With a few hundred brainwashed Ardeo soldiers in Solbourne Tower, the wealth and religious sway of the Temple, as well as the potent blackmail Antonin had on the leaders of the UTA…
Successful coups happened with far less.
Gray-faced, Petra asked, “Max was invited to the ceremony as a gesture of good will. I remember because that’s what I called to ask him about that last time we talked.”
“What did he say about it?”
“Nothing. He refused to talk about it. About anything. He was terrified. So upset it was hard to understand him. He just told me he’d learned something about the Protector and heplanned to confront him. It never occurred to me that the events might be related.”
She swallowed hard. “If that’s what brought him to San Francisco in the first place… What brought him back?”
Chapter Fifty-One
Petra wantedto appreciate the spectacle of Silas working in his element, but she couldn’t focus on anything other than keeping her breathing level.
She didn’t want to be right. She wanted Silas to find more illicit personal information, not any evidence of a plot. Sheneededto be wrong.
But the knot of anxiety in her stomach wouldn’t budge. It was the same feeling she’d gotten the day her parents were killed. It was that gut instinct that told her to hide mere moments before the shooting started.
There were so many reasons she could be wrong, though. Really, what evidence did she have? Nothing but her gut and suspicious timing.
Petra gripped the arm rests of the chair Silas had pulled over to his desk for her. It was extremely late. Her body was exhausted from the long rut and the witchbond, but she was too wired to care, let alone sleep.
She tracked the data streaming across the wide, curved computer screen, but she couldn’t make any sense of it. He’d been quiet for a while as his long, clawed fingers flew over the buttons projected onto the desk.
The urge to ask Silas how things were going was a visceral one, but she bit her tongue.
They’d only been down in the lab for half an hour, she reminded herself. It hadn’t been the eternity that it felt like. But every minute seemed to stretch into hours, and every tap of his fingers jolted her nerves until her whole body was wound as tight as a spring.
While she waited, Petra scrubbed through every interaction she’d ever had with Antonin and everything she’d learned over her years as High Priestess. She tried to peel away her past interpretations, to reallyseewhat was going on beyond what she assumed at the time. Mostly she hoped to dissuade herself from her hunch, but it didn’t work.
She’d been focused on what Antonin did to Max for so long. It never occurred to her that Max might simply have been a tiny diversion in a much larger, more sinister plan. Thatshemight’ve been an even smaller piece.
Her skin crawled. Why did she think everything began and ended with Max?
This wasn’t the streets of Los Angeles or the dingy halls of the children’s home. Antonin was no petty criminal and Max hadn’t inadvertently walked into a turf war. This was so, so much bigger than anything she’d known before. Why couldn’t she have seen it?
She was friends with thesovereign’s consort.Petra was the spiritual leader of one of the most powerful cities on the continent. She had conned her way into the highest tiers of an organization that controlled vast land, wealth, and influence.
It was an oversight to think that Max would’ve confronted Antonin for anything less than something earth-shattering. It was an even bigger one to think Antoninwouldn’tbe up to something a lot grander than blackmail and extortion.
After all, he was already wealthy. He held untold amounts of influence. She’d taken his desire for her and an heir at face value, but a man like that had to have higher ambitions than simply standing in the shadows of the High Gloriae.
Why did he need an heir?Petra rubbed her temples, desperate to ease the dull pounding in her skull.What was the project he said he was in town for?
The more she thought about it, the more tense she became. Her nails dug into the armrests of her chair until the beds blanched white.What was he doing?
She wanted to believe that whatever it was, it had to be over now that he was dead. He couldn’t harm anyone now. But she couldn’t stop thinking about the empty-eyed soldiers of the Ardeo, about where his aid Nicolas had gone, that friend he mentioned when she refused Antonin’s advances?—
The low buzz of Silas’s watch vibrating on his wrist nearly made her jump out of her skin.
He cast her a concerned look and settled his hand on her thigh. Lips turning down into an even deeper scowl, he told her, “Rasmus is calling.”
“Answer it.” Petra practically crawled into his lap to reach for his left arm. “How do I answer it?”
She’d known Rasmus long enough to understand that if he called, it was for a good reason. If he calledSilas,it had to be for averygood reason.
“I have to program your biometrics in,” he replied, pointing to the screen. “Remind me to do that after we’re done with this.”
