The Takeover (25 page)

“So I guess Triad members either want to wait as long as possible to choose someone, or pick a successor who won’t knock them off,” Jace remarked. No one had a response to the ugly thought.

Keene stared at Cort from across the table, an unreadable expression on his face. Power swirled around him, unsteady and erratic. I wanted to say something but didn’t want to call attention to him. I was relieved when Mari, sitting next to him, angled her body slightly, as if placing her hand on his thigh. The power gradually began to subside.

“That’s why you left,” Keene said to his brother.

“Only the straw that broke the camel’s back,” Cort responded, keeping his tone light. “He wasn’t the first sibling I saw die unnecessarily for a cause I no longer believed in.” The brothers sat, gazes locked, and the sadness that came from their surface thoughts made me want to weep. They’d lost so much to the Emporium due, in large part, to the evil man they called father.

No more.

I could practically feel Ritter thinking beside me, despite his heavy mental shield. I could only imagine the scenarios that were running through his mind. “How,” he asked Bedřich, “do you suggest we go about this takeover?”

“Well, I don’t exactly know your abilities or what else you might have in place, and I doubt you’re going to share everything with me, so it’s hard to plan a strategy.”

“Oh, go ahead, take a stab,” I said, with a challenge in my voice I knew Bedřich wouldn’t be able to ignore.

“All right.” Bedřich motioned to Cort and Keene, and then to Jeane and me. “Here in this room, you have descendants of each Triad member. Well, in Jeane’s case, she’s a sibling and not a descendant, but the blood tie would still be strong enough, I’m guessing.”

For the briefest instant, I thought of telling him that I wasn’t Stefan’s daughter and that surely Jeane and Lew had reported this to the Emporium by now. Except Jeane nodded at his suggestion, which hinted that she hadn’t told Stefan the truth. Why? It didn’t make sense. Delia hadn’t told Stefan the truth about either my ability or my heritage because she’d wanted to use me—or my body, at least—to win Stefan over and, blood test or no, eventually take his place. But Jeane had no way to use me, and this information might have won her points with Stefan. I filed the thoughts away and forced myself to follow Bedřich’s words.

“So I’d try to somehow get inside the headquarters,” he was saying. “Sneaking in or blending in, not fighting or killing anyone—and then take over the Triad from within. Depending on your persuasiveness, you could force them to sign papers designating you as their successors. Or you’d figure out how to create the paperwork yourselves. The papers could be forged if you had the right access.” As he spoke, his eyes kept sliding to Mari, and I had no doubt as to how he thought we might get close to the Triad once we were inside the building. He’d seen her shifting around.

“If they’ve already signed papers naming other successors, it’ll cause a problem,” Jace said.

Bedřich thought about that for a moment. “I don’t think so. I’ve heard rumors of more than one set of papers being given out, just in case one heir is killed in battle at the same time as the Triad member. I don’t know if that’s true, but it doesn’t really matter. Others will have heard the same thing. Your papers will be the latest and the most valid.”

“So you expect at that point the rest of the Emporium will simply start following them?” Ritter’s disbelief wrapped every word. “Because from what I’ve seen of their soldiers, it won’t be that easy.”

Bedřich shrugged his wiry shoulders as if to say it wasn’t his concern. Eden answered for him. “Even if you just permanently kill them, you’d be further ahead than you would have been with your original plan. If it doesn’t work, you could always go back to slaughtering the rest and getting slaughtered in return.”

Between them, Fenton leaned forward, looking interested for the first time, if I could judge by the flush covering his pale skin. “The Triad will be surrounded by loyal people, so I expect there’ll be a struggle with some of them, but given the power Bedřich claims Erin has”—he flicked his gaze over me—“she should be able to control at least some of them. And if you have people standing by to help, even better.” He looked at Mari. “Tell me, can you shift other people too? And how far?”

“Don’t answer that, Mari,” Ritter said, and I was glad. They were still mostly our enemies, despite having agreed to help us.

