The Academy (Part 2 of the Syndicate Series)

Chapter 12- Sending the Bag

Belle:

Something felt wrong. Deep in my gut, there was a nagging feeling telling me to be scared, to worry and be on alert, but it wasn't.... For me. Blaise and I trying to pass this message along in a duffel bag could go wrong and get us into a lot of trouble, but the level of anxiety I felt couldn't only be attributed to that. Without any good reason, I was terrified for my sister.

I thought about telling Blaise, but I didn't know if he believed in that whole 'twin connection' sort of thing. Rosine and I had joked about it our whole lives, but I was feeling it more now that we were separated a longer time than ever before. It was causing so much worry that I couldn't stop fidgeting or pacing around whatever room I might be occupying at that point. My father tried to keep me busy so that I wouldn't think or ask about my sister. He had even spent all morning talking about the invitations for the party that had come in today, like that would make me feel better and forget that my Rosine was in serious danger. In anger, I had just thrown the pile of perfectly printed pages onto the side table in the foyer and stomped up the stairs.

The duffel and hidden message seemed to be more important now than ever, but my father kept putting it off, and I didn't want to press my luck too far. Now that my worry for Rosine was boiling over, I couldn't handle waiting any longer. I wasn't going to just wait around anymore.

I strode into the gym where I knew that my uncle and Blaise were sparring. I myself didn't like fighting with my fists very much, but it was mesmerizing watch, and I had always been in awe of the way that Rosine could make it look like a sort of a dance.

"Time to get this show on the road," I announced to the room, holding out the duffel that was strapped over my shoulder.

Blaise looked at it excitedly, ready to play out our next part of the plan to get his friend home. Uncle Claude seemed a little more hesitant, but nodded, knowing that we needed to find a way to get her home, and in order to do that, we had to open a line of communication.

They followed me as I headed towards the front hall where I had last seen my father. A couple of the other men tagged along, those who disliked the way things were being run and had been 'unhappy' with the way things were run lately, as my uncle put it. I wasn't sure if it was for moral support or because they wanted to know more about what happened to my sister, but I wasn't going to complain about having backup.

My father was still standing in the marble foyer, heatedly discussing something with one of the few men that I understood to be completely devoted to him. They were looking at a page of something, but I didn't really care. I was gaining confidence it seemed, before my sister was shipped off I never would have dared interrupt my father. Now I walked right up to him and drew back my shoulders.

"If you're too busy, I can take this to Rosine, just give me the address."

It was a pretty weak bluff that I was playing, because even though I had my license, Rosine and I were let out of their house so rarely that I never really drove. I just wanted to make the point that if he wouldn't carry through on his end of the deal, I would do something about it. My father slowly lowered his paper and stared at my uncle.

"Claude, have you already looked through it?"

"Yes sir. There's nothing in there that you wouldn't approve of."

My father trusted him more than he should have, but not entirely. My uncle was a convincing liar, he had to be if he was going to be a good right hand for my father. But it may end up being the downfall of the syndicate as my father knew it.

My father seemed to trust the declaration, but he grabbed the bag from the floor anyways and unzipped the top as he strode out onto the front steps of the house, nodding to the man he was previously talking to and muttering something about bringing the car around. I had carefully folded all of the items, but he tugged them out and tossed them onto the ground as he looked through it all.