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“So I give you my shield generator,” Atlas says. “Then what?”
“I’ll fly a spacecraft from here to Vahar—the heart of Diavolo territory,” I clarify for Penn. “I’ll go to my superiors and tell them what I’ve done, and once I’m inside, I’ll find Agent Dara and extract her.”
“They really trust you that much?” Keon asks.
“The Diavolos have a lot riding on me,” I say. “And wouldn’t they be pleased if I managed to take out their greatest rival?
“We should plant a story about your assassination to make it more real,” Keon says. “Hide you somewhere in the villa, tell no one what’s happened—other than your mother, I would think.”
“She can plot with the best of them,” Atlas says. Then he nods at me. “I accept.”
He places the shield generator on the table, between the four of us. I’ve been waiting for this moment for so long that my impulse is to leap across the table and slit his throat…
…but I don’t.
Especially because I think Penn would murder me on the spot.
“I’m going with you,” she says.
Atlas snaps his head toward her. “No.”
“She’s my best friend—the whole reason I’m here,” Penn says. “I have to see this through. I can’t just wait in the wings, especially when I have skills that could be useful.”
“It puts you at risk,” Atlas says. “If the Diavolos catch you, they’ll have not one, buttwohuman women…and I shudder to think of what they might do to you.”
“I’m not just a seductress, and I refuse to be reduced to that,” she says with a glare. “I have nearly a decade of martial arts training, I’ve gone through boot camp, and I’m a crack shot with a rifle. I’ll stay on the ship and only leave if Corvus runs into trouble during the extraction.”
He turns to face her and reaches out his other hand to grasp hers with both of his. “I don’t want to lose you,” he murmurs.
“For what it’s worth, I don’t want to lose her either,” I say.
It might not be the most calculated move, but I mean it. IlikePenn. True, I want her, but it’s so much more than that.
I could see us becoming a clan, just like Aelyds used to form.
A family.
“I won’t see her in captivity,” I say. “I would die before I let her be captured—even if it means I don’t get amnesty with the Ganivets. But I can’t let any more women be imprisoned by my Family, or any others, and if she wants to go—”
A chime rings from Keon’s direction, cutting me off. We all turn toward him to find him looking down at his comm, then his eyes dart up toward us.
“Let’s table this for now,” Keon says calmly. “We have a visitor.”
Atlas frowns. “Who?”
“Zaire en’Diavolo,” Keon says. “I had him brought here from his base in Vahar…and he’s going to be going on the mission, too, if that sets you at ease.”
Penn turns toward Atlas like she’s ready to keep arguing, but then Keon’s hand is on my shoulder. I look up at him to find a strange look in his eyes.
“Thank you,” he says quietly.
And then he goes to get Zaire as the final pieces of our plan fall into place.
CHAPTER FORTY-TWO
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PENN
