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I spoke up before anyone else could, needing to clean up the mess I’d inadvertently made. “We show Gladius why they should have never messed with us. They should have refused to take the job when Aleksándr Volkov hired them to take out Dad.”
The Russian leader was now dead, shot by Gabriel. And good riddance too. But it also meant we couldn’t use him as leverage.
Liam sighed, knowing where I was going with this. “They’re well connected. You can’t just go in and start shooting.”
Grinning, I winked at my brother. “We’re better connected. And have more guns.”
Dad shook his head with a sigh. “We need a better plan than that. And we need Ariel to help us. The bug you planted has given us a lot of information that we can use to our advantage, but there’s still too much we don’t know about them.”
Relaxing back against the shelf behind him, Liam sipped his coffee. “Our men are collecting everything they can from the bug. And we have people all over town following leads.”
Gabriel tapped his fingers on the side of his cup, making me want to slap it out of his hand. “We need her. Whether or not we want to. Besides, don’t you think she owes us?”
I put my now-empty cup on one of the shelves. “Fucking fine. I’ll get her.”
I didn’t waste time going back to my room, pushing the door open without knocking. Ariel whirled around from where she stood at the edge of my closet, only clad in a towel. Her hair was wet, the dark strands hanging heavy down her back.
“Get dressed, then come with me,” I ordered.
Stepping back, she visibly swallowed. “Why?”
“Because we need information on Gladius.”
She retreated another step, her eyes wide, her hands out in front of her, palms facing me. “I swore an oath. I can’t tell you anything.”
“Don’t you think that’s redundant now?”
Her hands fell, and she pressed her lips together in a flat line. “I guess they’re already planning to get rid of me.”
She disappeared inside my closet, coming out shortly after dressed in sweatpants that swallowed her and a T-shirt that hung down to her knees.
“Come on, everyone’s waiting.”
She blanched at my words, clenching her trembling hands in front of her. “I can just tell you what I know.”
“Then I’ll have to repeat everything. No way.” Nodding at the door, I turned. “Let’s go.”
Not waiting to find out if she would follow, I went back downstairs. We both knew she didn’t really have a choice.
When I entered the study, Ariel was right behind me, her light steps following me into the room.
Everyone looked at her expectantly, and I pulled her forward and to the couch. When she stood in front of it, unmoving, I gave her a gentle shove. She flopped onto the cushion, and I took a seat next to her, wedging her in between me and Freya.
My sister nodded to the already half-empty pot. “Coffee?”
“Yes, please.”
Freya nodded and got up. “Jude?”
“Yeah.”
She brought us each a mug. Ariel sipped her coffee, her eyes flitting around the room, the muscles in her neck taut.
Dad was once again sitting behind his desk, hands braced on the dark wood surface. “We need more information if we want to have any chance of taking them out.”
Ariel stiffened. “You can’t take them out. They’re strong, and they’re everywhere. In government. Law enforcement. Education. Medicine. And they’re smart. They have contingency plans for everything. If you take out one princep, another will take his place.”
“Then what can we do to get them to back off?”
