I’ve got to let the pilot know he needs more gas.”
I didn’t suppose these treks we made on these planes with the guys were really filed in flight records anywhere. Gas up and go? Was that how this worked?
“Are you guys going to leave me here?” I took off my seatbelt but Derrick placed his hand on my arm to stop me from moving.
He shook his head. “Why would you stay here?”
“We’re done. My dad did what he said he was going to do. You’re supposed to be letting me go.”
Derrick furrowed his brow. “That’s right. We are.”
Judson came back and sat down in his seat. “You can go when we get to Seattle. Your dad will be there for the vote. We’ll turn you over there. Unless you have some strong desire to find your way home all on your own from Boston?”
Derrick shook his head. “I say we keep her.”
Keep me? “I’m not a dog you found on the street.”
“She’s right. She’s not, and she’s not even our hostage anymore. We’ll figure things out, Everly. What you want matters in the sense that people have a small amount of self-determination. Smaller than they think they do, but whatever.”
I waved my hand. “If you start quoting Kade and his ant metaphor I’m getting off the plane and walking from Boston.”
His smile was fast. “Point taken. Presuming you are not getting off, you’re coming with us.”
“That makes you officially a member of this mess, Everly.” Derrick ran a hand up my arm. “Not being dragged, consenting to come along.”
The truth was I’d been pretty much doing that since the Caribbean. The captain turned on the engines. It looked like we were on our way to Seattle. I’d never been there but that was par for the course lately.
Both Derrick and Judson tapped on their phones, essentially ignoring me. If I wasn’t their captive anymore, then there were things I was going to demand they get back for me, starting with my cell phone. A person not being held hostage could call her friends and re-e
nroll in classes. But I would wait until Seattle, since I doubted even Judson’s magic app could procure me a cell phone mid-air.
I closed my eyes and pretended I could fall asleep when the reality was I didn’t feel the least bit tired. They had said I should stay with them. Or at least Derrick had. That couldn’t be reality. I wasn’t going to just follow these Alliance guys around here there and everywhere while they did whatever they did. I opened my eyes.
When they weren’t battling for their rights and positions, what did they do? I had to figure that out.
We were no sooner in the air than Derrick fell asleep. He leaned in his chair, his legs out in front of him like he didn’t have a care in the world. Jud continued to mess with his phone. Apparently there weren’t rules about putting away his electronics during takeoff or not using the data plan to communicate. I closed my eyes again. I didn’t even have anything to read to try to get through this.
Derrick started to snore, loudly. I gave up pretending I could sleep and opened my eyes. Judson sighed before he smirked at me. “I’ve told him to get the deviated septum fixed. I even have a guy I recommended that could do it. An ENT I like. But he’s stubborn. Been like this since he was a teenager. Snores like he’s using heavy machinery.”
The night he’d spent sleeping by my bed when I’d been concussed I’d either been too out of it to notice or he hadn’t really slept.
“Here.” Judson patted his shoulder. “Lean on me and try to ignore it. We can always move, but I have a feeling he’ll follow you. He tends to obsess until he gets bored with it.”
I almost pointed out that he’d not gotten bored with Alyssa but that was highly inappropriate. When it came down to it, we’d just met. She’d been his wife, and I’d told Judson I wouldn’t bring her up again. I’d apologized.
“Everly.” He caught my attention. “Whatever you’re thinking about, stop. That look in your eyes. The world isn’t ending today. I can promise you that. We can survive just about anything. When Alyssa died, both Derrick and I fell apart. But we’re still here. I’m wearing pants. I didn’t for a couple of weeks back then, I hardly got out of bed. I didn’t think I’d ever survive it. How do you live when the person you literally shared the womb with is suddenly ripped from the world? Yet, here I am. You’ll be okay. Whatever this is, if you survive it, you’ll eventually be fine.”
My heart broke for him. He’d lost the person who was probably the most important person in the world to him. I put my head down on his shoulder, and he actually let out an audible breath. I wasn’t sure if that meant anything at all, but it was almost like he’d been holding it to see if I would.
“So is this your way of saying that this too shall pass?”
He leaned his head on top of mine. “My mother used to say that.”
“One of my nannies. I didn’t have a mother. You know the whole father killed her thing.”
“Right.” He was quiet for a second. “It was strange with my mother. As an adolescent they told me about The Alliance. She didn’t know about it. I was asked to keep this secret, this tremendous thing, from her and Alyssa. In some ways, it negated her authority of me. Here was this person who knew things, who was in charge, who I discovered had absolutely no idea how her own world worked. She became pathetic to me. I know that sounds awful. Keep in mind I was a nasty teenager at the time. Raging hormones, shitty attitude.”
I remembered the boys when they were like that in school. “It makes sense, actually. That’s when we challenge authority. Yours was ripped out from under you and in that sense it empowered your father, right? He knew. She didn’t. What a sudden and remarkably distorted view it must have given you about male, female relationships.” I rubbed my eyes. We were in smooth skies. Judson had a soothing voice, and Derrick’s snores had gotten rhythmic enough they were almost a constant part of the overall plane experience. “But you did tell Alyssa.”
“I could never keep anything from her. She had the stronger personality than me. I had a secret. She had it out of me in two days. Then that changed her with Mom, too. It was all kinds of problematic. She knew about it, but wasn’t in it. Hated my father for that but couldn’t say a word to him. Of course, it all got better when snorey over there showed up. Then she could obsess over him. And he didn’t mind her talking about The Alliance.”
