The Sunshine Boy and the Weaver King

Chapter Sixteen

He was walking around with a metaphorical target on his back, so he started behaving differently. He couldn't help it. 

The first lesson he'd learned from his parents was to never show when you were shaken. You could be about to piss your pants, but you'd never actually do it. You'd suck it up. You'd stare right at whatever was scaring you, and you'd keep doing exactly what you'd done before. 

Routine. 

Live it, breathe it, become it, and when absolutely necessary, start over from scratch. 

But he couldn't start over from scratch, not with his classes in full swing now and with Burke breathing down his neck. He'd blown his cover completely, and so now he just had to wait for someone to come get him. 

Except that he didn't want to wait. That was his parents' strategy, and he'd basically trashed their name, so why keep following their rules? 

So, he did the one thing his parents would say to not do. 

He called Jesse. 

"Hey, man," came the familiar drawl. "I heard about what happened at The Solstice. How you holding up?"

"I'm not going to ask you where you are," Anthony said lowly, "because I know I won't find you. And I'm not going to ask you where my parents are, because I know you're basically their slave. So what I'm going to ask is this. Do you know who the Weaver is?"

A long silence. 

"Jesse--"

"Hold the fuck up, man," Jesse said. He sounded happy, as he always did, but Anthony knew he was treading thin ice. One wrong line and this would blow back up on him. "I don't know what you think your bloodline buys you, but this ain't it. I gave you a freebie once and that's all that you get. After what you pulled, you're lucky I picked up your call."

"You'd pick up my call no matter what, and you know it." Anthony paused for a moment, then plunged ahead. "I name-dropped you at the Solstice. She knows you're the one who told me where to find Burke."

"You did what?"

"Figure out how useful you are to my parents when you're dead and buried," Anthony said, "and when you're done, answer my damn question."

For a moment, all Anthony could hear was his own breathing and his pulse hammering in his ears. What if this doesn't work? What if Jesse tells my parents everything and they hunt me down and kill me themselves? What if my parents offered him their protection?

"Fine." Jesse sighed. "Whatever. Shit. Yes. Yes, I know who the Weaver is."

Which meant that there was absolutely, positively no way his parents did not. Which meant that his suspicion that his parents worked for the Weaver at some point was basically confirmed. Which meant that the reason they'd been hunted was not because they refused to pick a side but because they did. They chose bad. 

Anthony gripped his phone tighter. Focus. Focus. "Thanks."

"Go fuck yourself," Jesse replied merrily. 

Anthony hung up and tossed his phone onto his bed. 

Okay. So. Jesse did not have his parents' protection. Or anyone's protection. He had his information and his little web, but no strings with which to control Anthony. Which would piss him off. Which meant that Anthony now had another enemy to add to the list. 

Sure, Maya had said with a grimace, knowing full well how badly he was staying balanced amid all of... this.

But an early and untimely death was, at this point, pretty inevitable.