There was a long contemplative pause before he spoke again. “My beautiful little bird?”
Sinthy blushed and rolled her eyes. She leaned toward the phone. “I already told you, Donatello. No.”
“Ah, more’s the pity. Such a lovely little bird. But a gentleman is what I pride myself on being, and a gentleman knows that no means no. Alas. Though it is very nice to hear your voice again. Well, Mister Lorenzo, what can I do for you?”
“They’ve enacted the state of emergency. They’re going to come for us. We probably have less than three or four days. They’ll start with the big cities and slowly work their way out to smaller towns like ours.”
“Your timeline is fairly accurate. Is it time for me to send my choppers to you? I can have them in the air within the hour.”
I shook my head. “We aren’t running until there’s no other option left.”
Donatello spoke again, and I could hear in his voice that he was smiling. “Sounds like you have a plan?”
“We do. We’ve used… some of our own resources, and we’ve got some top-secret videos from one of the royal labs. We’ve got video and audio recordings of Viola and her staff experimenting on shifters. Pretty sure it even shows them developing and testing the drug they’re using to force us to shift. It basically shows that they were the ones to start this whole thing.”
“Are you serious?” For the first time since meeting him, Donatello’s voice was not cool and calm. He sounded shocked, but there was also excitement underneath it. “You truly have this video? You need to release it.”
“We know. That’s our plan. But I don’t think having Luis post it online will be enough. It might go viral, yeah, or the royalscould use all those billions of dollars they have to suppress it. If anyone has the money to erase something from the internet, they do. That’s where we hoped you could come in.”
“I see,” he said, his voice going distant. “Very intriguing. I always knew Viola was a conniving little bitch, but the last few months have shown me exactly what type of person she really is. Though, as much money as I have, I don’t quite stack up to a multinational, secret society of anti-shifter zealots.”
I winced and looked at the others. Was this plan dead on arrival? Would we have to try ourselves and see what happened? “Donatello, I understand. It was only a thought. We appreciate your time, though.”
“Hold on now,” Donatello said, the smile returning to his voice. “I never said I wasn’t going to help. I only said it wouldn’t work with me alone. I have a few other friends. Other billionaires who are also shifters. I think they’d love to strike back. They’ve been in contact with me throughout this entire thing, and I know how angry and scared they are. If I was to speak with them and win them to our cause, would that be agreeable to you and yours?”
The tension lifted, and then the others grinned at me. This was more than we’d hoped for. “Donatello, are you sure about this? Do you think you can do it?”
“My dear Nico, don’t worry that little head of yours. I’ll make some calls and get back to you. I’ve got things covered on my end.”
The call ended, and I could already tell the vibe of the room had shifted. The others had a hopeful gleam in their eyes, and Maddy squeezed my hand. I could feel the excitement coming off her in waves. Sebastian headed toward the door. “I’ve gotta tell Felipe about this. He’s doing his shift at the guard shack. I’ll be back later.”
Before we could do anything, he was gone. Tiago glanced at Luis. “This friend of yours? He’s trustworthy?”
Luis and I glanced at each other and shared a smile. Luis nodded. “He’s never done us wrong. I think this is the real deal.”
Tiago’s shoulders relaxed. “Good. I like this. I think we’ll really have a chance if this goes well. I need to let my pack know.” He pulled his phone out and walked down the hall.
Sinthy was chewing at her nails. She looked as excited as the rest of us but still nervous. I touched her on the shoulder, and she jumped slightly. “Huh? Yeah?”
“Sorry. I was wondering about protection for our pack lands. The government could send the National Guard for us any day. Is there something we could do to keep us a little bit safer until whatever Donatello cooks up comes to fruition?”
Sinthy’s face softened, and she smiled. “You read my mind. I was working out a spell in my head. I think I have something that will work. I’m all over it. Once I find what I’m looking for, we can go back to the spell to help Maddy’s mother.”
Jesus, I’d almost forgotten about Gabriella. With the chaos of the last hour, it had completely slipped my mind. “Right. Sounds good. I’ll leave you to it.”
Sinthy headed over to her book and started flipping through the pages.
“You need to call Javi,” Luis said. “We haven’t heard from his pack in a day or two. We need to make sure they’re okay.”
“True. I bet they’re freaking out right now,” Maddy said. “They’ve got women and children, too. I wonder if they have someplace to go. Could they come here?”
“Maybe. Let me call him and see.”
Javi answered and sounded harried, on the verge of panic. “Nico? You heard, right?”
“Yeah,” I said. “We were just watching the news. What’s your plan?”
He sighed, and I could hear the faint rumble of an engine. “We’re already moving. We loaded everyone and all our supplies up as soon as the word came down.”
