Face drooping, brain limping along at half speed, I do the math while I guzzle my coffee. Even when I factor in all the variables and carry the one, it doesn’t add up.
I told Sarah they were important. My gut is telling me to help them, that they’re worth it. And damned if I don’t want to be their hero for once instead of a villain. Is that wrong?
Luca refills my mug and adds a splash of creamer to knock the edge off. I bring it carefully to my lips. The coffee flirts with the rim before I knock back a deep gulp.
“You’re thinking hard,” he says.
If anyone at the enclave said that to me, I would accuse them of mocking me, but Luca—as violent as he is—doesn’t have much of a mean streak. At least not that he’s shown me.
“This is a tricky situation,” I tell him, sticking to the cold, hard truth.
“You’re under pressure”—Luca sips from his own mug, his eyes going half-lidded with delight as the coffee hits his taste buds—“but are you in danger?”
He sounds like he would care if I was, and my heart flips.Don’t get your hopes up.
“They won’t physically hurt me, if that’s what you mean,” I say.
Luca hums and takes another sip. “There are more ways to beharmed besides the physical, especially by the people closest to us.”
“Don’t I know it.” I groan and let my tired eyes drift shut, wincing from the scrape of my eyelids. They might as well be sandpaper. “I’ll have to go home. This can’t be handled over the phone.”
“And if we run?” Luca asks.
I open my eyes. “Then you’ll be spitting on my gesture of friendship. I’m vouching for you, telling my dad you’re not at fault?—”
“We aren’t,” Luca snaps.
“Yeah, but half a dozen angels were killed in the street. People saw—lots of people saw—and this is after I already put my ass on the line by saying you weren’t a threat.”
“Why would you do that, Ciprian?”
It’s a simple question; one I’ve already asked myself half a dozen times. “Fuck if I know,” I say. “Please don’t make me regret it.”
He frowns. “I hear what you’re saying, but you’re asking for a lot too. You want us to go against all our instincts and trust you, yet you’re obviously worried about pulling this off. Our experiences with the enclave don’t point to fair decision-making, and you’ve already tricked us once.”
“I didn’t—” I stop myself and take a deep breath. “I tricked you, yes, but it wasn’t done maliciously. I wanted you to be innocent.”
“But we weren’t,” Celine says.
I turn my head, wincing as my neck cracks. Dressed in a crop top and skintight leggings, she’s only five or six feet away, but she feels unreachable. Lips pursed, arms crossed, everything about her body language is closed off.
“But you weren’t,” I echo her words. “I’ve spoken to JoshuaTherion—the leader of the shifter contingent of the enclave. He’s agreed to hear me out in person before deciding.”
“Does he know about Roscoe?”
Telling her the truth is risky.
Lying might be worse.
I tighten my grip on the mug. Do I cut the blue wire or the red one? There’s no pretending that Celine herself isn’t a critical part of the bomb I’m defusing.
I open my mouth to dodge her question and—a trickle of her fear hits me.
It reminds me of the bathroom floor when she fed me her terror before telling me about Roscoe. In that moment, Celine trusted me with her secrets. She doesn’t remember that feeling anymore, but I do. It was a punch to the gut and the most precious gift I’d ever been given.
For the memory of that alone, I owe her the truth.
“They know about Roscoe,” I say grimly. “I made it crystal clear that Dad’s favorite guard was killed by a gang of transient shifters over an illegal poker game.”
