I lean forward to look at the phone, which brings me closer to Mara. My hand tightens on her waist unconsciously. Talon moves to her other side, and Jasper positions himself just behind her, one hand resting on her shoulder.
We’re bracketing her, I realize. Claiming her, even in this moment. Making it clear to everyone in the room exactly where she belongs.
“Where?” I ask.
“They haven’t announced the location yet. But Kade thinks?—”
“The catacombs,” Kade finishes, and his eyes flick to Valen briefly before returning to us.
“How do you know that?”Jasper signs, his hand moving from Mara’s shoulder to her other hip, steady and grounding.
“Because I’ve been there. My father took me once, when he was trying to recruit me into the inner circle—showed me the tunnels, the meeting rooms, the whole operation. Wanted me to understand what I’d be inheriting,” Kade says.
“And you said no,” Valen observes.
“I said I’d think about it. Then I met Milo, and suddenly everything they stood for seemed… wrong. All of it. The control, the way they treat people like assets instead of humans.”
Mara shifts against me, and I feel her take a breath. “Welcome to the resistance. We’re all here because we figured out our fathers are monsters.”
“So, what’s the plan? You didn’t ask us to walk over here just to commiserate about shitty dads,” Valen says, getting us back on track.
“No,” I agree, reluctantly stepping back from Mara so we can all sit down around the table. But Talon immediately takes my place at her side, his arm draping across the back of her chair. “We called you here because we’re going to take them down—the Syndicate leadership—and we need your help to do it.”
“Take them down how?” Milo asks.
“We’re going to kill the three seats of power. James Steele, Edmund Mercer, and whoever holds the DSN proxy position,” Mara says.
Silence.
Then Valen starts to smile. “I’m in.”
“Just like that?” Talon asks.
“Just like that. My father has been planning to marry me off to some legacy bitch since I was sixteen—wants to secure an alliance, strengthen his position. I’ve been looking for a way out for years. If you’re offering me a chance to kill him and make it look like collateral damage instead of patricide? Yeah. I’m in.”
“Milo?” Mara looks at her twin.
“You even have to ask? They were going to use you as leverage against me. Force me to stay in line by threatening to hurt you. I’m done living under that threat.”
“Kade?” I prompt.
“Where he goes, I go. Wheretheygo, I go.” He pauses. “Besides, I have a sister too—younger—still at Ashen Grove. If the Syndicate gets wind that I’m helping you, they’ll use her against me. Better to end the threat entirely,” Kade says.
“Okay, then let’s figure out how to do this without getting ourselves killed in the process.”
Mara reaches up and takes Jasper’s hand where it rests on her shoulder, then extends her other hand to Talon, while I remain seated across the table, watching the woman I love surrounded by the two men I trust most in the world.
My family.
And we’re about to go to war to protect it.
“First question, when? You mentioned they gave you forty-eight hours. That’s not a lot of time to plan an assassination.”
“They gave us forty-eight hours to publicly end things with Mara. Which means at hour forty-nine, they’re planning to take action against us. Probably coordinated strikes—make all four of us disappear,” Talon says.
“So we need to move before hour forty-nine,” Kade says.
“The emergency Syndicate meeting. If they’re all going to be in the catacombs at the same time?—”