Fenton looked annoyed, but his only response was to fold his arms and lean back in his chair.

There was a whole lot the captives were overlooking, most particularly, the electric grid that would keep my thoughts and Mari out. But if we could somehow
become
the Triad—that opened up an entirely new set of opportunities that didn’t involve more fighting and dismembering.

Ritter had already brought up the monitor embedded in the table in front of him and was examining the plans Stella had managed to find of the San Francisco and New York locations. They were scrambled, vague, and incomplete, but he studied them with enough concentration that I knew he believed this was a plan we might carry out successfully. A plan that wasn’t suicide.

Ava glanced at Ritter and came to the same conclusion. “Is there anything else you’d like to share?” she asked the captives. One by one, they shook their heads.

“But where are the Triad?” Mari said. “They used to have their main offices in LA, right? So they’re probably in San Francisco now, but who’s to say they aren’t in New York?”

“Oh, that’s easy,” Jeane answered, her beautiful face looking bored. “They’re in New York. After Erin damaged their building in LA, they moved the West Coast headquarters to San Francisco, but the Triad transferred closer to the action in DC. They were all there before I escaped. Except David. He stays at various safe houses that he owns.”

“How can we be sure they haven’t moved since you left?” Ritter barely glanced up from his screen as he asked the question.

Jeane smiled and rolled her neck, staring at him between half-lidded eyes. “Because I’ll call and ask.”

“You think they’re going to tell you?” I asked. Her arrogance was unbelievable.

Jeane reluctantly transferred her gaze to me. “If I have something to give them, I’m sure they’ll be more than happy to meet with me. With a little luck, we can get my brother there as well.”

Her brother Ropte. Was she really willing to risk his life? “How?” I didn’t hide the suspicion from my voice. I was on the verge of wanting to strangle her as much for the lack of clarity as for the not-so-subtle invitations she was sending Ritter. As a null, she had a lot to offer a man who might want to disconnect from an ability. That wasn’t Ritter, but she still rubbed me the wrong way.

Jeane gave me the same seductive stare she’d bestowed on Ritter. “Because, I’ll be taking them something Stefan’s been hunting for a while: his long-lost daughter. You.”

Pandemonium burst out as everyone spoke at once. “That would do it,” said Bedřich, while Mari exclaimed, “Yes! We’ll walk right in!” Cort nodded and said, “It could work.” And “It’ll be a tough sell,” came from Keene. Jace’s face flushed as he spoke: “She can’t go in alone.” Then from Chris, “Might be better to get them outside the headquarters.”

More comments twisted and slid around each other, each person offering an opinion. Only Ritter, Ava, and Dimitri remained silent.

And me.

“Even without knowing you’re a sensing Unbounded,” Jeane continued, “Stefan will want you for breeding. He knows you’re Ava’s descendent, and with the right sperm donor you could have a sensing child. You’re much better than the little twit he has there making eyes at Lew now.”

I stared at her for several seconds before I could process her comment enough to say, “You and Lew didn’t tell them I’m not a combat Unbounded?” I swallowed the word.

Jeane regarded me with wide eyes. “Honey, I never tell anyone anything unless I have to. You never know when it will become useful.”

“What about Lew?”

She shrugged. “He might have said something after I left, but I’m not sure it would have come up, and Catrina isn’t nearly as strong as he is, so she can’t break through his shield. And it seems anyone who might have known about you had that particular memory extracted before Delia died.” She gazed at the three Emporium captives. “Only they know now.” About the sensing, she meant, because they still believed me to be Stefan’s daughter.

Two emotions warred inside me. If Stefan didn’t know for sure about my ability or my parentage, it made Jeane’s idea singularly perfect. I could waltz right in. They might not trust me, but even with Lew and the newcomer Catrina, they’d wouldn’t be able to break into my mind for a good long while. Stefan might not believe I’d turned from the Renegades, but Jeane was right that he would jump at the chance to have me.

That terrified me more than I cared to admit. Still, it was a real chance—and I’d take that over a suicide mission any day.

