Page 121 of Fall Before Her Throne

Ciel raised an eyebrow and leaned forward. “With Lucia?”

“Yeah.”

“How do you think you’re going to do that? And also, why?”

Leona took another drink of tea and crossed her legs underneath her. “When I called her back at Max’s house a couple of weeks ago, Chiara told me she’d talked to her before. That was how she got in touch with us to tell us about the VCI board meeting where we surprised Max. She texted me because Lucia gave her my new number.”

Max chuckled. “Oh, so that’s how you seemed to know where I was. I had a snake in my midst.”

“Chiara would never sit quietly and do nothing while I was at risk,” she shot back. Her face turned a little smug. “You should have known that.”

He watched her affectionately. “Yeah, I should have. You two are exactly alike.”

Leona cocked her head to the side. “Chiara also told me you told her you had no intention of marrying her.”

Max shrugged. “I didn’t.”

“And why was that?” Leona asked.

Max rolled his eyes. “Because I have loved you every day I’ve lived since I was a boy, and if I couldn’t marry you, I’d marry no one. There. Is that a good enough answer?”

She grinned. “I guess it is acceptable.”

“So you think Chiara can get us in touch with Lucia?” Caspian asked. “Or Max can? He worked with her, too.”

“I saw you talking to her once,” Ciel chimed in. “I overheard you two on the phone.”

“You did?” Max tilted his head to the side. “On surveillance?”

Ciel shook his head and smiled slightly. “No, it was in person. You just didn’t know I was there.”

“Damn.” Max huffed a breath. “Guess I got lucky to keep my life then. Well, regardless, I lost my phone. I can’t get in touch with Lucia anymore.”

“Chiara told me before that she felt like Lucia didn’t care too much about this fight,” Leona said. “She still has Lucia’s number. I think they’ve even been chatting here and there. I wonder if we can at least get her to back off a little bit. Give us the upper hand.”

Max shook his head. “She’d never betray her grandfather. She’s loyal to Greco. That’s the only reason he let her work for me. She was helping me, but she was also monitoring me.”

I was inclined to agree with his assessment of her loyalty. I didn’t know much about Lucia personally, but as part of the Head’s family, I expected her to be loyal. Greco wouldn’t have involved her so much in the Camorra organization if there were a question of her commitment.

“I’m not so sure,” Leona argued.

“I don’t think she’d help us unless we had some kind of leverage over her,” Ciel mused. His fingers typed on his keyboard, filling the room with a quiet clacking.

“If she’s still trying to attack us, can we somehow attack her?” Wynn asked. “Hold her hostage unless she helps us?”

Ciel began nodding slowly. “There is a digital breadcrumb trail she left behind, and I’ve been building a virus to scramble and poison her data if I can get inside her systems.”

“So use that,” Caspian said. “If she doesn’t help us, then you’ll blow up her network instead.”

“But we can’t guarantee she won’t just rat to Greco,” Max said.

“So what if she does?” Leona said. “It’s not surprising that we’d try to hit her back. He’d expect us to retaliate for their breach of our systems. But if we can get her on our side, at least for a while, that would be an enormous advantage.”

I rubbed my chin. “It’s worth exploring. Ciel?”

“I’ll see what I can do,” he answered, typing away.

“We can follow Lucia’s left-behind traces, but Chiara can also help us get in touch with her. If she refuses to help, we spring the virus on her. Plus, wherever Chiara is, I want her back here where we can protect her. If Greco finds out about her and what she means to me, he will target her.”