William and Mateo each fist-bumped him, but I wasn’t buying it.
“What did you do?” I asked.
“Come on, dude. This is a good day. Problem one solved,” William said.
“Yeah, problem one solved, but what do we have to pay for it? Sian’s not the kind of girl to submit willingly. You promised her something. I want to know if we’re going to be able to deliver it or not.”
“Can’t we worry about that when it comes?” Gideon asked.
“What did you do?”
“Why can’t we just have a day where we can celebrate?” Mateo asked.
Gideon spoke up. “We can. We don’t have to worry about anything else.”
William sighed. “Yeah, we do. There’s no way I can carry on without knowing what you did. What did you agree to?”
Mateo was the same.
Sian had been against us from the start. There was no way she’d cave so easily. Whatever Gideon offered, I knew it was going to be a big fucking stretch to give her.
When he told us, I wanted to pummel his ass.
He finished speaking and I stared at him.
“What?” Mateo asked.
“We’ll deal with that problem when we get to it.”
I couldn’t help it. Putting a hand on my stomach, I laughed, and kept on laughing. I couldn’t stop. This was just priceless.
I reached up to rest one of my hands on the bleachers. “This is … wow, fuck.”
“You can laugh now. We’ll deal with that problem when it comes.”
“When it comes? Gideon, we don’t have that kind of power. You know the rules. She’s ours, and we tell her what to do. She belongs to us. She is a Roberts!”
“So, Mateo has an entire media empire. He’s got a couple of book publishers there. We can make this work.”
“Guys, I hate to throw another wrench in the works, but Sian’s mom was our dads’ selected,” Mateo said.
This made me turn to Mateo. “What? How the fuck did you find that out?”
My dad had told me about the selected in graphic detail. Some of the shit they did was extreme.
“I’ve got a guy who can find this stuff out, and no, I’m not saying anything. The less we all know, the better.”
“Sian’s mom,” William said. “Is that why she was chosen for us? If so, then that means from the moment Sian was born, she was meant to be ours, right?”
We all looked at each other, none of us having the answers.
“When you’re born into The Society, there is no way out,” I said. It was a statement my father had told me many times. It came out as more of a warning.
William spread his arms out. “Wait, whoa, hold up. Now, please tell me I’m following, but if Sian’s mom was our dads’, who the fuck fathered her? I’m not banging a sister here. That shit is messed up.”
“A guy named Alexander,” Mateo said. “And he has pretty close ties with our folks as well.”
“I’ve never heard of him,” I said.
“No, but you would recognize him. He’s our dads’ lawyer,” Mateo said. “He’s the one who draws up all the documents.”
“Wait, so let me get this straight. Our dads have an instant shot at The Society, their chosen one is Sian’s mom, and then they marry her off to their friend?” I asked, frowning. “Why their daughter for us?”
“To keep it all in line,” Gideon said.
This was the first time he’d spoken up since Mateo had dropped that little piece of information.
“Isn’t it?” Gideon asked.
“I don’t have the reasonings for it,” Mateo said. “All I know is something is going on, and I don’t like it. I haven’t found out everything, but they hide the selection.”
“Of course, they do. It’s why it’s top secret,” I said.
“Sian’s mom forced her to do this,” William said. “And she knew what it entailed.”
“And my dad is not above using force,” Gideon said.
“I’m not liking this,” Mateo said. “I’m not liking this one fucking bit.”
“We’re in too deep,” Gideon said.
“So we use her?” Mateo asked.
“What choice do we have?”
“Let’s be real right now. The only thing keeping Sian in line is the threat to Heather. Why did she turn up all of a sudden? Is she part of the play?” I asked. I had considered Heather to be a civilian, but I couldn’t help but be a little paranoid.
“Do you think she was placed here on purpose to keep Sian in line?”
“From the moment she was born to three years ago, Sian’s life is a total blank. I’ve got my guy on it, but so far, it’s all been a bust. We don’t know anything, not even the school she went to.”
“River High,” William said. “She told us.”
Mateo pulled his cell phone out.
I noticed immediately it wasn’t a regular phone, and I couldn’t help but think about how fucked up our life was. What kind of teenage boys had burner cell phones and lived this life? We’d never been given the luxury of being teenagers.