Hearly wrote:(from page 17 of Chapter 37)
“Steve is the Grand Knight Templar of the Paladins, Kit,” she told him. “That’s supposed to be a secret, but I don’t think it would take you very long to dig it up. If the males that attacked you were Paladins, then Steve was the one that gave the order. Last night he called me and told me that he was leaving Boston for a while. I didn’t have to ask why, and I didn’t ask where. But if he’s running, then it had to be him.”
Steve called her Last night, after the attack, after Zach found out it was Paladins..
Edit:
If I remember my timeline correctly.
The attempted attack happened the Early Morning of the baby shower, the wedding was the next day.
Also thinking some more, ok Steve is a racist b*st*rd, But could the accident be what makes Kit reconcile with some of the Family?
Here is a couple of interesting quotes that fit the theme:
“They won’t say. The one thing they do say is that it wasn’t the Paladins that sent them, they all say that they were hired by someone else. Some guy paid them ten thousand each, told them about the tunnel, and told them when and how to do it.
The above quote points out that either it was a Vulpan using a cutout or a servant using contacts with the PPC.
Kit couldn’t prove it, but he was fairly certain that his family had helped start the PPC, and it was Vulpan money that funded many of their operations over the years. He knew for a fact that his father was a member of the PPC, he’d grown up listening to his father spew purist diatribe…but there was no public record anywhere that any Vulpan was in any way connected to a radical and unpopular organization like the PPC.
The above qoute shows the long history the Vulpans have with the PPC and the Paladins. Now one thing you have to think on is Lucas's personality. Since we know from this quote he was in the PPC, and his family helped start it, what are the odds that Lucas was the leader of the PPC, the person the Head Paladin took his orders from? Now with Lucas dead who would be the natural replacement? Zach.
Look at it this way Steve either authorized the hit without Zach's permission by taking outside money or he got his marching orders from Zach or Alicia (Who we know is also in the PPC and even helped initiate Steve into it). So basically he is screwed. Once the Paladin connection came to light he was going to get it from both sides of the feud. From Zach/Alicia for either screwing up the hit or for doing it without their say so and from Vil for trying to kill Kit.
Did anyone else notice the nice little shot that Vil made that took Maxine out of the Zach/Maxine/Jake alliance? Maxine was only doing this because in her weird way she wanted Vil to control the Youngers and not cause a scandal. Then Vil did something even her father couldn't accomplish: Got Bess to stop the overboard partying. By giving Bess that job it shot Maxine down in flames for two reasons. One it showed that Vil had control over the Youngers to a point that the Elders, even when they controlled all the money, never had. Two it was vindication of sorts of Maxine herself. She of the three in the Alliance against Vil was the smartest of the bunch and always had to take a back seat to the boys. Now she sees that Vil is not only going to give the Female Youngers a chance at something in life she probably see's finally an opportunity for herself in the company.
As tot he accident it all depends on what Steve knows. If he is running because he was going to just get blamed for something he didn't authorize by Zach, it might be. I can see it Steve paralized in a hospitable bed and Zach cutting him off and not even going to see him and ordering the rest of his children to do the same. Besides that little seen at the wedding between Kit and Ruth just screams out for that type of thing. Then you top it with his talk with Sarah's husband.
“I know you have no reason to trust any of them after what they did to you, and you have every reason to be angry, son,” Harland said quietly, “but remember one thing. Your father let his hate consume him, and you’re more than aware of what was the result. Don’t walk down Lucas’ path, son. You’ve seen where it goes. You can forgive but not forget, but if you never forgive, some day we’ll bury you beside your father and remark at how much like him you turned out to be,”
“No, Aunt Ruthie, I’m not,”’ he admitted bluntly. “There’s no way you can understand what it was like. And if you could, then you wouldn’t be saying these things to me now. Luke Vulpan the child who desperately needed his family, needed anyone when he laid in that hospital bed and nobody came, that Vulpan died that night, Ruthie. The family killed him with their neglect. Kit Vulpan the adult walked out of that hospital six months later. I’m not the same fox, and I have no reason to ever forgive those who killed the boy I used to be. I have every reason to never forgive my family for abandoning me.”
They didn’t know what it was like, they couldn’t even fathom what it was like to lay in that hospital bed, his entire body feeling like it was on fire, and be so alone…so alone, then find out that his bastard father had tried to have the hospital literally wheel him out into the back alley and abandon him, leave him to die, it was like someone had reached inside him and ripped his heart out. That had been hell, absolute hell, the pain and the fear and the isolation and the horror of a terrified child finding out his father wanted him dead, and to feel so completely and utterly alone, was like a white-hot needle through his soul.
Keep in mind Steve is Zach's son so we could see Deja Vu all over again.