جميع فصول : الفصل -الفصل 20

POV: Haley"Haley?"I nod, and Miranda sits down across from me, careful, like she already knows this isn't going to be easy for either of us."You wanted to talk.""I wanted to see your face when you said it again." I look her over without bothering to hide it.She folds her hands on the table the same way she did in the video, and I hate that I recognize the gesture now, that I've watched it enough times to know it on sight."Say what again?" Her expression doesn't change."That he did that to you.""I'm not going to perform it for you." Nothing in her wavers."I'm not asking you to perform anything. I'm asking you to look at me and tell me it's true.""It is true." Her eyes meet mine and stay there.Neither of us says anything for a second.I wrap both hands around the cup in front of me, the one I ordered and haven't touched, just to give them somewhere to be."He doesn't remember it," I say."Convenient for him.""He was drunk." The words barely make it past my lips."So was I, a

POV: NathanThe hallway goes quiet when I walk in.Not the same quiet as before, where phones come out and words spread faster than I can move. This is different. People look, then look away too fast, like getting caught staring means picking a side they never wanted to pick out loud.A girl I don't know touches my arm near the lockers."I'm really glad they cleared you," she says, then walks off before I can answer.Three days ago she wouldn't look at me in the cafeteria.Darnel finds me by the vending machines, hands in his pockets, studying my face like he's trying to work out what's different."You look like you haven't slept in a week.""Close enough.""People keep asking me if I knew you were innocent the whole time." He shrugs. "I told them I never doubted you. Which is a lie, but a nice one."I don't laugh, and he doesn't expect me to.Class goes the same way. A teacher who avoided calling on me for two weeks straight now asks my opinion twice in one period, like the extra att

POV: Kai"Twenty hours since the disappearance of Victor Remington, founder and CEO of Remington Holdings, following an armed robbery at a charity gala last night. Sources close to the family say authorities have made no confirmed progress in locating him. The public is being asked to come forward with any information—"I turn the television off before she finishes the sentence.The house is full of people who aren't my father. Security consultants in the kitchen. A detective in the study with my mother, going over the guest list for the third time since sunrise. Someone from the board keeps calling my phone, and I keep letting it ring out.My mother finds me in the hallway outside the study, phone pressed to her ear, already dialing the next name on a list that's getting shorter and shorter."Richard. Yes, I know it's early." Her voice doesn't shake, hasn't shaken once since last night. "I need whatever your people can find. Whatever it costs."She hangs up and looks at me like she's

POV: VictorThey took the tape off my mouth an hour ago, which tells me more than anything they've said out loud. Men who plan on killing you don't bother letting you talk."You understand who I am." I keep my voice level, the same voice I use in boardrooms, the same voice that's gotten me out of worse rooms than this one. "Whatever you're being paid, I'll triple it. Today. Wire transfer, cash, whatever you want."The one who seems to run the room laughs before I finish. Russian accent, thick through the vowels, unbothered in a way that unsettles me more than the gun on the table."Not up to us.""Then let me speak to whoever it is up to.""Doesn't work like that." He crouches down to my level, studying me. "Bigger than you think. Bigger than your money.""There's no one bigger than my money."That earns me a fist across the jaw, hard enough my vision goes white at the edges."Careful," he says, almost gentle now, like he's coaching me. "We want you alive. Doesn't mean we want you wit

POV: Kai"I didn't hear anything." I say it steady, though nothing in me feels steady right now. "I came up for the folder. Mom's folder, for the board call.""Kai." His face has gone still in a way that's worse than anger. "How long.""I told you—"His hand closes around my shirt before I finish the sentence, dragging me forward until there's no space left between us, his knuckles digging into my collarbone hard enough to bruise."I won't ask again. What did you hear?""Victor." My mother grabs his arm carefully. "You're hurting him. Let him go."He doesn't, not yet, his grip only tightening, and for one long second I actually think he's going to hit me—my own father, in our hallway, past midnight, like I'm one more problem to be handled."I heard enough." I get the words out despite the grip on my shirt. "I heard you talk about honor at that press conference like it means something to you. I heard you stand in front of cameras and thank yourself for surviving something you apparentl