by Tara Brown
Luce turned, seeing my face, hers flushing when our eyes met. They had obviously said other things I hadn’t been privy to, maybe worse things than that I had told Servario something. Coop didn't meet my stare.
“Hey, you’re awake.” Luce grinned. “Where are the kids?”
“Still sleeping. They’re exhausted from the time difference and all the time spent in the pool. Mom and Fitz are taking them home today.” I had a plan. It wasn't brilliant. It wasn't even close to intelligent. But it was a plan to free us from the war we had unintentionally stepped into.
“Are we going home?” Luce asked and glanced at Coop.
He shook his head. “What’s going on, Evie?”
“I have an idea. Just go get in the car and don't ask questions.”
He leaned back, his eyes darting to the cook. He understood that there was no way I was talking in front of her the way they had.
“Seriously, get Jack and meet me in the car.” I turned and walked to the front door.
Luce arrived at the car first. “What are we doing?”
I gripped the steering wheel. “Going for a ride.” I was relishing in the fact that I knew what we were doing and none of them did. It was a small dose of revenge.
Jack and Coop climbed in, with Coop giving me an indignant look as he slumped into the backseat.
I started the car and drove away from the mansion. “They have boxes filled with our private information, boxes of our weaknesses. My kids, your families, whatever the fuck was in Jack’s box that he begged me not to look at. We have weaknesses. Pegging these people off one at a time gives them time to replace the person that we kill. I think we should have a gala. I think we should host a party and kill them all—all the ones who will leave the Burrow. And I think at the same moment we do that, we should attack the Burrow.”
Coop sighed. “Except you forget about one small detail: if we bomb the temple we go to war with Japan.”
He was right. I had forgotten about that.”
“We can’t leave a cache of weapons sitting somewhere, waiting to be discovered. We assumed the people in the Burrow stayed at the Burrow. We assumed the Burrow was a top-secret organization that a select group of maybe ten people knew about.”
“She’s right.” Jack nodded. “We can’t leave it there. If we kill the Organization and Burrow people who come to the gala, the Burrow will go into extreme hiding.”
“How can they move all that weaponry?” Coop scoffed.
“It doesn't matter. We can’t give them the option.”
“What if it looked like one of their stupid inventions went wrong?”
My eyes darted at Jack in the rearview. “Oh my God, that's brilliant. One of us goes back and sabotages the Burrow.”
He swallowed hard.
Luce’s head snapped around. “It can’t be you.” Her voice cracked.
He offered a sheepish grin, but I knew as well as he did it had to be him. He could talk the talk and walk the walk, and no one would be the wiser. He blended with nerds. I would be too old and too lost to be a new recruit, and I felt fairly confident I was equal in intelligence to Luce. Coop might manage because of his memory, but no nerd ever looked the way he did in a pair of jeans.
Had we not killed Janice, we might have convinced her to do it. She was an idealist. She might have gone full rebel.
But that ship had sailed before we even got to board it.
I drove to the hotel, pulling up front and smiling at everyone. “Act like we were invited by the queen.” I got out and grinned at the valet as he got the door for me. “Ma’am.”
“Hello.” I used my English accent.
“Bonjour!” Jack used his French—his real accent—and gave a slight head nod as he climbed out. He offered me his arm and we strolled in the front door of the magnificent castle hotel. It was my first time coming in the front door, and it was just as grand as I had imagined it would be.
We were there for macabre tidings, but I could easily enjoy the walk up to the room and pretend this was a vacation.
“This is incredible,” Jack whispered.
“Absolutely.” I pointed at the hallway to the left of the stairs. “You should see the courtyard at dusk. Or the way the vineyard and village look at sunset. It’s like witnessing a miracle.”
He held my arm tighter as we walked to the suite. I pulled out the key Servario had given me and lifted it to the lock. My fingers trembled; I couldn't deny the doubt I had. There was a chance he wasn't alone, a huge one. It was Servario and he had a hotel room. The only thing stopping him from having sex with another person was the command I had given him. My confidence in him listening to my demands just wasn’t there. I exhaled and heard it echo when I turned the lock. Everything stilled as I opened the door.
