Kate

We woke the next morning, our limbs tangled together, our hands and lips following. If not for the gun on the nightstand, we could have been a normal couple.

We stayed in bed for a little longer than we probably should have, as though we both wanted to cling to the remnants of our time together last night rather than facing all that had happened before. But eventually we couldn’t stall anymore, and we both got out of bed, showering and dressing quickly. I put the blue and white dress on again, doing the best I could with the meager toiletries.

I called in sick to work, leaving a message on my boss’s answering machine explaining that there had been a problem in my apartment and I needed the day off. It seemed stupid to worry about work now, but Matt suggested I cover all bases. I called Blair and Jackie, asking them to meet us at our hotel. I’d talked to both of them last night; they’d been frantic after reading about the explosion on Capital Confessions. I’d tried to keep Blair and Gray from coming down to D.C., figuring they’d had enough work absences due to my drama lately, but Blair had insisted. She’d promised to bring me some clothes to wear so I wouldn’t look ridiculous swimming in Matt’s shorts and T-shirt when the dress finally ran out of uses.

“You ready for this?” Matt asked, squeezing my shoulder.

“Do I have a choice? We’re here whether we want to be or not.”

“I know. Just remember that they love you; they’re worried about you. They just want to help. It’ll be okay.”

“I know. I just don’t want them to get hurt. This thing is already such a mess; I couldn’t live with myself if I put my sisters in danger.”

“They’ll be okay. No one ever needs to know they’re involved. I promise.”

I smiled despite the stress raging through my body, remembering how many times he’d promised me something, how many times I’d leaned on him throughout my life. When we were younger, he’d been my support, but while I’d loved him and tried to be everything I could to him, I realized that he had always been too old, too experienced, and I’d still been figuring out who I was. We hadn’t been equals; we’d been friends, but I’d always needed him in a way that he hadn’t needed me. But now, with the time that had passed between us, with the lives we’d lived in the interim, we’d become a team in a way we’d never been before. I liked knowing that it wasn’t just him taking care of me anymore, that we could take care of each other.

“I love you,” I whispered.

He smiled, his eyes going all melty and soft. “I love you, too.”

I’d never get tired of hearing that, never take for granted the fact that we’d found each other.

A knock sounded at the door. I tensed.

Matt released me with a reassuring squeeze, striding over and checking the peephole, his body poised for battle, gun in hand.

“It’s them.”

He opened the door and Blair and Jackie crossed over the threshold, Will and Gray in tow, worry etched all over their faces.

“How are you?” Blair asked, enfolding me in a tight hug, the familiar scent of Chanel wafting over me. “Are you okay?”

I nodded. “For the most part, yeah.”

Tears welled up in her eyes. “I can’t believe he would do this.”

“He’s pretty pissed at me. He drew a line in the sand, and I chose the other side.”

Blair’s gaze connected with Jackie. “Yeah, us too. We’re here for whatever you need.” She gestured to where Gray stood carrying two enormous suitcases. “We brought you clothes and some other stuff I thought you might want. And I wrote down anything I could remember from our childhood, anything that might help pinpoint his whereabouts in the past.”

“Thank you.”

“And I brought files,” Jackie announced, sliding in between Blair and me and giving me a quick hug. She waved a flash drive in the air in one hand and a file folder in another. “This is everything I’ve collected on him over the years—clippings, some of my old Capital Confessions posts.” She grinned. “I even got Mitch to spill some dirt.”

Mitch Anders had not only managed Will’s state senate campaign, but also my father’s campaigns in the early years.

“And yes, I realize this looks a little stalkerish,” Jackie continued, “but if you’re going to go to war, you have to be prepared.”

The expression on her face was bloodthirsty at best, and whatever guilt I’d felt at involving her abated a bit at the steely glint in her eyes.

Gray and Will came over, giving me hugs before exchanging some kind of man-greeting with Matt, which seemed to consist of communicating a lot without saying anything at all. I figured they were just as worried about all of this, their connection to my sisters thrusting them into a world I wasn’t sure you could be equipped to deal with if you hadn’t grown up in it. Will came from a background similar to ours, but his family genuinely seemed nice and supportive. We were something else entirely.

Matt stepped away from the group and wrapped his arm around my shoulder, holding me against him tightly. “Thank you guys for coming to help. We really appreciate it. We couldn’t do this without you.”

Blair tried to smile, but I could see the tension in her eyes, fear and worry etched all over her face. “It’s what sisters do.”

Jackie nodded. “He spawned all of us, didn’t he? No way you’re going through this alone.”

God, I loved my sisters.

I felt badly about what they were going through, but I had to believe that this was just temporary. That when this ended and Matt and I left, their lives would go back to normal. They’d both fought hard to get to where they were now, and they deserved to be free of this mess.

Everyone sat down, the look on Blair’s and Will’s faces priceless. I knew Jackie and Gray came from pretty humble backgrounds, so I figured the state of the hotel room wasn’t that shocking to them. But Blair and Will had definitely never roughed it in a place like this, and despite the seriousness of everything going on around us, I had to bite back a smile.

“So what’s the plan?” Blair asked after she’d dusted off the desk chair with a notepad, taking the lead as she had so many times throughout our childhood. She wasn’t loud by nature, and frequently people assumed that meant she was shy and thought they could walk all over her, but the reality was that Blair was way bossier than I was. She was just quiet about it, whereas I wasn’t quiet about much.

“First off, I didn’t exactly tell you everything before. Here’s what’s going on.”

I went through Matt’s ambush in Afghanistan—midway through the story he squeezed my hand and I knew he appreciated me telling the story rather than making him share his loss with everyone. I explained how I’d heard our fathers talking afterward and that I’d become suspicious that our father was involved.

Matt took over for a bit and talked about his life after he left Afghanistan, giving a brief overview without sharing too many details.

Then I brought them up to speed on the packages I’d begun receiving in the mail, the information they’d contained, and my own investigation into Matt’s death and our father’s potential involvement. Blair paled when I recounted the break-in and how Matt and I had been reunited, and as we went through the mugging and all the documents that had been lost. Matt told them about his trip back to Afghanistan and his source at Intech, explaining our suspicions about his father’s death, while I had the dubious honor of recounting my attempted larceny and subsequent showdown with our father.

We dined on a main course of death, treason, and betrayal. For dessert, we had explosives and attempted filicide.

“So now you’re up to speed,” I finished, four horrified faces staring back at me.

“What do you need?” Jackie asked.

“Proof. We need the kind of proof that can’t be swept under the rug, that he can’t evade. We have pieces, but we don’t have evidence; we don’t have anything that will tie him to the deaths and everything else. He has connections everywhere; we have to shine a light on what he’s done so that no matter who he calls in, it’s too big for even him to cover up.”