“Wait. Wiring her up?”
“We need eyes and ears when she goes in,” he said.
“That wasn’t part of the plan.”
“If you want us to know if she needs us to storm the castle, we need ears at a minimum. Anything we see that can give us a leg up is just a bonus.”
“Give me the number,” I said.
I hung up with him and dialed.
“Hello?” Violet’s voice trembled ever so slightly. She was nervous.
“Vi, it’s me.”
“If you’d told me a week ago I’d be helping the FBI, I would have told you that you were dreaming.” She hid the tremble with humor.
“Are you okay?”
“Yep. Nolan here happens to think the imaginary company I came up with for Jada and me is a sure thing. He says we should definitely do it, and then, once we’ve made a small name for ourselves, we should sell the entire company toGrâce Charmanteinstead of just the antimicrobial.”
I couldn’t help the smile that hit me. Vi, rambling about the things she loved most. Geeking out on me. But it was also her way of finding a calm in her storm. A storm I was now responsible for.
“Violet.” My throat clogged with emotions again just as they had on the boat. So many words I couldn’t say.
“We’re going to be fine. Jada and I both. We’re survivors.”
God, it was the truth. But neither one of them should have had to be. Both their childhoods had been fucked up. Once upon a time, I’d allowed myself to believe my childhood was miserable because I had an uncaring dad and a mom who believed in kids raising themselves.
It took Truck bringing me to New London and seeing, firsthand, Jersey and Violet’s messed-up life for me to realize the truth. I had Truck, who loved me more than any other person did. I had grandparents who made sure Mom didn’t go so far off the rails that we didn’t have a home or food on the table. I had a dad who’d given me all the material things the average American kid wanted, even if he couldn’t give me the things I’d really yearned for. Love. Respect.
Instead, I’d sought those elsewhere, determined to be the goddamn golden boy of our high school. I’d succeeded in being the center of that small world. Sleeping around. Drinking. Racing cars and boats. Blowing engines. I’d almost thrown my life?and others’?away doing it. As it was, I was the reason Carlos was left without a limb and a life completely altered.
Truck and the Banner women had shown me the light. Leena and Mandy had a hand in it as well. Dax had given me a dream to work toward, and Malone had given me an even deeper purpose.
But here I was, still doing reckless things that put everyone at risk.
“She’s going to be okay,” Violet said softly after I hadn’t replied, as I allowed my brain to spiral out of control.
“What’s your code word?” I grunted out.
“Termites,” she said.
I laughed. “Termites?”
“You do remember Leena falling through the floor of the kitchen, right?”
I chuckled at the memory. “Yes. I also remember you giving us a lecture on their potentially lifesaving qualities.”
“Ah. The good old days. When I still thought I’d be a decent person and save the world with some super insect power.”
“You don't need to save the world to be a good person. I'm supposedly saving the world, and I'm still a shitty person.” The words were out before I could take them back, sounding self-pitying and more the boy I’d been when she had first encountered me and less the man I was now.
“You’re not a shitty person,” she said quietly. “You’ve never been a shitty person.”
“Selfish. This whole thing is selfish.”
“Saving Jada isn’t selfish. Stopping whatever it is that’s going on with her family…that isn’t either.”