The room was clean and empty.
“He’s gone.” I couldn't believe he had left without even a goodbye—without even sex.
“Of course he is. We exploded a house and killed a scientist. He can’t be in the area. This was your plan?” Coop scoffed. “I could have told you Servario wasn't going to be here.”
I rolled my eyes and mimicked him behind me. It was one of the few times I got to make him do my plan without giving him the details and of course it had fallen through.
“What’s that on the bed?” Luce pushed past me and walked in, lifting something shiny and glass from the bed. She turned and I cocked an eyebrow. “It’s a shoe, Evie.” She walked to me, kneeling. “Your slipper, my lady.”
“Oh my God. You have got to be kidding me.” I flipped off my Birkenstock sandal and let her slide the glass slipper onto my foot. “That is a fancy shoe.”
“Roxy had nothing on this.”
“I don't think I will ever be able to guess his next move.”
“It must be special ordered, like he knew in advance he would be here. Is that possible?” She smiled wide.
“No. There must be a shop nearby. It’s just a glass slipper shoe in a seven. Any seven can fit this.”
Jack bent to inspect it. “Why a glass slipper?”
“Neuschwanstein Castle.”
Jack lifted his gaze like he knew but Luce laughed at Coop. “Bless you.”
“It’s the castle built by Ludwig II. It inspired Cinderella’s castle in the Disney movie and Sleeping Beauty’s.” Coop said it like we should all know this.”
“I remember that castle.” Jack lifted a finger. “It’s close by. Maybe a three-hour drive. Just southeast of here.”
“He’s gone to Cinderella’s castle and this is the clue?” Luce looked as lost as I felt.
Slumping against the door, I sighed heavily. “Why does he have to be such a pain in the ass?”
She looked lost and then the most remarkable thing occurred. Luce, the last girl on earth to seem Disney-obsessed moaned. “I think it’s romantic, don't you? I can’t imagine a man ordering my size in a glass slipper and leaving it as a clue to meet him at a German castle.”
The starry look in her eyes had me lost. “I guess.”
“How did a guy like Servario know glass slippers were a thing?”
“It’s not a thing.” Coop snarled and turned, leaving Luce and me staring at my foot.
She nodded with a crazed look in her eyes. “It’s a thing.”
I slipped the shoe off and handed it to her. “Keep it.”
Her starry eyes glazed over, and I would swear a bit of drool left the side of her mouth as she clutched it to her chest and followed Coop out.
Jack gave her, and then me, a worried look. I shrugged. “It’s a thing.”
“Apparently.” He looked worried but the whole relationship ending was starting to make sense to me. Luce was a die-hard romantic under her bulletproof vest and Jack was—well—Jack.
I let Luce and Coop get ahead of us before I grabbed Jack’s arm. “You see what she wants, right?”
He knit his brow. “What?”
“Luce. She clearly loves you and she just wants more.”
He winced, sighing his answer. “Evie, don't meddle.” He lifted a hand to say more but didn’t. He turned and walked after the other two.
“Fine,” I muttered and walked after them.
When I got to the front desk I placed the key down and offered a pleasant smile. I didn't know what else to do. How did I explain my having a key?
The lady at the desk frowned and stared at the key, but I walked off before we had to talk about it.
When I got to the car Coop was already in the driver’s seat with Jack sitting shotgun. Luce offered an annoyed eye roll as she climbed into the back.
“After we play this little game of treasure hunting, we go back to Jack’s and finalize the plans. No more fucking around, Evie.” His accusatory tone bothered me only slightly less than having shoes left behind for me to follow after.
Everyone in my life was all about the games.
Coop gave me a look in the rearview. “While you and your mom were killing Drusack, I went to his office in the attic and hooked Jack into his computer.”
