* * *

It seems I came home just in the knick of time. I should be with my girl right now taking care of her after that bitch tried to humiliate her, but instead I have to put out this fire before it ignites.

I know Jace, can read his face almost as well as my own and I know that something’s about to break. I’m not the kind of person who can put off one thing to work on another, so I guess I’ll have to deal with everything at once.

The fact that I need a huge favor from him that involves his girl only makes this situation more fucked.

If he goes into one of his moods he’d probably lock her away somewhere with him and I’d have to come up with something else in a hurry.

As to Shayne and Alec it wasn’t hard to read them and know that something was up and the tracker I put under Shayne’s truck had led me here.

Had I been here none of this would’ve happened, but it was too late for self-recriminations now. I had to do what I had to for my sister.

There was no getting around that. But I hate that my friend has been dealing with this shit without me here to have his back.

I watched the new kid Jared get strapped in after dropping off his truck and coming back to mine. I hadn’t had time to really get to know him since they moved here but from what I’ve learned so far, he and his sister are cool.

The fact that she was Jace’s, was already wearing his ring, was enough of a vouch for me. But I have yet to know what kind of person the brother is.

“I asked you if you know who Jace is and apparently you don’t. I’m going to tell you something now. Don’t interrupt.”

“There’s something you should know about Jace, the whole Sanders family in fact, but especially the heir.”

“I’m sure he would’ve told you eventually seeing as how he’s marrying your sister, but because of the call you made I’m going to tell you some of it so you never make that mistake again.”

“Jace’s family practically owns this town. His dad’s studio, which will one day be his, is the leading studio in Hollywood and has been since the beginning.”

“Everyone in this town relies on the Sanders family in one way or another. But that’s not all. They don’t just own a movie studio.”

“Jace is the heir to an empire that encompasses oil companies, telecommunication companies, restaurants, car dealerships, airlines, you name it they own it.”

“In short, Jace is worth billions, not millions, billions. His dad lets him have his freedom now, but even now he’s being groomed to take over by the time he’s twenty-five.”

“The Jace you know, isn’t the whole story. That boy has a lot of power. One of the reasons I admire and love him as much as I do, is because I’ve never seen him abuse it.”

“There are some here who don’t have half the influence he has and do some fucked up shit, but not Jace. With that said. When it comes to the people he loves, he has the worst fucking temper you’ve ever seen.”

“Your sister…she’s the catalyst. Too much shit has been happening to her since they got together. I’m afraid that the explosion coming so soon after the attack might be the end as we know it.”

“Come on, it can’t be that serious. What is it that you think he’s going to do?”

“That’s the problem, I don’t know. But I know it’s going to get bad. And not telling him that you guys suspected Stanley is not going to end well if it’s not handled the right way.”

“Like I said, it’s not your fault, you don’t know him that well yet. Those two do and they should never have agreed to leave him in the dark.”

“I’ll tell him about Stanley and try to diffuse the situation but I can’t promise anything.” That’s not exactly true. I can promise that Stanley’s in for a world of hurt if this shit is true.

“You’re staying at Jace’s place right?” He nodded his head still looking a bit at sea. I hadn’t even told him the half of it. Hadn’t told him what Mr. Sanders was capable of if someone fucked with his kid.

Ever since Jace had been snatched as a kid his parents have been extra vigilant. I doubt even Jace knew how much protection was on him at any given time.

My biggest worry is that the kid who liked his freedom will lose it behind all this if something didn’t change. But something tells me that there’s no hope for it.

If his dad doesn’t pull the plug he just might do it himself to keep his girl safe. It hurts me to think of it, of things going back to the way they were when we were younger and he’d been so closed off from the rest of us.

He’d fought hard for the freedom he now enjoys and it had been hard on his parents as well, which is understandable.

Someone they’d trusted had tried to take their kid for ransom, I can only imagine the horror they still lived with.

But they love their kid enough to give him space, to allow him to be a regular kid with this friends. One of the reasons I look out for Jace is because I know how much his freedom means to him, and what losing it will do to him.

I filled the new kid in on most of it without going into too much detail as we circled the block. I was hoping he’d use the information to help my friend, and also to keep him from making the same mistake twice.

Jace isn’t known to be very forgiving when someone crosses the line and I’m afraid that shit’s been happening way too often here of late.

Hopefully my little favor would take his mind off of this latest shit; that’s if he says yes that is. But how can I ask him now? Do I ask and then tell him about Stanley or do I tell him about Stanley first? Shit!

There was no time to waste and I needed an answer sooner rather than later; time was running out as we speak.

“I’ll take you back. Don’t forget what I told you.”

I called Jace as I pulled onto his long ass driveway. “Hey you still up?”

“I am; what is it?” Well shit! I took the phone from my ear and looked at it shaking my head.

“I’m here, I need to ask you for that favor meet me around back by the pool.” I hung up the phone and nodded goodbye to Jared after we left the truck before making my way around the side of the house.

Jace was there three minutes later, still with that look on his face. Whatever he’d been doing in the last few hours since we left the restaurant hadn’t done much to improve his mood.

