Leverage. There were so many things that it could be.
It was influence and power used to achieve a desired result. Sykes had Gemma. She was hisleverage. For the time being, Sykes wouldn't kill her, because if he did, he would have nothing to use against Harry. He wouldn't have the upper hand like he did now. But if Harry had something, or more importantly, someone, against Sykes too, the odds might tilt more into Harry's favor.
Harry stood up abruptly and I fell onto the couch, frowning up at his sudden movement, but his eyes were trained on the boys. "Elaborate."
"I don't know if you're going to like who it is, mate," Zayn stated slowly, shooting a glare at Louis.
"You used to--"
"We shouldn't talk about this right now," Zayn interrupted, shaking his head as he flicked Louis in the leg. Louis gave out a tiny yelp, but upon seeing Zayn's expression, shut up immediately. Harry watched their interaction through narrowed eyes. I didn't miss how Zayn's gaze flickered from mine to Harry's. He was sending him a silent message, something that I wasn't supposed to pick up on.
"I want you four to interrogate this person," Harry said abruptly, his tone the authoritative one that I rarely ever heard. "Get out as much information as you can, and then report back to me tomorrow morning."
"Harry, you always interrogate them--"
"Not this time," Harry cut Liam off with a silencing glare.
"Why--"
"It's Christmas," was Harry's icy reply to the beginning of Louis' question, "and I want to be with Alice." Four pairs of eyes flickered over to me before they all nodded in unison, knowing that pushing it now wouldn't go over well with Harry.
They all stood up at nearly the same time as I did. "Harry, no," I said quietly, my hand immediately touching his arm. He looked over at me, his expression unreadable. "You have to go with them."
"Why?" the single word was cold, and I could barely detect a hint of hurt to his tone. He thought I didn't want him here.
"That's more important right now," I explained. "You have responsibilities, Harry. You can't just drop them all because of me."
Harry turned his body full towards mine now. "Yes I can."
I shook my head in disagreement. "There are things that you have to do. I don't care what day it is or who's involved--there are more important things than us right now." My mind was set solely on the fact that Harry's sister was with Sykes. There wasn't anything that we could do before, but if Harry had leverage, then he needed to set to work on it.
Of course, spending more time with him, especially on Christmas, was far too tempting, but sometimes you had to put other's needs before yours.
Harry took a step forward so that we were directly in front of each other. His fingers grasped loosely onto my chin, tilting my head up so that my gaze met his. "I haven't had you for a year," he stated quietly. "If you think there's any way in fucking hell that I'm going to leave you on Christmas, you're wrong. The boys can easily keep everything under control for one damn night. Right?" He glanced over as the four of them nodded in confirmation.
"I'm yours tonight, my love," he added in a whisper, but I knew that everyone had heard it based on the fact that there were several small gasps. I ignored them all, my focus solely on Harry. Carefully, I lifted my hands to touch his face, my thumbs brushing along his cheekbones. His eyelids fluttered closed.
"I want you to go with them," I mumbled, to which Harry reopened his eyes, peering down at me, listening intently. "I want you to go with them and figure this all out. Please."
