“What is it?”
“Why did they come afterMadrenow?”
“My brothers want entry into the brotherhood. Loose ends. Women are not permitted to survive, so the final test often involves removing all females in the direct line. The Salieri had surveillance on me from one of my trips to check on you both, so I led them right to you. And if my family could woo me back—threaten you both to convince me, even better. They would never keep their promise to leave you alone, but they’d offer it as a hope to entice me.”
“Heads up, people,” Midas interrupted. “Waters’ signal has officially gone offline. You two need to progress to the oubliettes.”
God’s voice was garbled. He must have been working on another one of his suckers. Steel said they were how he managed stress. “Seal it back up,” God ordered.
31
AUGUST 25, 2024
Daleyza
The couple lookedat each other, then swiftly moved through the portion of the room they had touched, putting things back the way they found them, as best they could. Once finished, they sped out into the hallway, closed the door, removed the skimmer, and took off for the end of the tunnel they’d originally been traveling in.
At the end of the hallway, they met their next obstacle.
“Midas, we’re at the end of the tunnel. We’ve got a garage door-style entryway, capable of something as wide as a forklift, a golf cart, or something slightly larger. Definitely not a truck. Also, another digital panel for coded entry. I’m putting the skimmer in place now.”
It was the same exact size as the previous panel, so he didn’t even need to change the dimensions.
“Checking for possible entry points on the security cameras first,” Midas informed them.
Daleyza tapped Ildefanso on the shoulder. “What do we do if there are people on the other side?”
He slid a gun out of his shoulder holster and took the safety off.
Blowing out all the air in her lungs, she did the same.
“Looks like we’ve got unfriendlies. Cerberus has some firecrackers ready topside. He’s going to set those off, and we’ll let the games begin. Hopefully, we distract security and send the underside workers scrambling.”
“And if it doesn’t?” Ildefanso asked.
“Then we go to plan B.”
“I hate plan B.”
“No, you hate subset plans. We all do.”
Concern flooded her system. “What does he mean by subset plans?”
“We plan contingencies. Then we’ll plan contingencies for contingencies. So let’s say we plan to go through door A. Suddenly, door A has unexpected guests behind it. We have plans AA, AB, AC, and so on, for dealing with said guests. Usually that’s Waters’ job because his jacked-up brain thinks up the craziest shit that could go wrong?—”
“And often does,” Midas reminded him.
“And often does,” he agreed. “But he’s not here, so instead of him, we had to rely on our less jacked-up brains.”
“Ah. Part of why you had the headache and the tense shoulders yesterday.”
He snorted. “More like since Maico showed up at my crash pad, threatening you andMadre.”
“I’m sorry,” she apologized.
“Don’t. Never apologize.” He smiled. “No matter what, it brought you back into my life, and even if it ended today, it would be worth it. Headaches and all.”
There was a sniffle over the comm. Gem sniffled. “That was beautiful, Steel.”
