Trying to stave off a panic spiral, Petra took a deep breath and told him, “Um, I’ve got an implant.” Something she’d been smart enough to get in a private clinic a few months before the Protector showed up on the cathedral’s doorstep. Even so, it was a minor miracle Antonin hadn’t found out.
Or perhaps he had, but he was so arrogant he assumed she’d had it removed in the time between their meetings. Her stomach soured at the thought.
“And I’m on the shot,” he replied, unfazed. “I want to knock you up, Petra, but I’m not gonna share you with a kid for a long fuckin’ time. Doesn’t mean I won’t talk about it though.”
She couldn’t tell if she was relieved or disappointed. The idea of getting pregnant when everything in her life was on fire was horrifying, but since she’d resigned herself to never getting the chance to choose that path…
Yes, it was possible to feel both emotions in equal measure.
She let out a shaky exhale.Kids with Silas? Gods help me. Now that’s going to be a mess.
Shaking her head, she asked, “So I guess that means no sex until my days of rest are up?”
“That’s exactly what it means.”
The aggrieved look on his face would have been comical if she wasn’t at that moment sitting in a pair of soaked panties. It would take so little to get her off. Petra cast him a look from under her lashes.
Not having sex was annoying, but there was plenty they could do that skirted the line, wasn’t there?
As if sensing the direction of her thoughts, Silas tugged on her ponytail and growled, “Nope. If I so much as get a whiff of an orgasm from you, Petra, I’m gonna lose my mind. We’re not doing shit, and you’re not touching that cunt. Got it?”
She made a face. “Your rules suck.”
“But you’re gonna follow them, or you’ll give me an excuse to deny more orgasms. Push hard enough and you’ll get the belt, too.”
He released her ponytail, allowing her head to return to its proper angle. Stroking her hair, he said, “Now do you want me to work on decrypting the asshole’s data, or do you want me to keep talking about what I’ll do if you earn a punishment?”
If he kept up with his filthy promises, she was pretty certain she’d do something that would end up with her meeting the belt. Since she wasn’t actually excited by the idea of punishment or pain, Petra sighed and leaned heavily into his legs.
Eyeing the trunks in front of her, she muttered, “How can one man have all this? Not just the files, but all that data, too. How do you even amass that amount of information?”
Silas lazily tied the end of her ponytail around his hand again, but this time he didn’t pull. He held it like a loose leash as he picked up his tablet with his other hand. “That’s easy: you don’t do this on your own.”
“I mean, I knew the Ardeo still existed. It’s an open secret among the higher-ups, but…” Petra swallowed. “I’ve been so focused on Antonin for so long that I honestly didn’t think it would be this big. How many people are involved in this?”
“Men like him tend to be tyrants. They don’t like to share power, even if that power is something they got handed to them by someone else. My guess is that Antonin was the heart and soul of the operation, but that operation had to be approved by someone at some point. Someone more powerful than even him — at least to start.”
Her stomach turned. “The High Gloriae.”
“It makes sense. Who else would benefit from having this much power?”
Petra almost wished Antonin was still alive. Silas said he didn’t rely on torture to get information, but it probably wouldhave made sorting through the mess at least a little easier if they knew what direction to look in.
“The High Gloriae certainly benefit from having allthis,”she agreed, gesturing to the trunk closest to her. “Blackmail means people don’t leave the Temple, and it means connections, money, properties. That all makes sense to me.”
It was also textbook extortion. Having leverage was the oldest trick in the book. Governments and religious orders had been doing it since time immemorial, and criminal organizations were only half a step behind them.
The Temple was one of the largest private landowners in the UTA. While they didn’t officially wield political power anymore, they didn’t need to. Glory was the most widely worshipped goddess in the world. The High Gloriae used their influence over their sea of worshippers every day, not to mention the thousands of acolytes under their banner.
Add in the blackmail and the money donated every year that mysteriously vanished into thin air…
Something niggled at the back of her brain, something sheknewbut couldn’t fully articulate to herself.What do they want? What do they not already have?
The dread that something was wrong — seriously, profoundly wrong — hadn’t ever really gone away, but now it took on the weight of a bowling ball in her gut.
“Max wouldn’t have confronted Antonin over this,” she said, speaking the words slowly as she teased the thread of thought loose. “We all know that something like this is going on in the Temple. You whisper something and it’ll be heard. You snitch on someone and it’ll get you moved up. You have a skeleton in your closet and it’ll be found.”
Silas played with the end of her ponytail and muttered, “Sounds like a syndicate.”
