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“Where are you going? To your father?”
“No. Spider didn’t know where he was. He hasn’t been seen for over a week. Spider thought he was out of the country, actually.”
“Then don’t go. You’re tired. You need sleep. You’ve been up—what, twenty hours now? And I know you only slept a few hours on the plane.”
“I have to.” His expression was stark. “Rafe… Spider told me something, something that worries me.”
“What?”
“Andre Redbone. He was staked sometime last week. You know who he is?”
I released his arm. “A Kral kapitán.”
“Yeah. I actually heard a rumor about Redbone last night, that someone in the Kral inner circle staked him—Tomas or Gabriel—which is bad enough. But Spider doesn’t believe it. He thinks it must have been my father, and I don’t know why Father would’ve staked Redbone. Hell, I don’t know why Tomas or Gabriel would’ve staked him unless he was the traitor.”
I scrunched my mouth to the side, thinking. “You say he was staked last week? Do you know what day?”
“No. Spider heard Thursday night—that’s all he could tell me.”
“It’s possible Redbone was a traitor, but we’ve had intel since then.”
“Fuck.” Zaq lowered his eyes in a slow blink. “I have to…” His whole body seemed to droop. “Actually I don’t know what to do.”
“Then sleep on it. You have a week. You said yourself your father may not even be in the country. Keep pushing yourself like this and you’re going to collapse again and then you won’t be any good to anyone, especially Rafe.”
“Do you care? Really?” His voice was harsh. “About me or Rafe?”
I flinched and tried to cover it by rubbing my nose.
But he noticed because he looked away. “Fine. I’ll lie down for a few hours.” He released a breath. “I am tired. So damn tired.”
Back in my room, we got ready for bed. I had my daily glass of blood-wine, and Zaq downed a couple of glasses in rapid succession.
We stripped to our underwear and lay side by side on the mattress.
I wondered what I’d do if he made a move. Then I wondered what he’d do if I made a move.
But neither of us made a move.
Instead we stared at the ceiling unmoving. Zaq’s right pinkie was a scant inch from my left, but it felt like he was on the other side of the planet.
24
ZAQ
I woke up around noon the next day, tired and a little achy. I still hadn’t shaken off the aftereffects of the silver poisoning.
But I couldn’t lie around, waiting to get better. I had to keep pushing. Already, two of the seven days they’d given me had passed.
Spider had told me the Kral Syndicate was like a ticking bomb. One more spark could blow everything sky-high.
Andre Redbone’s passing had sent a shock wave through the syndicate, and then Tomas had disappeared too. With my father away, rumors were flying fast and thick.
Some said Redbone was a traitor who’d been staked when he attacked Gabriel.
Others insisted the kapitán had been loyal, that it was Gabriel who was the traitor. They said Redbone was only the beginning, that Gabriel—or maybe me or Rafe—had staked Tomas, too. That we three brothers were coming after all the kapitáns, one by one. With my father’s inner circle eliminated, it would be easy to take him out next. It didn’t help that neither Rafe nor I had been seen in over a week.
Then there were the people who blamed it all on my father, said he’d gone blood mad and was staking all his top people.
