“This is the importance of communication,” Gregori said, the rat bastard.
Cornering Nic in the streets was pointless now, especially if he’d already chosen his target.
“How much damage could this kind of bomb reap?” Percy asked.
“Given the amount missing in the past months and the understanding my records are for only twelve of the thirty ships that make regular charters through the harbor...” Gregori took the graphite stick from behind his ear and jotted down a series of figures on a scrap of paper.
When he looked up from his math, his complexion had paled considerably.
The three men waited in silence, their tense postures all conveying they knew the answer before Gregori confirmed their worst fears.
“A crude bomb this size could take out Dockside in a single go.”
The idea was unfathomable.
“What is to be done?”
“Call the authorities and evacuate the city?”
“There’s no time. What if the plants are already in place? Unless we know—”
The three other men talked over each other, their emotions high—even the robot crackpot worried his lip and interjected when applicable—but they’d get nowhere without a point of origin.
Percy burrowed deep into his subconscious, where the men’s conversation, the noise from the harbor traffic outside, the room itself faded away. He let his mind wander, processing the pieces of intel he knew of Nic’s past as well as the information they’d gathered over the past years since Nic had reentered the picture.
Nic was gathering supplies.
He intended a large-scale attack.
He was using independent factions in the city. Mercenaries to buy him time and protection.
Personal vendettas had delayed his plans.
Ruled by emotions.
As the list continued, Percy reduced the man’s complicated personality to the pinnacle of its driving principle.
Nic had always worked under the anger of what he’d perceived as past wrongs. The list of grievances had grown in length and mania as he’d aged, the ravages of war and exception to rules feeding an already warped sense of right and wrong.
Percy had to narrow down the list if there was any hope. But where to start?
He would hedge his bets Nic would go for a single grand spectacle instead of splitting the materials; he’d reveled in the flashier kill, the display of his prowess and genius.
Which left the damning question: Where would he strike? The Home Office? Fellow Hall? The Prodding Pony? The Harbor?
Whom would Nic see as his greatest foe? Where would he place the blame?
The person he deemed responsible for holding him back. The same person who’d taken away what fictitious future he thought he was owed.
“Me.”
The three men fell silent.
Facing their expectant faces, Percy accepted their unflinching trust, his gut tight with the weight of his decision. “Nic will go after me at Fellow Hall.”
If a bomb this size could take out entire blocks in the city, it could wipe the entirety of Fellow Hall off the map.
Nic had risen from the grave—a place far easier to manipulate his enemies while they’d dropped their guards—after learning of Percy’s newfound wealth and power. Putting his plans in jeopardy because he couldn’t stand the idea that Percy had acquired something unattainable without artifice: A playNic had already used and lost when posing as the Marquess of Slasbury.
