Page 41 of Blood and Trouble

“I’ve got some updates,” I said, nodding toward the living room. “You should hear this.”

He cleared his throat and followed me into the room, sitting down on the ottoman next to Ava. They both looked up at me with big, wide eyes, expectant expressions on their faces.

Like this, they made quite the pair—their dark coloring, their intelligent gazes, their brilliant minds and wicked tongues. Oh, to be able to enact all the deviant, despicable things I had rolling around in my head.

Focus.

“Marx had a sister,” I said, explaining everything Channing had told me—her appearance in Europe and the timing around Marx’s death. When I pulled out my phone to show them the picture, Ava gasped and straightened.

“That’s the woman from the gala,” she said. “The one who said I looked like my mother.”

“Fuck.” I ran my hands back through my hair. Bow had been trying to find her, but there weren’t any standouts on the guest list.

“Wait, what?” Poe said. “What’d she say to you?”

Ava frowned. “She said she knew my mother. From before.”

“From before what?” Poe’s jaw tightened.

“I don’t know. Her death, maybe? My mother’s been gone twenty years, and I look nothing like her.” Ava pursed her lips in consideration. “Is she trailing us?”

“Maybe,” I said. “It could be coincidence. Evelyn owns some businesses. She could be here for the same reason we are.”

“Doubtful,” Poe said. “My money’s on revenge. She’s already made contact. She’s waiting for the right moment to pounce.”

That itched my brain for reasons I couldn’t pinpoint. If she wanted revenge, why not take it as soon as she got here, before we knew who she was? Why wait all this time? What was the right moment? No, this seemed much deeper than that.

“We can’t cut the trip short,” Ava said. “I’ve only just gotten a meeting with the third potential partner. If I land this deal, we’ll be halfway there, but I need the rest to guarantee the whole. Especially Scott.”

I shot a text off to Channing and Mill to update them on Ava’s encounter.

“For now, we stick together, the three of us,” I said. “No one goes anywhere alone.”

Poe agreed. “I ran through the schedule for the rest of the trip and made a few suggestions, specifically around the royal reception in a few days. Security will be tight, but… Here.” He tapped a few places on his phone and dropped a file directly to me. “It’s just a few tweaks. Nothing major.”

I glanced over it, noting alternate routes to our meetings and decoy vehicles to protect Ava’s identity better.

“I also suggest you continue your ruse of protecting the Bastards’ interests,” he said. “CFO or whatever. It might draw her out. I’ll stand in as head bodyguard.”

“This is well thought out,” Trouble said. “Thank you, Poe.”

He rubbed the back of his neck and looked down at the floor. “Don’t mention it. Just doing my job.”

That dark, possessive aroma wafted off him again, pungent and predatory. But before any of us could comment on it, he cleared his throat and sat forward, his elbows on his knees, his hands clasped in front of him.

“Walk me through the rest of the week in Copenhagen. Let’s take it step by step.”

I’d forgotten how methodical he was, how he could look at something from every angle, pick it apart, and see it from angles I could never imagine. He was a master of strategy, of thinking like the enemy and anticipating their next move. He’d been instrumental in helping us rescue Sol last year, and I had no doubt he’d been a big part of bringing Marx down a few weeks ago.

“I need to know more about her,” he said, “get a feel for the way her mind works.”

“I’ll tell Channing to reach out to you,” I said, adding that to my text.

“And that will help?” Ava asked, glancing back and forth between us.

“Poe is better at reading people than I am,” I explained.

“No, that’s not true,” Poe countered. “Lycan’s got better instincts. My ability is a little more psychological.”