Everyone soon quieted under Ava’s granite stare, but the different feeling in the room was amazing. Hope floated like protein atoms awaiting our absorption.

I had to hand it to Ava and Ritter. They’d known the original plan was weak, but they’d played it off our prisoners to create a strategy that was actually possible.

Maybe. If only so much didn’t depend on me.

AVA STOPPED THE DISCUSSION SO
our mortal guards could remove Shadrach and the Emporium prisoners, including Jeane. “No,” Jeane protested. “I want to stay here. I deserve to know everything. You have to promise me that Lew will be okay.”

“What about your brother?” Bedřich mocked. “Blood should be thicker than sex, even for a—” He said a word I didn’t understand, but Jeane apparently did.

“You Czech pig!” She launched herself at him, her nails poised to rake his thin face.

Without thinking, I pushed hard against her unshielded mind, sending a blast of light. At the same time, our guards dived for Jeane, with no chance of separating them in time. Bedřich’s hands started to rise to protect himself; he would also be too late.

A half instant before she gouged his eyes, her hands slowed and opened. She ran the inside of her fingers caressingly down his cheeks instead. “Never mind. You’re not worth it.” She gave a seductive laugh before turning docilely toward the door. “Take me back to my room, please.”

We all stared at the change in her. Ritter’s brows arched in calculation as he studied not Jeane’s retreating back but my stunned face. This was twice now, so the first time hadn’t been a fluke.

“All right. Let’s see what we’ve got,” Ava said after a few seconds. She waited until she had everyone’s attention. “Our new directive is to capture and contain the Emporium Triad.” She paused before adding, “By whatever means possible. Targeting only the Triad means we still have to get people inside, but hopefully only at one location. That also means we can do this as soon as tomorrow, which will maintain the advantage of surprise. Stella, can you show us the building?”

A holo of a New York high-rise appeared over the table. Twenty stories tall, with probably several more beneath the ground. “This is the New York headquarters,” Stella said. “With everything that’s going on in New York and DC, I believe Jeane’s right about Stefan and Tihalt living there now. Plus, Ropte’s close enough for us to lure him there in a respectable timetable.”

“Impressive.” Dimitri studied the building, one hand absently rubbing his chin. “If we cut off the Emporium’s head, we should be able to take over long enough to set them back years, if not permanently.”

Mari had a black knife in her hands and was twirling it gently. “Cut off the head. I like that.” Sometimes she worried me with her knife fascination, though I sensed she was at peace with herself now, more than she had been before leaving San Diego.

Keene’s gaze went from Mari to the holo. “Going in will be dangerous. We’ll have to spin it just right.”

“We’ll also have to make sure the other headquarters overseas don’t send reinforcements in case we do end up fighting more than we hope,” Dimitri said. “But the way I see it, this is really our only option. That is, if we’re going to act at all.” There was a gentle question in his voice, but Ava met it head on.

“You know we have to.”

He nodded. “I do know. I just don’t like it.” His stare flitted to me and away.

“Wait,” said Jace. “Erin reported seeing Stefan visiting Ropte. Maybe we could lure them all to his place. There would be fewer soldiers hanging around.”

We all thought about that for a moment. It was a solid suggestion, one that would certainly fulfill my wish about not walking into Stefan’s den. “Stefan won’t be traveling without a lot of people and talent around him,” I ventured, “but it could work. Right? Especially with the reinforcements from Mexico.”

“My father rarely leaves headquarters,” Cort said. “And all the paperwork needed for the succession will be at headquarters. DNA, video recognition—it’ll be very involved, if I know them. Still, it does seem easier. If we could somehow convince Tihalt to leave.”

Ava looked at Ritter, who was staring at the holo of the headquarters. No emotion showed on his face, but the connection between us told me his mind was in turmoil. Finally, he sighed. “If we try to have Jeane turn Erin over at Ropte’s, there’s no way Stefan will buy it. He has enough experience to know we’ll be up to something. He’ll make it impossible for us.”