Yes, no, yes, no, yes.
Yes.
Elliot was a yes, and I bloody knew it.
I shut my eyes, slashed my finger across the screen. There, it was done. Carefully, I opened one eye and looked down at the screen, ready to accept my fate.
We had a percentage score, which meant he’d said yes to me, too. It was ninety-six percent.
Nineteen
Ninety-six freaking percent. Elliot and I were nearly a perfect match.
And this meant I was a yes. We were a yes. Is that what he’d been trying to tell me? Had I shut down a romantic confession? Of course, I was precisely that stubborn, wasn’t I?
I had to find him.
I flew from the study, through the dining room and kitchen and to the back stairs. Ben had been putting Carina to bed, so Elliot must have come down here to find him. A sound from the opposite end of the corridor stopped me short. Raised voices. Urgent, but not angry, and definitely male. Ben and Elliot. I didn’t even have to think about it before my body was heading toward the sound.
My heart fluttered in my chest at the sound of Elliot’s voice echoing out from the open cargo-bay door, but then Ben said something that stopped it cold.
“You can’t keep this from her anymore. This is her ship. And you brought her here. Now she’s involved.”
“She gave me no choice.”
“Did she, now?” Ben’s tone was wry, like he clearly didn’t believe him. “This is a good start, but you know it’s not enough,” he continued. “She might help you, if you ask her.”
“I’m concerned that our position on board the Scandinavian has been compromised,” Elliot said. “This is all I have right now. And I want to ask her; I do. I’m just not sure.”
I inched closer to the door, aware that now I was in the awkward position of basically eavesdropping—I’d lost my chance to barge in naturally and honestly. Now I’d have to listen and wait, even though I was desperate to shout out questions. What was Elliot keeping from me, wanting to tell me, wanting me to help with?
“Max and Ewan going missing is a huge problem,” Ben said darkly.
“I’ll find them,” Elliot said. “I have to.”
“Do it quickly. I’ll need more coffee, dehydrated dairy, and grains if we’re going to make a real run of it here. Find them, or work her.”
“You’re not in a position to give me orders, Ben. You’re like a brother to me, but this is my operation.”
Operation. My blood froze, and I turned Ben’s list over in my head again: coffee, dry milk, and grains. Supplies. I thought about the Linds’ coffee stores running low. The missing crate of champagne. The locked pantry. I closed my eyes and inhaled a deep breath through my nose.
Gingerly I turned myself around, hugging the door frame and angling my head back and around to peer inside.
“Yes, and you’ve pulled me into it,” Ben said, the conversation skipping along. “The Orlovs, too. I’m not going to recruit operatives if you can’t guarantee their safety.”
My eyes confirmed my worst fears. Crates and crates of supplies—more than my family could hope to have.
Fury washed through me, cold and black and uncompromising like merciless space. I stepped into the door frame, caring not one whit that I had been spying on them, that they might be dangerous. My vision narrowed to a single line, straight from me to Elliot. I drew another deep breath, and then I unleashed my fire.
“How could you?”
My voice rang out, and it was foreign to my own ears. Sharp, and hard, like ice.
Elliot and Ben snapped to attention, both sputtering excuses, which I didn’t listen to. I charged inside, taking in the full scope of the room. Our family supplies had been shunted into a dusty corner, and the rest of the space was filled with so many boxes. Boxes stamped Property of the Scandinavian. Plus a few with the Lady Liberty’s emblem. And the Versailles. The Nikkei. My stomach roiled.
“You’re stealing from us?”
“It’s not what you think,” Elliot stammered.
“I think you’re smuggling goods from the Scandinavian to other ships,” I said, indicating the boxes. “You’re involved in the black market.”
“I told you she was clever.” Ben’s tone was just one degree away from a quip.
“And you’re hiding contraband on my ship,” I hissed. “If you’re caught, we’ll be implicated. They’ll take the Sofi, and we’ll go to prison! Or worse, they’ll kill us.”
“I wouldn’t let that happen to you,” Elliot said.
“That’s not something you can control! All they’ll see is my ship and your contraband.” My eyes raked over Elliot. The changes I’d observed in him took on a sinister bend. “So, what? You left me and became a criminal?”
I shamed Elliot into silence and Ben into action.
“I should go,” he said, slinking past me to the door. I didn’t take my eyes off Elliot. From behind me, I heard Ben’s parting words. “Nice to meet you, Leo. Bye, El. Good luck.”
Finally Elliot and I were alone. His hands were balled into fists at his side, chest rising and falling rapidly. I could practically see the words tripping from his tongue. And then finally he burst.
“I’m not a criminal, Leo. This is justice. People are suffering on other ships for no reason other than that people like you are too selfish to stomach a change in circumstance. You want to pretend we’re not running out of time and food up here. If other people die, fine, as long as nothing changes for you, and you can delude yourself a little longer as to our circumstances.”
“I am not the Scandinavian, Elliot,” I said. “You know I care about more than just myself, my own comfort.”
“Then help me.” He grabbed ahold of my hands. “I was going to tell you everything upstairs, but then you said to wait. I’ve been dying to tell you. I thought you’d understand.”
“Did you miss the part where the fleet will kill us if we’re caught? I can’t involve my family in this.” I wrenched my hands from his. He recoiled as if I’d slapped him.
“You’ll always choose them over me, won’t you?”
“Oh, no, you don’t get to do that,” I hissed, taking a step forward. Elliot took a step back. Good. I hoped he was a little scared of me. “You don’t get to bring that up. Not wanting to involve my family or myself in a criminal enterprise is not something you get to make me feel guilty about.”
“It’s not like that. It’s not shady. Come on, Leo, you’re smart. I’m no more a criminal than Freiheit are terrorists. I’m fighting the good fight, trying to help people. It’s worth the risk.”
I wanted to believe in his Robin Hood scheme, as he clearly did, but I could only shake my head. The logic didn’t hold. “I know things are bad, but the black market isn’t the solution,” I pleaded. “It creates more problems instead of solving them. Price gouging, and the rich benefiting more than the poor.”
“It’s not like that. I won’t let that happen. We provide fairly priced goods to the people who need them. We take from the rich, for the poor.”
“You can’t possibly control that,” I argued. “Don’t you know anything about black markets historically? I know you do. You grew up reading the same books I did. It never works out for the little guy, not really.”