Chapter Thirty-Four
Callum
Callum didn’t realize he had managed to fall asleep until a hand on his shoulder woke him. A quiet voice called his name. “Callum? Wake up.”
As soon as he began to return to consciousness, Callum knew exactly where he was. There was no brief, blissful moment of amnesia when he could pretend he was back at the retreat, the happiest he had ever been despite the constant threat hanging over them. Even so, he smiled. “Tom?”
“Callum? Are you okay? He didn’t hurt you, did he?” The voice was sharper now, more concerned. And… wrong, somehow. Too deep, too harsh.
Callum opened his eyes to a concerned face hovering too close to his own. His brother’s face. Not Tom’s.
His face must have showed his disappointment. “Don’t look so excited,” his brother said with a teasing grin. He did something to the cuffs holding Callum to the wall, and they popped free of Callum’s wrists, the chains swinging backward with a clang. He shoved the key back in his pocket and reached out a hand to Callum. “I’m getting you out of here, little brother. You’re getting your wish—you never have to see the inside of this place again. That deserves a little more than a frown, don’t you think?”
His words were teasing, but under the forced lightness, Callum could hear a note of melancholy in his voice. If their father planned to send Callum away forever, that meant Callum would effectively be out of Alec’s life, as well. Their last goodbye had at least held the hope that they would see each other again someday; this was different. He knew where he was going, and there would be no coming back.
Callum tried to return Alec’s smile as he took his hand and pulled himself to his feet. “Did you really threaten to leave if he killed me?”
“You’re the only little brother I’ve got. What else was I supposed to do?” His brother mussed his hair, like he was five years old again. He turned away, but not before Callum saw the haunted look in his eyes. Callum wondered just how hard it had been to convince his father merely to send him away, and whether his brother had really believed he would hold to his word. He wondered what his brother had expected to find when he had come down here.
Callum rubbed his wrists. “Well, exile to London is better than death, I guess.” Although it might still come to that in the end, because he couldn’t—wouldn’t—be what the Syndicate wanted. He was more certain of that now than ever. But there was no need to burden his brother with those thoughts. “So thank you for that.” He held out his arms and, before Alec could squirm away, squeezed him into a hug.
His brother endured the hug for a record three seconds before pulling back. “You’re not going to London. I made sure of that. It wasn’t that hard—all I had to do was remind him that as long as you were working with the Syndicate, whatever you did would reflect back on him. Not that I think you couldn’t hack it there—I know you could if you tried. But I don’t think it’s what you want.” He paused, a question in his eyes.
Callum shook his head in confirmation. “It’s not.”
His brother nodded with the resigned grace of someone quietly giving up a long-held dream. “Then whatever it is you do want, this is your chance. You’ll have a one-way ticket to anywhere in the world. The only condition is that you never have any kind of contact with the Syndicate again.”
“I’m not going to London.” Callum tested the words, head still spinning.
“You’re going wherever you want to go. Want to spend the rest of your life lying on the beach in Hawaii? Enjoy the Berlin nightlife? Be a sheep farmer in Switzerland? It’s up to you. You’ll have all the cash you need—I made sure of that too.”
But there was only one thing Callum wanted. “Tom is here somewhere.” Unless he was dead. “I want him to come with me. You can get him out.” Unless he was—no. No, Tom was still alive, because none of this meant anything without him.
Alec shook his head. “I can’t do that. But wherever you go, I’m sure you’ll find someone else before too long. Even another man, if that’s what you want.”
Did Alec really think it was that easy? That one person could replace another, just like that? Maybe in the days when he had gone along with the endless dates Alec had set him up on, he would have agreed. But no matter how far he traveled, he would never find another Tom. “I don’t need the money. Send me anywhere, it doesn’t matter. As long as he’s with me.”
“I have some influence when it comes to you, because you’re family. But he’s not. And somebody needs to pay for what happened. Otherwise Dad would look weak, and you know how he feels about that. But honestly, he’s right this time. Word of this is going to get out, and it’s already enough of a disaster. If it looks like there was no retribution for everything that happened…” He shook his head again. “We have to think about the big picture.”
That last “we” didn’t mean Alec and Callum, Callum knew, but Alec and their father.
“I’m not leaving without Tom.”
Alec paused for a long time. Too long.
He averted his eyes as he finally spoke. “It’s too late, Callum.”
“No,” said Callum, not letting himself believe it.
“It’s already done. I’m sorry.”
“No.”
“We have to go.”
But what was the point, without Tom? What did it matter where he went? He could travel to the biggest city in the world, and he would be alone. He could spend the rest of his life on the beach under the blazing sun, and without Tom sitting beside him and offering him a mug of hot chocolate, the world would always be cold. The future his brother was holding out to him was nothing but dust in his hands, because all he could offer was a life without the person that had shown him life was worth living.
He wanted to collapse back down to the floor. He wanted to tell his brother to go to his father and undo the deal he had made for Callum’s life, because Callum didn’t want it anymore.
But if Tom were here, he wouldn’t have let Callum do any of that. He would have said Callum was stronger than that.
And he would have been right.
Callum swallowed his tears. There would be time for them later. He stood up straight and squared his shoulders, but when his brother started walking, he didn’t follow. “What about Leila?” he asked.
His brother stopped, already shaking his head. “No, Callum. Let this go. You have a chance to get out of here, just like you’ve always wanted—so take it, and stop trying to fight a battle you can’t win.”
“Is she still here?”
“Let it go, Callum. You’re not part of this life anymore.”
“She is, isn’t she?”
