Page 43 of The Square

I don’t know, but Danny nods and says, “I told you, I’m fine with it.”

Which makes me feel even more like an outsider because they have some deal going that I wasn’t a part of and even though I’m the one who brought us all together, I’m the one who’s forgotten now.

But then again, I’m the only one with information, so the moment after I think that thought, every one of them turns to me with expectations.

So I spell it out.

“Alec’s at the country estate,” I say. “But not by choice.”

This is news to everyone, even Danny. Because as far as I was aware, he had no interest in where Alec was before this moment right now. He was in some kind of denial and never asked me for details. Which I totally get. Denial is something I’ve practiced for over two decades. Which is why I indulged him.

But there’s this little stab of hurt that he called Russell without telling me.

I discard that hurt and morph back into business mode.

“I went there several weeks ago, just checking to see if maybe, possibly, he’d choose that fucking place, of all fucking places, as his regroup base—”

Which earns me a snarl from Eliza, but I don’t care. I just continue.

“—and it’s surrounded by guards. I’m talking AK-toting fucking mercenary-type guards.”

“So you didn’t get in?” Eliza asks.

“No, I didn’t get in,” I snap back.

“Then how do you know he’s there?” Danny asks.

And here it is. The moment when I have to make a decision to keep my end of a fucked-up bargain and risk the consequences with Danny and Alec, or risk the help of this fucked-up bargain and remain loyal.

But who am I kidding, anyway? Apparently, I haven’t been loyal for a very long time.

“I saw him. I was lurking in the woods at night and I saw him through a window. He’s there.”

“Maybe he wants to be there?” Eliza says.

And I know what she means. She means, Maybe he’s done with you two and he’s rethinking that decision he made two-plus years ago?

“He doesn’t,” I say. “He fell. Over a fucking waterfall. He didn’t just pick himself up and cart his ass across an ocean afterward. OK? Let’s all be real here. Someone picked him up from that river, took him to England to recover, and now he’s being held against his will.”

Silence.

Then—“I don’t know.” That’s Russell. “Sounds crazy to me.”

I look at Danny for backup and thankfully he obliges. “Doesn’t matter. We’re doing this. You in or not?”

This is when the Watson crew look at each other the way they always look at each other when a crew decision needs to be made, and then Russell says, “Give us a minute?”

And Danny, who has now taken over, says, “Sure. Come on, Christine. Let’s go check out the back garden.”

Which makes me roll my eyes as I follow. Because of course we need to wait out in that perfect back garden, where favorite uncle Theo has sent perfect little mini-Alec to play again with her chalk on the slate pathway that leads to the magical playhouse.

It’s not that I hate children. I do not hate children. I actually love children. And Alec’s child is adorable in every way imaginable so there is no possible way to dislike her.

What I dislike is her mother.

Oh, hell. Who am I kidding? I dislike her father too.

Not Alec, as in Alec, Christine, and Danny.