Page 122 of Unexpected Redemption

The excitement of the moment has waned, leaving us standing around with our metaphorical dicks in our hands.

“Well, I guess that’s it for now.” Big Al lengthens his neck into a slow roll, his posture softening since the intense moment has faded. “Let me know if you hear back. Any other updates before I head to my office?”

I open my mouth to speak, but Mia’s yelp startles my lips shut.

“He replied!”

In four fast strides, I’m behind her, with Boss and Klein flanking me.

“Holy shit,” Klein lends words to all our thoughts as we read it together.

No help is requiredfor me. After all, I am the wax. Once the sun sets low in the sky, I’ll fly free. Like your butterfly. In the meantime, I’ll send someone special with a present you can use to coax the sun behind the first cloud. Await instructions.

-The Architect

“I’ll sendsomeone special with a present,” I recite quietly, my mind reeling and pulse thrumming.“Not to look a gift horse in the mouth, but I’ve had enough surprises from these bastards.”

“How can he be the architect and the wax?” Klein mumbles, lost in thought. “Is he making wings now?”

I snap my fingers repeatedly, trying to yank my memories of Yuri’s first interrogation to the front of my mind. “Mia, what did Yuri say about the wax?”

Mia toggles over to a different screen to access the transcript. Her finger runs down the monitor as she searches for it. “Here it is.”

She throws her voice in a halfway decent impression of the old Russian shitbag. “Not wax feathers, Shepherd. Wax holdsfeathers and threads together. Binds them. Can’t make feathers from wax.”

“He’s not only the architect. He’s the wax.” Boss bunches his hands, lacing his fingertips closed as if sealing them. “He’s binding something together.”

“What if he’s holding the mafia together?” I suggest. “He’s powerful but still trapped in the labyrinth. He’s the glue holding it together, which means he’s also the one who can destroy it. That’s why he’s not giving us everything he has on them at once. If he did, he’d go down with the rest of them. He’d melt. So he’s waiting for sunset until he flies.”

My mind works frantically, trying to formulate the words as fast as the puzzle has come together.

Klein asks, “What does sunset represent?”

“The bratva falling.”Again, I spin to face the whiteboard. “He’s giving us something to take down one of these columns.The first cloud. He must have removed himself from one of these categories. This is how it all begins. Once he extricates himself from another crime ring, he’ll give us the missing evidence to eliminate it. Again and again. The sky will get darker and darker until Lenkov falls and the architect escapes.”

“He needs us to take them down slowly so he can free himself.” Boss claps me on the shoulder. “You figured it out, son. Good fucking job.”

Too bad it was something I did that got him to call me that again instead of me just being myself.

But I’ll fucking take it. Like Rome, the labyrinth wasn’t built in a day.

Chapter 26

What a time to be alive

LETTIE

If knowing Stella for nearly all my born days has taught me anything, it’s small packages can pack a big wallop.Today, this lesson has been proven once more.

I’ve been dismissed. Banished. Kicked to the curb.

By a tiny woman with a deceptively saccharine smile.

Except I’m not on the curb; I’m in a rather comfy waiting room with Sammy and Sawyer.

Perhaps being thrown out like waste isn’t the right metaphor since Jaynie politely asked me to wait here while Tomer has his first therapy session.

He’s on the other side of the door, talking to an old spitfire of a woman with wild hair and no less than six pencils sticking out of it. Initially, I was in with them, exactly as he asked of me. Holding his hand and standing by him as he took this huge step.

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