“No. Not exactly.” I grip Byron’s hand and swipe at my eyes. “I’m sorry.”
“You don’t have to apologize for getting emotional,” Cole says, quiet and even. “You’re dealing with a lot.”
The reassurance from him of all people sends a skip through my pulse—and solidifies my resolve.
All of my matches made a point of how much they’re with me, and here they are. I just have to keep letting them in.
I gather my nerve. “Ms. Lupul—whatever you used to turn suspicion on her mustn’t have totally worked. When I got home today, she was in the backyard talking with my dad.”
As I relate the entire conversation I overheard and the conclusions I’ve drawn from it, Salvatore’s embrace firms around me. As soon as I’m finished, he presses another kiss to my hair. “We’re not letting her or the rest of the assholes she works with get one finger on you, mia amata. Screw their stupid training exercise. We can skip it.”
I square my shoulders. “No, I don’t think we can.”
Byron lets out a scoffing sound. “We all can. The supplementary seminars aren’t mandatory. You’d have every reason to?—”
I stop him with another squeeze of his fingers. “I have every reason to go. Wehaveto expose this group for what they’re doing, as soon as possible. The longer they keep at it, the more people might get hurt.”
Including the men around me. Including the dad I only just got back from the dead.
“The longer we keep investigating, the more chance there is that they’ll realize we’re on to them and hit back even harder,” I continue. “We can’t prove anything yet, but it’s obvious they’re going to lash out at me again tomorrow night. All we have to do is make sure they’re caught in the act, and this mess will be over.”
Please, let that be true.
A disapproving rumble emanates from Salvatore’s chest, but Asher speaks before the mafia heir can. “Tell us what you’re thinking, Lo. You’ve obviously mulled this over. The least we can do is listen.”
“Thank you.” I lift my other hand to rub Salvatore’s arm as if that’ll make him feel better when he hears my plan. “I already managed to catch one of the killers. I just didn’t have enough witnesses. I’ll be out there in themiddle of the training, looking unaware and vulnerable, but when they attack, I’ll be ready, just like I was with Kenneth. And this time I’ll have all of you ready to jump in too.”
I aim a smile at the three men in my view, but they all look too worried to return it. Then Salvatore turns me to face him, gripping my elbows and peering down into my face.
“You almostdiedwhen it was just Kenneth—even with me tackling him too. We don’t know what they’re going to have set up for tomorrow’s session. Is Captain Ross part of this group of shitheads too? There’s all that fancy tech and who knows what else… and what if no one believes us even if we say he and Jovak attacked you?”
A trace of strain creeps into his voice with that last question.
“It won’t just be you. As soon as they make a move, we’ll get the police there.” I turn away from Salvatore toward Cole. “You won’t be part of the training exercise, so you can be watching the park from nearby. We’ll figure out a signal so you know when to make the emergency call.”
My gaze slides from him to the others. “And we’ve got plenty of magic. There’ll be a bunch of other lucents around—students, the nurses. We can light up the scene, make sure people witness what’s happening. But that’s not the most important part.”
“What’s that, according to you?” Cole asks.
“It can’t be just Jovak—and Ross, if he’s in on the scheme too—that we take down. We need to get to the heart of the group. That means the people calling the shots.”
I wet my lips. “When Asher and I listened in on Jovak’s conversation with Gwyn, she warned him that she’d intervene if she had to. They must be pretty nervous after finding a corpse at Groove Garden, not knowing who found their records. She’ll be watching in case she needs to step in and finish the job. So we have to make it look like Jovak justscrewed up, like there’s still a chance she could take me out, and exposehertrying to kill me.”
“And then hope she exposes the rest of the inner circle,” Byron fills in stiffly.
I force a grin even though my heart is pounding painfully hard. “That’s the idea!”
Salvatore is shaking his head. “No. No way, Elodie. It’s taking too many chances, sticking your neck too far out—they’d have to kill me to get to you, but one dimwit nearly managed to do that already.”
Cole rubs his hand over his face. “For once, I agree with Mr. Cosgrave. There are risky gambles, and then there’s near suicide. There has to be another way to take down this group.”
Byron folds his arms over his chest and aims a pointed look at Cole. “Haven’t you been able to dig up anything more on Jovak? The academy hired Captain Ross too. Don’t you have access to their records?”
Cole glares back at him. “There hasn’t been much to look at. Do you really think they’d sign a contract mentioning that they’re planning on murdering one of the students?”
Salvatore frowns at the professor too. “And weren’t you supposed to be tracking that Gwyn woman down? Can’t we get at her that way?”
Cole’s expression turns even grimmer. “I tried, the one place we know she has a regular appointment. The tracing spell I attached to her car vanished the moment the valet drove it into the garage. She must have left more discreetly than she arrived, because I couldn’t pick up her trail again. I can try again this week?—”