Alec sighed and turned around. “What do you want? Do you want to send her back to her mother so she can tell everyone all about where she was and what happened to her, before she ends up right back here again because her addict mother can’t pay what she owes? Do you really think that’s something worth fighting for?”
“A child’s life is always worth fighting for,” Callum snapped, his tone sharp enough that his brother’s eyes widened in response. “And no, that’s not what I want. I want her to come with me. You said I could go anywhere, right? So make it both of us.”
“He’ll never say yes to that. We’re lucky he agreed to as much as he did. I still don’t trust him not to change his mind, which is why we need to leave now.” Alec motioned him forward.
Callum didn’t move. “He doesn’t have to agree to it. You’re the only one he trusts with her—that means you know where she is. If we move fast, no one will know she’s gone until our plane is in the air… and he won’t be able to send anyone after us without telling the higher-ups what’s going on. We both know he wouldn’t want that.”
“You know I can’t—”
“Why not?” Callum challenged. “Blame it on me, if you’re worried about what he’ll do to you—say I got her out somehow before I left, and you didn’t know it before I was gone. Or just say she escaped and you don’t know how. But we both know he won’t do anything to you anyway. He needs you—that’s why he agreed to your deal in the first place. And if you’re worried about her telling the wrong people about what happened to her, do you really think that will matter once we’re halfway across the world? Send us as far away as it takes to make you feel comfortable. Send us to a desert island, for all I care.”
When his brother didn’t respond, Callum kept going. “You don’t like this either. I saw it when I was talking to you earlier. You can almost convince yourself you’re okay with it, but you know it isn’t right. She’s a child. She’s alone and she’s scared. She doesn’t deserve any of what’s happening to her, and you know it as well as I do.” He held his breath, praying that he had been right, and that his brother’s lack of a quick response meant that some part of him wanted to do what Callum was asking.
Alec still said nothing. Now Callum was sure of it—Alec was hesitating. Some part of him, at least, knew that this was wrong.
“You have a chance to make this right,” said Callum. “And if you don’t take it, I think you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.”
The time it took for Alec to respond felt like several eternities.
“Listening to you is what I’m going to regret,” Alec finally muttered. But there was no venom in his words. “Come on. Let’s go grab the girl and get your asses out of here.” He looked behind him impatiently as he started walking—in the other direction this time. “Hurry up, all right? If we’re going to do this, we have to do it fast.”
Callum let out his breath all at once as he hurried after Alec. “Thank you.”
“Just don’t get us caught. That’s all the thanks I need.”
They seemed to travel forever through the vast cluttered space. They hugged the wall, sometimes squeezing past the abandoned machinery, sometimes passing through open spaces that reminded Callum of clearings in a forest. Finally, they reached a staircase—but one that led down, not up. Another level he had never seen.
The stairs led only to a single door. Alec pulled a key from his pocket, and at first Callum thought it was the one Alec had used to free him, until he turned it in the lock. The door clicked open.
“What’s down here?” Callum asked, his voice hushed.
“The kid,” said Alec. “That’s all you need to know. And if Dad knew I was bringing you here, I don’t know what would happen, so let’s go.” He sounded more on edge than Callum had ever heard him.
Callum followed Alec through the door.
The room wasn’t as vast as the space upstairs, but it couldn’t be called small, either. And through the entire room, metal shelves stretched to the ceiling. The shelves were filled with nothing but brown file boxes, each labeled with a year and a different three- or four-letter code. Callum opened the closest box and reached for one of the papers inside, but couldn’t see what it said before Alec pushed his hand away.
“That’s not what we’re here for.” Callum definitely wasn’t imagining the tension in his voice. “Wait here while I get her. Don’t touch anything.” With a last nervous look behind him, he strode through the shelves to a door on the far wall.
As soon as the door closed behind Alec, Callum opened the box again. His eyes widened as he paged through the sheets inside… and widened still further as he moved on to the next box, and the next. He understood now why nobody—or almost nobody—knew this room existed, and why his brother had gotten so on edge at bringing someone else down here. These were records. Records of everything his father and the people under him had done since his father had been put in charge… and of his own father’s dealings as well, Callum was pretty sure, judging by the dates on the boxes. The files were clearly meant only for Callum’s father and his inner circle, and some effort had been made to obscure the specifics. But for someone who knew the Syndicate as well as Callum, they were easy enough to understand, even if he didn’t know the exact code words being used.
Everything he needed to bring his father down was right here in this room.
Except that he couldn’t exactly carry even one of these boxes out of here without his brother noticing, and whatever else Alec had agreed to, there was no chance he would turn a blind eye to that. The only way any of this would ever see the light of day was if Callum grabbed what he could, made a run for it before Alec came back, and hoped he could make it out of the building and over the fence without anyone spotting him.
And Leila would still be here.
It wasn’t even a choice.
When Alec came back, Callum was leaning against the wall by the door, a safe distance away from the boxes and the secrets they held. He thought Alec looked relieved when he saw him there—but his attention was focused elsewhere, on the figure trailing behind Alec.
Leila.
When she saw him, her tearstained face broke into a smile. She ran to him and wrapped her arms around him. He hugged her back fiercely, feeling a little warm inside for the first time since Alec had told him about Tom.
Maybe the world wouldn’t be an entirely cold place without Tom after all.
Alec waved them both forward, toward the door that led to the stairs. “You can have your happy reunion later. Right now we need to get out of here.”
“Are we going to find my dad?” Leila asked.
Callum’s throat closed up when he tried to answer. He couldn’t say it. That conversation would need to happen before long—but not yet.
He forced back the tears that threatened as he met Leila’s eyes. “If you could go anywhere in the world,” he asked her, “where would you go?”