My insides always tensed when we discussed the Burrow.
“He found out the last of the bots, the remaining few Drusack had kept, were given to a man named Marcel Labella. When we brought his face up I knew him immediately as one of the people from the Burrow.”
“Big shocker there.” I was going to be hard pressed to be surprised today.
“Not really. But the bots were taken back to the Burrow by Labella. He was taking them there for research.”
That surprised me. “Why?”
“Why do you think, Evie? To make something that will help them further their goals of world domination. Obviously, it’s not to teach them how to make snow cones.” Jack’s little sarcastic ass was back to normal.
“But the Burrow isn’t on side with what the Organization is doing. They don't want to take over the world. The Organization is a splinter cell of the Burrow. They disagree with each other.” I explained my question so I didn't sound like I was assuming the snow cones were probable.
“Right, but all the brightest minds of our time are there. You don't think some of the scientists have been brought to the dark side with the cookies and the possible freedom of the Organization?”
I tapped my finger against my lip. “The cookies, yes. Obviously.” It didn't make sense to me though. “So the Burrow has bots that can’t be programmed without Janice’s specific codes? I feel like we won this one. Like we would have taken those bots to the Burrow anyway so Drusack and Labella have done our job for us. What can they do without her codes?”
Was I actually the dumb one in the car?
Luce pointed. “She has a valid argument.”
“You don't think they can crack Janice’s codes?” Jack looked back at me, resting his arm on the console between him and Coop.
“No. They wouldn’t have needed her if they could. They could have killed Janice and taken her research and ended it there. No one would have been the wiser if she had died. She was a reclusive tourist living in stodgy old Oxford with no real friends. They are the easiest to remove. If they had the codes or even a chance at the codes, they would have killed her. And we all know she didn't give Drusack all the bots she had. She gave him some. Where are those others? She hid them from Drusack.”
Jack’s mouth parted but he paused before speaking, “Right, she said she gave him double what he needed, not all she had. She obviously had the means to make them fairly fast. Five hundred isn’t a small sum of robots, even microscopic ones. And while they would have been tiny, the equipment needed would have been sizable. Why didn't we ask her where she made them?”
“Everyone was focused on killing her. Mom only asked the questions pertaining to the Burrow and the Saudi attack. I doubt she cared that there were more of them since Janice has to be the one to program them and we had Janice.”
Coop sighed. “And this is why we don't let your mom interrogate people. She’s terrifying and savage, but she’s also really only concerned with ending the Burrow. It’s personal for her. It ruined her marriage.”
The thought of that hadn’t ever really occurred to me. I knew my parents loved each other but had the Burrow actually been the death of their marriage? I had to assume it was. It was a jagged and bitter pill but it was true.
My father had chosen it over her and me and Sissy. I hated him a little bit in that moment as I realized it. With that came the realization that he was like Servario. So I had to assume that he had meant to save the world as a show of his love for my mother. Servario wanted to be with me, but he had to fix everything first. And they were sort of the same man.
The idea that my mother had waited her entire life for him to do that terrified me. I wasn’t willing to sacrifice my life and my future and my happiness for the world. I would do what I could, but that was all. I was exactly that selfish.
“Maybe we should consider how to kill everyone at the Burrow before we host a gala and kill the Organization. Maybe just ending the Burrow is the best solution. The Organization would have nothing to use as far as weapons are concerned and the fight would be fair. Us against them. Even Stephen.”
Jack nodded at me. “You're right. If we end everything at the Burrow, destroy the entire cache of scientists and weapons, we will be in a fair fight against the Organization.”
My stomach tingled at the thought of it all. Freedom. But not yet. “But we would have to keep our families in hiding until we were done. We would have to take away everything in those boxes. All our weaknesses.”
“Fine by me.” Luce shrugged. “The only info that might have been in that box was my grandparents and they’re both old and senile as fuck. I am completely estranged from my family.” Her eyes darted to Jack.
The glare he returned burned.
