Ignoring her jab, Adila kept talking. “She is aFeyand very strong.”
It was a relief she was smart enough to hire protection, but it made him weary. “And if she turns on you?”
Adila stood taller. “Gedeon is not the only one who pays handsomely, nor is he the only one with the loyalty of the staff.”
“What did you mean when you said her room was compromised?” Lauren asked Sam.
“Gedeon bugged her room.”
Adila tucked a strand of hair behind her slightly pointed ear. “He’s paranoid—always has been since we were kids. I don’t know when he had time to plant a listening device in my room after Atarah’s death or how he got into my room in the first place.”
“Your doors are not magic,” Sam returned. “It is easy to pick a lock.”
Lauren walked to the window and stared outside, thinking. “If he planned Atarah’s death far enough in advance, he could have done it before.” She stopped and looked at Adila. “You and Caius were close, weren’t you?”
Adila nodded. “He had to have thought Caius wouldn’t be sentenced because he was innocent. Why spy on me?”
A realization struck him. “What if he spied on all three of you?”
Adila looked at him like he was stupid. “Gedeon never went to Vincula.”
Sam pressed his lips together and prayed for patience. Explaining things was not his forte. “Caius stayed in Erdikoa often.”
Still staring outside, Lauren addressed Adila. “Let me make sure I’m understanding. Gedeon has somehow been spying on you for five-hundred years.”
“Yes.”
“You realized it not long after Caius was sentenced.”
“Yes.”
Lauren pivoted on her heel, incredulous. “Why the fuck wouldn’t you take the device out of your room?”
“I couldn’t find it,” Adila snapped and pointed at Sam. “He used hisAngelpower and discovered it in my safe.”
Lauren’s eyes turned to slits. “I don’t believe you.”
Sam stepped between the two women when Adila took a menacing step forward. “I don’t care if you believe me or not. It’s the truth. I am no match for either of my brothers, and you will have to forgive me if I didn’t play hero against my psychotic brother while the other was locked safely away in another realm.” Her eyes blazed as she glared around Sam at Lauren.
“I wasn’t even thirty years old when everything happened. I was scared shitless, and I had no one to talk to. Our parents had their memories wiped and were sent to Erdikoa. Atarah was gone, and Gedeon was a murderer, spying on me, preventing me from speaking to Caius. What would you have had me do?”
Sam stayed quiet because Adila was right. There was nothing she could do because rocking the boat with Gedeon would have gotten her killed. They couldn’t presume there was a method to Gedeon’s madness other than hatred and a thirst for power.
When one longed for power, logic was pushed aside for instinct, and a greedy mind instinctually did whatever it took to get what it wanted.
Lauren smirked at Adila. “I didn’t know you had it in you, little golden girl.”
Adila scoffed. The fastest way to earn Lauren’s respect was to stand up for yourself, and Lauren’s response meant she believed Adila. Sam released a sigh of relief. They’d get nothing done if those two were at each other’s throats.
Sighing, Lauren waved an exasperated hand in the air. “Let’s look at the facts. Gedeon has spies everywhere. Rory can’t go to Adila because Adila’s power is rogue.” Adila scowled at her. “Adila can’t do anything within The Capital without Gedeon monitoring her. Rory will die, and Gedeon will continue to rule forever unless Caius can break through theSeraphim’smagic locking him in prison.”
When she said it like that, their situation sounded even worse.
“Where does that leave us?” she asked the other two.
The three fell silent. Their only hope was Caius breaking free, as impossible as it seemed, because there was no way to send Rory to Vincula without risking sending her to hell.
Reuniting the Umbra King and his mate was their priority because Gedeon could not be defeated until that happened. Caius would destroy himself without Rory, and Gedeon was too smart to let anyone close enough to decapitate him or stab him in the heart. Only someone with a power strong enough to rival his own could kill him.
