“Cam,” she corrects me. I ignore it.
“Why would thefamousdaughter of the EFW leader give us any intel at all? Why are you here, and not asking your daddy to take care of things for you? Hmm?”
She pushes herself away from the table she was leaning against, pulling the cloak back on her shoulders.
“That’s none of your concern. Get it done by the end of the week. When I see it on the news, I’ll call you with the rest of the information.” She leaves an old phone on the table, then moves to walk past us, but Maddox doesn’t get out of her way. Which is perfect, because I wasn’t going to agree to this deal without proper negotiation.
“No,” I say.
“Excuse me?”
“Give us the intel now, and we’ll take care of it. Otherwise we don’t have a deal. There are plenty of other EFW members we can hunt down instead of you to get the answers we need.”
“Wow, you two really think I’m an idiot.” She laughs, then crosses her arms, considering it. “I’ll give you half. Half now and the other when it’s done. And trust me, you’ll want to hear the rest of it.”
“I don’t trust a fucking thing that comes out of your mouth, Camelia,” Maddox says. “Give us the intel. Then we’ll consider your proposal.”
And maybe it was because she thought she still had some kind of upper hand, or because she reallywasdesperate, but the next words that spill from her lips were exactly what I feared she would say.
That the war in the Sylvestrian Ridge isn’t over.
That her father had been meeting with Sergeyevich Kozlov, Russia’s president, and they might join forces to aid the coalition I fought to get rid of for the past three years.
That they’re planning an attack somewhere within the next few weeks.
And that it’s going to be big—big enough that if we’re not ready, we’ll lose the Ridge, our economic power, and the trust of the entire nation.
“Where?” I ask, my blood boiling with annoyance and restlessness. “Where is the attack going to be, exactly?”
“I’ll tell you when you’ve disposed of Governor Castillo for me. Have a good evening,” she says, putting her mask back on and covering her blond hair with the hood.
The click of her heels gets more and more distant and Maddox looks at me with his jaw clenched.
“We’ll find another way,” he says.
I shake my head. There is no other way. And I won’t go through this whole thing again for fuck knows how long. I’ve got somewhere else to be tonight. “I’ll do it.”
“We’ve gone too far already. We don’t even know why she wants him dead.”
“Does it matter?” I ask. “Castillo is a degenerate who beats his wife and children on the regular. We’d be doing them a favor.”
“All these lines we’re crossing, Rowan… they’re going to come back on us. What then?”
“That’s a problem for the future. Right now we need to defend ourselves. Then I’ll figure out a way to push back the coalition again. If they win this war—”
Maddox squeezes his eyes shut, not wanting to hear it. This is all because of what happened to Cole. Instead of pushing forward, he’s backing out. But I won’t let him. He’s worked too hard and we’ve come too far.
“I can’t let you take another hit for me,” he says. “For us. This plan we’re chasing… it’s going to take our fucking souls. Are you prepared to lose that?”
“Can’t lose something I’ve never had.”
four
Rowan
Two weeks ago
Ilie awake next to a warm, naked Dove in our colonial house in Washington, DC. The big willow tree in front of our bedroom whips shadows against the walls, and the midnight breeze seeps through the cracked window, entering my lungs. Dove’s leg is draped over mine, her ash-brown hair spread across my chest as her chest raises and lowers with quiet breaths.
