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My fingers tremble as I take the card, read Briar in place of parents, and close my eyes.
The last thing I needed was confirmation.
Jaw clenched tight enough to make my skull ache, I release a breath, snap open my eyes, and face Aster. “I want men sent to the city, vehicles scouring every alley. Until we get confirmation that she’s on a plane, until a camera feed glitches, every eye we have is looking.”
Lace clears her throat. “Uh, Boss,.”
My attention spears toward her.
Her hands lift as she cocks a hip and steps back. “Whoa, there. Take it easy, big guy.”
Take it easy? Is she insane? How am I supposed to take it easy right now?
She continues, “We have a pretty good idea of where Briar might possibly be—”
Something inside me snaps. My hand flies toward the collar of Lace’s tank top, but Chip intercepts me, twisting my hand down and back. “Uh-uh. I don’t think so, buddy. My wife told you to take it easy.”
My lip curls into a sneer as I opt to grab Chip’s shirt with my free hand instead. Voice low, shaking, I say, “If we have an idea where she is, why didn’t you tell me on the phone?”
“Because—” Aster pries my hand off Chip and sends me stumbling back a step. “—we’re not entirely concerned.”
Chip dusts off his clothes and mumbles, “Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it,” Aster says.
I look between them as something looms in the air. I meet Aster’s eyes. “What’s going on?”
“We think Granger’s men have her.”
Chip drawls, “Because someone didn’t blow up a certain warehouse when they had the chan—”
“Hush,” Lace quips. “Ya sound as bad as Bossette right now. Concerned or not, this is serious”
“Someone has to bring the dynamite to the party in her absence.”
My eyes narrow as I lift the card I’m crushing between my fingers. It’s a flawless replication of the cards the Maxim Project sent. None of Granger’s men had high enough clearance to study it if they’re impersonating.
“How did all three of you reach this conclusion with this kind of evidence?”
Lace crosses her arms. “It’s not really our place to tell ya.”
Chip kisses her cheek, soothing, “When our friend’s psychotic, yes it is.” Dropping all gentility off a cliff, Chip faces me. “We know the card’s a fraud because the Maxim Project isn’t an organization or even a group of people.”
“Well?” I snap. “What is it then?”
Aster’s heavy gaze meets mine, deadly serious. “It’s you.”
♠
Seated on the couch in my room, I drink every last scrap of information down—like a bottle of vodka laced in poison. Briar’s played me. From the start. Her entire purpose for being here was to clean up my family. Give me a new life. I was her project. Her Maxim Project.
Her entire purpose was to maximize my potential as a family head.
“Non-consensual therapy, she called it,” Lace says, seated beside me on the couch, boots propped on my coffee table. “We thought it was a bad idea.”
“But there’s no getting through to her when she gets that crazy spark in her eye.” Chip sighs. “We knew her heart would be too good to deal with someone like you. Playing against bad guys is one thing, but when both sides are good? There can’t be a winner. She can’t justify the manipulation anymore. Despite how she is, she hasn’t made a single close friend since we were kids. Only the three of us got grandfathered in. Everyone else she doesn’t believe is capable of seeing who she really is. Everyone else is someone she’s duped. She’s too lost in the games to identify what is and isn’t real anymore.”
“She’s been trained to grip bad men’s hearts in her fist and crush. She thought she could follow similar methods with you, without the crushing. Love and care heal a lot. She thought it was important for you to learn what really being loved and cared about felt like.” Lace’s blue eyes hit mine, then drag away. “Problem is, she’s a good girl, too good to play a good person. Somewhere along the way, she just started acting like herself, and loving you like she loves people.”
