Page 13 of After 5

I waited for Jake to say something, anything, to support Caiyan’s decision to leave the WTF.

“Agent McGregor has turned in his badge, and as far as the WTF is concerned is considered a brigand.”

OK, not the words of comfort I wanted. I crossed my arms over my chest.

Jake sighed, “He gave me his word, he would not disclose our location.”

The room grew quiet. Campy dropped his chin to his chest, the celebration of his victory forgotten. Caiyan hadn’t contacted Campy either. The loss took its toll. Caiyan was more of a big brother to Campy than an uncle, and the only male role model he’d ever had in his young life.

Caiyan was the first WTF agent to ever work both sides of the fence. If Jake trusted him to keep his word, so would I. My inner voice began ticking off, on her fingers, all the times he lied to me. When she took off her shoes, I cut our connection.

Jake stood and relayed his laptop to the projection screen via a handheld remote. A world map appeared on the screen with each location of our recent travels marked with a red X.

“As you know, McGregor doesn’t have a key, so if he’s traveling it must be with Mahlia, or the Mafusos are loaning him a key. We’ve been trying to follow him, but so far, we haven’t had any luck.”

I swallowed hard. The sticky situation Caiyan had his fingers in stuck in my throat along with the glazed donut hole.

“Those wanker brigands have us on a wild goose chase,” Brodie said. “We’ve been following the Mafusos, but there’s been no sign of McGregor.”

“I agree,” I said. “We thought we were searching Salem for Mahlia but found Toecheese instead. He told us he wanted to see a witch burn at the stake.”

Campy’s eyes widened like he might also find that cool. I frowned at him and he schooled his face. Shameful.

“They didn’t burn witches—” Gerry started.

“Yep, that’s what we told him.” I ended the sentence for him.

Gerry leaned forward and interlocked his fingers on the table. “Same for us.” He tilted his head Tina’s direction. “We chased that tall, drink of water, Mahlia, to Paris. Thought we were chasing Mortas, but we found her at the Moulin Rouge.”

“You should have seen it, Montmartre in all its glory. Cancan dancers, champagne, and music. Ever since I saw the movie Moulin Rouge, I’ve wanted to see the elephant,” Tina said.

“Girl, I loved that one. I didn’t know Nicole Kidman could sing,” Ace said, and Tina agreed.

“Can’t say I minded the trip, but Mahlia didn’t do anything illegal. Didn’t even seem like she was scouting the place. Just enjoying herself. She had her little brother with her,” Gerry said.

“How is that possible?” I asked Jake. “Toecheese was wearing Mahlia’s key.”

“How do you know?” Gerry arched a suspicious eyebrow at me.

My inner voice held up a flash card of rule # 216b. If you are not arresting a brigand, you cannot violate them by identifying their key.

“Uhm…”

“He lost his cravat in the fall,” Marco’s reply came as he entered the room. “I saw it, too.”

He sat down next to Campy and helped himself to a nutritious bar with lots of good, healthy grains.

“Do you think one of them is wearing the Thunder?” Brodie asked.

We only knew of four keys the Mafusos owned—Mortas’s, Mahlia’s, Caiyan’s, and the Thunder key, which originally belonged to Toches but he refused to wear it because he claimed the key was cursed.

“Knowing Gian-Carlo’s superstitious ways, I doubt he would allow any of his grandchildren to wear it,” Marco said.

“Since Mortas didn’t jump this cycle, my guess would be Mitchell wore the key that belongs to Mortas, and,” Jake paused and turned to meet my curious gaze, “Mahlia was wearing Caiyan’s key.”

My jaw went slack, and Jake continued. “His key showed up on the travel screen after Gerry and Tina jumped. I thought Gian-Carlo was finally allowing him to use his key, but now I believe differently.”

“With the addition of the new grandson who has power, the Mafusos are short a few keys,” Brodie said.

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