I started to get the general picture of how things were. “Is your mother still alive?”
He yawned. “No. She didn’t make it very long after Alyssa died. My father right after her. Whatever their… dynamic was… my father worshiped my mother. He was done without her. All that Alliance power, all that prestige, and he was a shell for the weeks he lived without her.”
It was a bit romantic in a sick, twisted way. Secrets that fueled the family destroyed them. And now here was Judson on an airplane to go take the seat on the Alliance council of the man he’d helped plot to kill. The same council had somehow taken Alyssa from him and the man next to me.
“What was your dad like, Everly? I know you have some strong feelings right now, and I don’t blame you for them, but what was he like in your mind before you felt that way?”
I had to think about that. “He was everything.”
There really wasn’t another way to describe it. As distant as he’d been, removed in some ways, I’d centered my whole life around him, even staying near home to go to school to be close to him. I’d wanted his approval, and I’d mostly gotten it.
“It was just the two of you.”
I yawned. “Just us. Sorry. Maybe I’m tired.”
“You’ve been up and down the East Coast of the United States, the Caribbean, wherever Warden stashed you, and underground in New Orleans. Then I dragged you to Boston. I think you’re entitled to be tired. Sleep. We can do the whole who were you before The Alliance changed you game another time.”
I smiled. Was that a thing that Alliance people regularly did to get to know each other? “No. You’ll clam up and hate me again.”
“I never hated you. I saw you as a tool. I see everyone that way. Make no mistake, I’m very pragmatic and narcissistic when it comes down to it. But I won’t clam up.”
I hated airplanes, but I liked being curled up on Jud’s shoulder. I liked Derrick being on the other side of me even if he snored like a chainsaw. Maybe I was just done, because I did fall asleep.
When I woke up, the cabin was quiet. Derrick still had his eyes closed, but he wasn’t snoring. His head was at a different angle, which might have helped. Judson had adjusted slightly and that was what had woken me. He was out cold, as well.
I had to pee and that was a distraction from everything else happening. The plane bounced a little bit but not so much that I had to stay in my seat. Did we have fasten seatbelt signs on this thing? I didn’t know. I’d not even seen a flight attendant, so maybe it was just us and the pilot.
I rose quietly and made my way to the lavatory. Like everything else on the plane, it had Judson’s initials branded on the door. The actual inside of the bathroom didn’t. I peed and then washed up, staring at myself in the mirror. The girl who looked back at me wasn’t the same one who’d been studying and having boring sex with random men from bars. I’d seen things I’d never imagined—like killers on a beach—and been more places in a week than I could have fathomed doing. I’d met people who I’d never have encountered otherwise. None of this had been my choice but they hadn’t abused me.
The plane jerked strongly in the air, and I gripped the sink. Okay, maybe I needed to go back to my seat fast and strap myself in.
I opened the door and walked as fast as I could back to my seat. Derrick’s eyes were open and he extended his hand to me, which I took.
“You okay?” His eyes were clear, he was alert. Judson slept on in the seat by the window.
I nodded. “I’m not a great flyer, and it’s bouncing.”
“Just a little weather. We’re almost there.” He shifted in his seat slightly, and I buckled myself in. Not that it helped with
the bumping, but I did prefer to be strapped in, knowing I wouldn’t bang into the ceiling if we hit even harder turbulence. “Why Judson’s shoulder and not mine?”
His question distracted me from the bouncing. “He offered it to me. And you were snoring.”
“Yeah, I do that. You can kick me, and I’ll stop.” He patted his arm. “Here, this is me offering it to you.”
I shook my head. “I’m not tired anymore.”
He stared at me without saying a word, and like I was a sheep being herded by a Border Collie, I did as his stare instructed me to do. I leaned my head down on his arm. He smelled good, like sandalwood. I decided I really liked the scent. Okay, this wasn’t so bad. I wasn’t going to sleep, but I could cuddle like this through the bumps at least.
“I’m probably going to have to kill a few of these asses.”
And just like that my ease in the moment fled. Maybe it was because I had my head on his arm that I could just ask the question. Maybe I’d lost all sense of self-preservation. What kind of an idiot asked a killer if he was okay killing? Then again, I had my head pressed on his arm and he’d rescued me when I’d been stranded. He claimed to have feelings for me. With Judson right there, he’d probably not get too angry. Or would he? I gave up wondering and asked the question. “Does it bother you to do so?”
“Not anymore. There was a time I said no. These assholes killed my wife because I did. No, I don’t mind killing them. I still don’t want to kill for them. For us? Yes, I’ve long since stopped caring.” He shrugged, which moved my whole body.
“She didn’t die because you said no,” Judson must have opened his eyes at some point. I hadn’t noticed. I was too busy snuggling with a killer because that was just what I did these days apparently.
Derrick shook his head. “I’m not doing this with you again.”
“Well if you are going to insist on bringing that up, then we are going to do it whenever I’m in earshot of hearing it, bro.” Judson put a hand on my knee and squeezed. It was strangely reassuring, considering there was nothing about this moment that was okay. The conversation. The turbulence. It all pretty much sucked.
Hard Truths (Kiss Her Goodbye Book 1) Page 25
