Lena and Dillon were the lawyers. Between the three of them, they had the legal knowledge and expertise to help, and since we were finally meeting, they had a lot to exchange now in person rather than through letters or calls. I could already feel Ezra’s relief.
“I do not approve of whatever it is you’re doing,” Riley said.
Lena didn’t even glance at me, hiding her eyes with her hand. “If I’m pulled before a jury to testify to this, I can’t say what I’m seeing.”
Dillon laughed. “Good idea.”
They were on the seats while I was kneeling on the open floor, buttoning up the shirt and checking myself in the rear-view mirror to make sure I had everything on. The SUV was somewhat like a limo in the sense it had a row of seating along the back and an open space in the center where a pull-out table or mini-bar could be.
“There’s someone waiting inside when we get there,” Lena said.
“Who?” I asked, but nobody except Riley would look at me, and they were just grinning like a fool.
“This might actually work,” they said. “Where did you get this from? Can I touch it?”
“Sure,” I said. “And you have your resources, and so do I.”
They rubbed at the shirt material between their finger and thumb then laughed. “Damn, this is high quality shit.”
“Riley, show Ezra your breathing technique again so he can get through his time on the stand,” Dillon said.
Lena continued to shield her eyes as she faced my direction. “I thought you had friends with you. The people inside are wanting your friends as well.”
That didn’t sound suspicious at all. I looked Lena over in her blue power suit. “I’ll radio them.”
“Good,” she said. “The people in there have offered to bankroll this entire thing.”
My gut reaction didn’t like that at all. “Mhm.” I picked the radio up and called for Artemis and Donovan’s attention. “You know any rich fools who’d try bankrolling this operation?”
Their shared laughter came through in tinny echoes.
“Maya Chen,” Donovan said, and that name had all their ears pricked.
“There’s someone else in there too,” Lena said.
The radio nearly combusted as they both came through again at the same time. “Her benefactor.”
“Who?” I turned to them as they only partially turned to me.
“Nina Ashford-Furst,” Dillon said.
Artemis came through alone this time, a screech almost. “Ashford!”
22. EZRA
It was a nice distraction to have them all focusing in on whoever this Ashford person was. Apparently they were someone Artemis and Donovan had done work for—or against—and had helped this other person, Maya Chen, in exposing one of the billionaires. I knew of an Ashford family from Whitespire, but—fuck. It was the same family. The more they spoke, the more I connected the dots. Nina had bankrolled Maya’s efforts to destroy the Ashford family name, and now I guess she was hoping to do the same for the Pemberton name.
We were out of the car and rallied through a dank hallway tunnel, followed by a flight of stairs into an empty room where two people stood. A woman with gray curls coiffed and stuck with shiny gilded pins, dressed in a pinstripe suit, was standing next to a towering woman in a dark red dress with a large puffy coat over her arm.
I was first into the room, almost thrust inside it with Jacques standing right behind me. My team were—I didn’t know, and if it hadn’t been for Jacques’s pretense, I might have panicked.
“I’m Maya Chen,” the woman in heels said. “This is my... employer, my boss, Nina.”
The older lady, Nina, extended a hand to me. Her nails were pearly claws. “Nina Ashford-Furst, or just Nina Furst.”
“Hi,” I said. “I’m Ezra Cross.”
“Cross,” Maya said. “I thought you would’ve had a—”
