Page 47 of The Knight

I take a deep breath in. Let it out through my nose. Tell myself that I only feel like I'm making a decision I'll regret. If I do this, then soon, it'll all be over.

"I'm going to testify with Georgia. I'm going to do it."

I've made my choice. There's no going back now.

I hope it's not the last choice I get to make.

Chapter 20

After my music class, I spend some time in the outdoor pavilion where it's held, enjoying the rays of afternoon sun leaking in through the sides of the tent. It's been cold all winter, but now that the sun has come out I feel warmer than I've been in a long time.

In a few hours, Georgia and I are going to go to the police to tell them what happened at the private airport hanger.

I don't know what happens after that. The future is a blank space, waiting for somebody to write the next part of the story. For the first time that person will be me.

I think of Silas, and pinch the scar on the base of my thumb where the snake bit me the day that I found him hanging from a tree.

Maybe if the police open an investigation into Hass, they'll open an investigation into my brother's death too, and I'll finally be able to breathe again.

"Brenna." I turn at my name, surprised to see Blake entering the tent, his cheeks reddened from the cold and the sun. "We need to talk—somewhere private preferably. Come with me."

I frown at him. "What's this about?"

Standing at the entrance to the tent, he shifts back and forth impatiently. "Just follow me. It's important."

Sighing, I grab my backpack and stand up, the weight of Silas's laptop resting against my back. At this point I'm starting to resign myself to the reality that it might only ever be a brick to me, the closed-off partition reminding me of how little I ever truly knew my brother while he was still alive.

"Where are we going?" I ask Blake, as he leads me down a path away from the Coleridge Center. "I've never been this way."

"This is where the advanced computer classes are held," he says, leading me to a small building and swiping his ID by the door. "No one is here this time of day."

I follow him inside, the sound of fans greeting me on the other side of the door. Three rows of tables hold monitors, and on one side is a long row of black boxes that are clearly servers. Despite the cold outside, it's cold in here too, no doubt to keep the computer equipment from overheating.

"You take a class here?"

"Yes. Don’t look so surprised. They hold advanced math classes here too.” He paces down the rows of computers and opens a door that leads to a small room full of comfortable chairs, built-in wall shelves holding thick volumes of esoteric programming books. "In here. No one will find us."

A strange thrill goes through me as I walk into the room, goosebumps rising along the skin of my arms. Here I am, alone with Blake, just like yesterday in the woods when we kissed so long and so hard that I felt his desire for me even hours afterwards, imprinted on the tender skin of my lips. I can still feel the strength of his hands digging into the curve of my waist, can almost taste his bittersweet mouth on mine.

But as he turns to face me, arms crossed over his chest, it becomes abundantly clear that we're not here to makeout. We're here to talk about something, and I have the feeling I won't like what he has to say.

"You need to know the truth." The seriousness in his voice catches me off guard, so I sit down on one of the study chairs next to the bookshelves, watching as he takes a seat opposite me. "I'm tired of all these half-truths and outright lies. If you're going to testify, Brenna, someone has to tell you what you're up against."

"I've been asking that for weeks now," I point out. "Why would you tell me when the others won't?"

"Because I'm not as embedded in all this as them. Not as scared as them. Maybe not as scared as Ishouldbe." He folds his hands on his knees, looking very serious. "My mother's career in Korea has sheltered my family from some of their influence, and though my father has had his unfortunate...dealingswith them, we're not old Western money. Not like the Mastersons or the DuPonts. And we're not in politics like the Connallys. So the Syndicate doesn't have control over me like they do over the others, and they don't have any dirt on my family, either."

"The Syndicate?" I blink at him. "That sounds very... organized crime."

"What else would you call dark money in politics and international monopolies that destroy small businesses? Officially, they're an underground network of old money types who make business dealings and help each other out of a jam. They dofavorsand court influence. If money passes hands, that's just what they've been doing for generations. That's the cover, at least." He grimaces. "Unofficially, people who get in their way or look at them too closely tend to disappear in very sudden ways. The cops don't tend to get involved, either because the deaths look like an accident or..."

"Suicide." My hands tremble, and I have to fold them together. "So those men who killed Silas, who kidnapped me were..."

"The arm of the Syndicate, yes. Or in this case, low life thugs working for them. Those at the top rarely get their hands dirty—at least, not like this. They're fans of going ondateswithmodels," he says, putting air quotes around emphasized words, "who are in reality trafficked female escorts. They do plenty of drugs, have wild parties, and break the law in big blue collar ways like insider trading. But they don't kill teenagers. That's dirty work that they leave to the lowest level."

Setting down my backpack, I pull Silas's laptop out of it, suddenly certain what I'll find on it. "You think my brother had dirt on the Syndicate?"

"I think he most definitely did, because he was one of their drug dealers. Not that he had direct dealings with them—at least, as far as I know he didn't. They weren't exactly the type to come visit Wayborne Virginia. But he must've had some sort of dealings with enough people in their organization to get curious, or paranoid, and start digging."

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