I whip my attention to my father, trying to understand, but all he offers is a subtle shake of his head, so I turn back to the KORT chairs.
This is what I was missing.
“She was our asset?” Axel roars, or accuses, not concealing his outrage now. “I asked you directly. Why the fuck would you lie about it? I’m a chair in this organization, the same as you, Wells. I was out of my goddamn mind!”
Jared leans forward, aiming his frustrated query at Wells. “When did he ask you that?”
“After he went to the assassin camp,” Wells answers before flicking a covert glance at Axel, which suggests that timeline is fabricated, and raising a palm in a silent plea for my husband to settle down. “Your outrage is warranted, but you didn’t wantto know the details of our La Lune Noire investigation. And not long into it, we began to question what might be transpiring between the two of you. It became a dual-purpose setup. Zara is skilled, so we trusted her to obtain what we needed. And it gave us an easy route for a mini trial to test her loyalty.”
A small sense of relief washes over me with that explanation, but that seems misplaced.
Axel is jittery, practically coming out of his skin. “Why choose Gage and Leigh for the hit? Were you watching her at the wedding? What was she expected to do?”
Ivy takes that. “The two of you had established enough rapport that Zara would’ve been unlikely to target anyone immediate to you, but she didn’t know them or owe them anything beyond your allegiance to them. And based on their connection to this whole mess, we figured it fit more than some other options we’d tossed around. The expectation was for her to do pretty much what she did, especially since she’d informed her father she was passing on the hit. She warned Gage, set up a trap for whoever had ordered the hit, and chose to be extracted, as offered. It was a strong test of loyalty.”
“All fine and good,” Axel barks. “But why wasn’t I informed of her being tested at our goddamn wedding? Since when are the chairs kept completely in the dark about the trials or loyalty tests occurring?”
“This was an exception.” Wells taps the table with his index finger, wrestling with something. “Before Zara came to La Lune Noire, we’d entered into a contract with her father. We’d gotten a lead that there were parties in Kazakhstan and that some of the people we had on our radar regarding those terrorizing my family—all of them La Lune Noire members, which is why you hadn’t been briefed on it—attended these extravagant parties regularly. When we dug deeper, we suspected that less than thirty percent of the guest list for these events were involvedin a secret society—which we now know to be Kratos. We hired an assassin to infiltrate those parties for a better look. It was supposed to be Zara.”
I recognize that Axel is on a rampage, but I break in with my question anyway. “So, Claudia was a double agent?”
“Yes,” Ivy confirms. “It was fortunate that she wasn’t able to fill her assignment at La Lune Noire. She would’ve been in the perfect position to hunt for information on our family, which Kratos plans to exploit to find the access cards KORT has for the media conglomerate. She probably initially believed she could still get the information with your report-outs. But we suspect that once there was speculation that you and Axel were having a fling, she assumed you wouldn’t be as useful, so she sent Shep to assess and exterminate the roadblock.”
“That part makes sense, but she was in New Orleans,” I argue. “A block from the address I instructed Gage to plant the tracker at, based on an order that wasn’treal.”
“She was following the tracker.” Ivy purses her lips. “We now know Claudia accessed your report-outs. Despite it being part of your trial, your father registered the tracking device in his system like he would have a legitimate one. We wanted everything to appear authentic, in case you dug. The bonus was that it called Claudia out.”
“But, regarding why you were in the dark”—Wells pins Axel with a stern yet contrite stare—“once Zara flipped the script on us by taking the job at La Lune Noire and we realized the two of you might turn into something, we wanted her father to help us set things up for her KORT trial. He negotiated to conduct his own loyalty test on you, which was why you were told Zara was not hired by us.”
Axel strokes his forehead in disbelief, betrayal written all over his face. “That is so fucked up since I’d already gone through my own trial to get the seat.”
“Of course,” Payne agrees. “KORT wasn’t testing you. Stone was. He made it a condition of his continued resources for KORT, due to his concern about Zara’s safety and his own terrible experience with La Lune Noire—though, of course, we know that was your father and apart from you. He wanted to see how you’d handle it if you believed Zara worked for your enemy or she left you. Given the stakes of her position and her role as your wife, we agreed.”
Axel is still not pleased. “Stone requesting that makes sense. I applaud him for looking out for Zara.Youagreeing to put one of your chairs through hell, especially once none of us knew where she was, is despicable.”
“On that note,” Jared breaks in, his gaze ping-ponging between my father and my husband, “there’s one caveat. You believed she was against KORT, and yet you still went to her without involving us.”
Axel says nothing for a beat, but then it spills out of him like the flames of a riotous dragon. “Are you fucking suggesting that I should have given you access to my goddamn wife, having no idea what the hell was going on with her, so you could do whatever the fuck you wanted? That’s the kind of man you want at that table? Someone who would sell his wife to you? Then let me be the first to say, I don’t fucking belong here because I will always fight for her!”
A lot of yelling ensues after that. Accusations about betrayal and lack of loyalty and integrity. The line of men behind the chairs are all on guard. Even Gage peeks inside to verify that everything is okay. Ivy rolls her eyes, like any woman watching men throw tantrums would. But all of it sinks in my stomach like a bucket of wet sand.
That’s when it’s evident the tables have turned. My father and I aren’t on trial or in danger. Axel is.
I jump to my feet and attempt to calm him, cognizant of my weapons and which people in this room will back us. He tucks me into his side like a protective shield and kisses my hair in reassurance, but fury wafts from him. As I’m determining how best to react, Jax’s hazels burn into me, instructing me to wait.
Finally, my father rises, his booming tenor garnering everyone’s attention. “I told him.”
“You told him?” Jared repeats.
“Yes. Obviously, he has enough integrity not to point a finger at me. But I won’t apologize. The man was a wreck over my daughter. I couldn’t tolerate him believing she was a traitor to him when none of us knew where she was. The last thing I learned about my wife was that she’d been unfaithful. That haunted me nearly as much as her death.” His eyes find mine, and the pain is so palpable that it spears me. He’s rarely mentioned her in the last twenty years. “It was my deal to see if Axel was loyal to her, and he proved that by coming to me. I had to set his mind at ease. Out of respect to my daughter and to the revered KORT chair.”
Not only is that a lie because he didn’t tell Axel I was working for KORT, but Axel’s reaction when Wells revealed that tidbit essentially refutes it. No one is going to call my father a liar though. And the last line he spoke is a slight at how they’re all addressing Axel, so any further argument will only make them look worse. It takes everything in me not to hug my father becausethatis the warrior I know.
“I appreciate your humanity, sir,” Axel quips. “Especially sinceyouowed me nothing.”
There are some half-hearted apologies made, if you could even call them that. Everyone settles anyway. And Axel calms mildly.
Eventually, Wells clears his throat. “My family has been through a lot due to this media-conglomerate fiasco, Zara. We’veessentially been in hiding. For years. And while I don’t expect that to change anytime soon, what you uncovered is life-altering for us—from Lev Popov’s media informant to your in-depth look at members to that deep dive into Kratos. And that’s aside from you protecting Gage and Leigh and eliminating most of the Morellis and Vittoris for us.”