“What’s this favor you keep talking about? Are you in some kind of trouble?” Dammit, that tone. Don’t do this shit Jace, at least give yourself one more year.

“I guess you can say that, but it’s not what you think. I can’t tell you all of it now, but I can tell you why I did it. I have to ask your forgiveness first though.”

“My forgiveness, for what?” I looked at him as he dropped onto the lounge chair next to mine.

“I’ve been keeping something from you for a long time. It wasn’t my secret to tell and I’m only doing it now because things seem to be coming to a head.”

“This have anything to do with you having to go to that place each time you act up?”

“Yeah, I guess you can say that.”

I didn’t realize how hard it was going to be to open up to him about my sister. I’d never looked at it as me deceiving my friends before, but now I couldn’t help but think he might see it that way.

I told him about Ariel and how she’d been hidden away all this time. I told him about my hacking into the Pentagon, but didn’t tell him about ANONYMOUS, because that was another secret I’d sworn to keep.

He listened to every word without saying anything. “You have a sister!”

“Yeah!”

“And this favor you want from me that involves Sian is about helping to keep your sister safe.”

“Yep!” I couldn’t tell from his tone whether he’d agree or not and the way he looked off in space as if deep in thought didn’t help any.

“You know how I feel about secrets right.” He turned his head and looked at me then and I knew Jace the kid had flipped his switch. I felt a little sad about that.

“I know, and you know that I wouldn’t have kept this from you if I had a choice. Her life’s in danger Jace. From what I can tell it’s been that way since she was born.”

He looked away and I felt just a little panicked at what he was thinking. There aren’t that many people in this world I call friend, and for good reason.

When you do the things I do you get to learn a lot about the things people keep hidden. I’ve gained a new dislike and distrust for most of the human race in the last few years.

It would hurt like hell to lose a friend like Jace. Someone I know is as real as I am. Someone whose trust means a lot to me.

“I guess in this case it was unavoidable. Is that all of it?” Fuck! That’s not Jace the teenager talking.

“That’s all I know so far. I’m working on my dad to get the whole story but he’s not talking.”

“I know there’s something very serious coming behind this, but just as I had to keep Ariel a secret there’s something he’s hiding as well.”

“I’ll let her do it, but only if I can be there. She’s never going to be in danger again so if you promise me that this thing you want her to do isn’t dangerous it’s fine.”

“Thanks, I’m only asking because she’s his type.” He looked at me sharply. “What the fuck are you talking about?”

I filled him in on the senator I was tracking and his dirty dealings with a known terrorist and how he somehow had something to do with my sister being hunted.

“And you want me to let you take Sian in front of this man?”

“She won’t be in any danger Jace, you know me better than that.”

“What is it exactly that you want her to do again?”

“She just has to pretend an interest in being one of the senator’s interns. During the interview she has to switch out his glasses for the ones I had made.”

I gave him some more background on the senator and what I believed he was up to from what I’d found during my research.

He didn’t speak for the longest time and I knew he was giving it serious thought. While he did that I was trying to think of another way to get close to the senator if he said no, but there was no other recourse this late in the game.

“When did you want to do this?”

“He’s about to make a move so anytime in the next few days would be best.”

“Where?”

“The Capital. She’d be in and out in half an hour tops.”

“If I do this, does that mean you won’t have to go away again?”

“I’m not sure. They have no idea why I’m really there and since I’ve done so much work for them already it might be hard to get out of working for them in the future.”

“Do you want to keep working for them?”

“Not really no, I’d like to be here to take care of Valerie and my sister, but this was the only way I could get what I needed.”

“I’ll have dad take care of it if you don’t want to go back. Thanks for telling me.” I could almost cry at the tone in his voice. It was like watching someone slip away right before my eyes.

Since his tangle with the cops I’ve been afraid of this. That’s why I wanted to take care of this for him. But because I had my own shit to deal with, I’d left him hanging.

“There’s something else I need to tell you, but I want you to promise me that you won’t do anything.” I didn’t flinch under the glare he threw at me.

“What is it?”

“Alec saw Stanley with a bag of explosives at school.” I told him what the guys had done and why they’d kept it from him.

Instead of flying off the handle the way I expected he just got this weird smirk on his face. “So that’s what they were hiding. It was Jared’s call you say?”

“Yeah, he doesn’t know any better so don’t hold it against him.”

“He thought he was protecting Sian by protecting me.” He gets it at least thank fuck.

“That’s the way they think, brother and sister. They have no idea that these vicious people here are not the same as where they came from.”

“What’re you gonna do?”

“Don’t worry about that, just take care of your sister’s situation. How’s your girl?”

“Who Valerie? She’s fine.”

“It’s my fault that what happened to her tonight happened. I didn’t forget that you warned me to stay away from Mandy. It’s my own stupidity that brought about all this shit.”

“Jace, you’re not responsible for other people’s behavior.”

“Really? You don’t think so?”

“Jace…”

He stood from the lounger and clapped my shoulder. “Don’t worry, go home.” He turned and walked back into the house leaving me to look after him with a bad feeling in my gut.