Page 9 of Cross’s Reckoning

Kane answers him and Judge shakes his head. Lola watches the whole exchange because at Perdition, disagreeing with Cyrus in front of other people has become a good way to turn a conversation into a loyalty test. Here, apparently, the president and VP can disagree for ten seconds without anybody reaching for a weapon.

Kane points toward the clubhouse. “We’ll talk inside. Briefly.”

The questioning lasts maybe fifteen minutes. Kane asks whether any plans were already moving before I left, and Judge asks Lola exactly what she told Raze. Nobody repeats the same question six ways as if that will magically turn us into spies.

I tell them what I can without pretending I know more than I do. Cyrus is furious. Chains has been running his mouth. Raze is angry about the beating they took and less eager for another one than he was twenty-four hours ago.

Lola adds, “My father won’t leave Cross walking around free. Not after the patches. He’ll see it as public humiliation.”

“So you understand why I’m not deciding what you two are to this club tonight.”

"I didn't ask you to," I reply.

“No. You asked for five minutes.” He sits back. “You got them.”

Kane’s gaze stays level. “For now, you stay inside the compound. Under watch. You don’t walk into church, you don’t touch club business that isn’t put in front of you, and you don’t carry a weapon unless I say otherwise.”

“Fair.”

He turns to Lola. “You can stay too. Room’s yours, door stays unlocked. If you decide to leave, you tell Judge or me before you go so we can make sure the road is clear.”

Her mouth tightens at the idea of needing permission to announce her own departure, but she has enough sense not to confuse caution with captivity.

“Fine,” she says again.

Kane looks between us. “Anything else?”

Lola and I answer at the same time.

“No.”

Judge almost smiles. The room they give me is on the compound, two doors down from Lola’s. Whether Kane wants the two Perdition problems together or it simply makes guarding us easier, I don’t ask. I’m standing outside my door when Lola comes down the hallway after dropping her bag in hers.

She stops when she sees me. I should go inside. Instead I say, “You shouldn’t have come.”

Her laugh has no humor in it. “We’re really doing this again?”

“You could’ve kept your mouth shut and stayed out of it.”

“I did keep my mouth shut. That’s how you got out.”

“I didn’t ask you to.”

“That doesn’t make you less responsible for blowing everything apart.”

The anger I’ve been holding since her car appeared outside the gate finally gets loose. “I took patches off my own back. You lied to your father because you decided you couldn’t stomach what he was going to do. Don’t put that on me because you hate what it says about him.”

She goes very still. I know I hit the thing she doesn’t want touched, and then I see the hurt under it and hate myself for being satisfied.

“You always do that,” she says.

“Do what?”

“Stand there like you’re the only person in the room who understands anything.”

“That’s not what I’m doing.”

“It’s exactly what you do. You look at me like I’m stupid for loving my father. Like I’m weak for not seeing him the way you do.”