Total pages in book: 125
Estimated words: 125248 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 501(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 125248 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 626(@200wpm)___ 501(@250wpm)___ 417(@300wpm)
Furi flinched.
Ro reached for his beer. “And if he acts like a martyr, I’ll handle him.”
Hart sat back. “Free can still make this disappear for you.”
Furi shook his head again, despite how much he wanted to say, ‘yes’.
They played pool after that and no one mentioned the videos anymore.
When the second game ended, Furi set the cue back on the rack, knowing he couldn’t stall any longer.
Syn would be heading out to delivery drive soon if he wasn’t already.
They each hugged him again before he got on his bike.
“Call me after,” Ro said.
Furi nodded against his shoulder. “I will.”
“I mean it.”
“I know.”
He thanked them and waited for each of them to pull out of the parking lot before he cranked up his bike and shoved his helmet on.
The ride home felt much shorter than usual.
When he turned onto their street, he saw the porch light was on and Syn’s car was still sitting in the driveway.
Furi’s heart slammed against his ribcage.
Syn
Syn had been home almost three hours before he made his final decision.
Three hours of pacing from the kitchen to the front room, from the front room to the bedroom, from the bedroom back to the kitchen.
His one night he’d decided to take off wasn’t supposed to go like this.
He’d planned on taking a long, hot soak in a tub filled with Epsom salts, eating dinner with Furi, and—after they’d cleaned and locked up—taking Furi upstairs to do him slowly if he had patience… hard if he didn’t.
He wanted Furi’s hair in his fists, his long body on top of him, and his deep voice in his ear.
Instead, he was sitting at the breakfast counter in the dark, the only light coming from the small bulb over the stove and the glow of his laptop screen.
His hands were balled so tightly on the counter his knuckles ached.
The house was quiet, but not peaceful. Not with his friend Mason’s voice still ricocheting in the back of his mind.
His last delivery had been across town, a stupidly expensive sushi order to a woman who’d stared at him through her ring camera for several seconds before telling him to leave it on the bench.
On his way back to his car, sweat sticking his shirt to his back and irritation chewing at the base of his skull, his phone rang.
Mason’s name flashed across his screen, making him smile.
Mason was a brilliant, tough-as-hell cop. After he’d made detective, he’d been on the fast track to joining the task force before the audit bullshit. He had the instincts for it too, that hunger for real justice and a grit strong enough for the work.
Syn had liked him almost immediately and Free loved him.
He answered before the second ring.
“Yo, Mase. Long time no hear, man. How’s the new title treatin’ ya?”
Mason laughed, low and easy. “Well, it’s not as exciting as the task force would’ve been, but I can get used to not wearing that blue polyester in one-hundred-and-five-degree heat.”
“No doubt,” Syn chuckled as he unlocked his car. “How’s Jesse?”
“He’s great. He’s been made head of the English department at the high school. We’re going out to celebrate this weekend. I wanted to ask if you and Furi could join us, make it a double celebration.”
Syn snorted, tossing the empty delivery bag onto the passenger seat.
“Oh yeah? And what am I celebrating? The fact that I haven’t been brought up on charges by IA yet?”
Mason laughed again. “I meant Furi. His new video that came out last week is breaking records. You guys must be through the roof. I didn’t know he was back in the business. Jesse loves his films. He says they’re classy and romantic, not like the weird shit their putting out these days.”
Syn stopped moving, the car door hanging open.
What?
“Sydney?”
Silence.
“Bro, you still there?”
Mason’s jovial energy died on the line.
Syn couldn’t answer as he stared over the roof of his car seeing nothing, his ears filling with a low buzzing pressure.
“Shit,” Mason muttered. “Syn, I…”
More silence.
“Damn man, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize that you didn’t…”
Know a single fucking thing about it? No I didn’t.
“I just…I didn’t watch it. I’d never,” Mason hurried and added. “I only know about it because Jesse was talking my ear off and…”
Syn squeezed the phone.
Mason was quiet a beat longer, then said in a somber voice, “I’m sorry.”
The line went dead.
Syn sat there sweating for another full ten minutes with the phone still gripped in his fist.
When his mind came back online and was able to continue giving commands to his body, he drove home.
Now, three hours later…he knew everything.
Actually, no he didn’t. He didn’t know the reasons for the lies, the secrecy, or what Furi told himself to make him think it was all right to do this without talking to him first, but he knew enough.
Illustra’s homepage glowed—like a beacon of betrayal—on the laptop screen in front of him.