“Time to tell me what was in that box, Jack.”
His eyes darted to the right but Coop agreed. “Yup. Tell her.”
Jack lowered his gaze and slumped, completely defeated. “My parents and my siblings are well known. They can’t be hidden or protected. They can’t vanish, and I can’t estrange myself from them.”
“Who the hell are you, Jack?”
He squeezed his eyes shut and blurted the name out, making me tense everywhere. “Jacque Hollander.”
I knew that name. He saw the look of confusion on my face and sighed. “My father is the President of France.” His French accent was back.
“What the actual fuck?” I covered my eyes with my hands and shook my head. “Wait—the French hate Americans. Why would your dad let you come and work for us?” The answer was obvious. I lowered my hands. “Oh my God, you’re the mole, aren’t you?”
He rolled his eyes. “Evie, be real. Of course not. This”—he held his hands out and looked around us—“this is the cover. My real life is—”
“Oh my God, that castle belongs to your family.”
His eyes lowered. “Yes.”
“Why do the people there call you Walter?”
“My name is Jacque Walter Éire Hollander. I use my middle names as my casual names. Jacques Hollander gets too much attention in Europe. In the US no one even knows who I am. Our boss doesn't even know who I am, not really. He knows I am not an American citizen, and I seriously think that's about it. He doesn't care. I passed my entrance, extensive background check, and training into CI—he doesn't care beyond that.”
“Your parents don't know?” This was baffling.
“No. They do and they don't. I told them I work for the UN in a very secretive manner and that everything I do is highly classified. My dad lets me run with it, without asking too many questions. He’s not tech savvy and I went to America for university. I go home when I can. I do everything secretively. I have managed to do him some serious favors a couple of times so he thinks the UN thing is pretty legit.”
I was flabbergasted. There wasn't another word for it.
His eyes darted to Luce, but she looked out the window, obviously angry by the whole deception.
“How did you find out?”
“He ran off not too long ago. Said he needed to go back to the main office and do some work for our boss. Except he was at an event and it was televised. I watched it and saw him with a beautiful girl.” Her eyes lowered as her cheeks flushed with color.
“It was my sis—”
“It was his sister, Margolis,” Luce cut him off. This was her story, not his. “I love royals and was watching the Queen, Prince Harry, Prince William, and Kate on the red carpet for the event. The next thing I know, Jack walks up to William and Harry and shakes their hands.” Her eyes darted to him accusingly. “He shook fucking hands with Harry.”
“I didn't know you stalked royalty. How would anyone know that about you?” Jack looked like he might beg any second.
“He has a point, Luce. You don't come across as the princess type,” Coop tried to defend.
“Clearly.” She nodded and looked out the window. “Doesn't matter now, does it?”
It visibly mattered. “So that's why it can’t be you who goes to the Burrow, even though it sort of has to be? You might be recognized by Europeans, and if not, you can’t risk death. This is why you’re always in the basement?”
He pressed his lips together and let out a huge exhale. “Yup.” His accent was hovering somewhere between French and American.
“Is your family royal as well then?”
His eyes and the small noise that came from Luce’s side of the car answered that.
“Awkward.”
“Not like a direct royal, more like a—”
“It doesn't matter, Jack. You are far more than you pretended to be. This changes things. You can’t go to the Burrow, no matter what. I’m surprised no one saw you and recognized you when we were there for that day.” He winced and I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Who recognized you?”
“Drusack. My father contacted me and said Vincent Drusack was quite concerned about the place he had seen me. He asked if I was in trouble. I told him no.”
“And you didn't tell the rest of us that Drusack was in the Burrow and on the outside?”
“No.” He shook his head. “I assumed like the rest of us that he was in the Burrow and never left there. I hadn’t seen him in ages. I was under the impression the people at the Burrow never left the Burrow. But when Janice said his name I knew I was wrong. It’s how I showed you all his pictures so quickly on the laptop, because I knew exactly whom she meant.”