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“We have a mole. Until we know who it is, we need to keep information close to our vest. No one outside of this office, other than Ziomara, who’s Evie’s right-hand woman and wasn’t even here when all of this shit show began, should know what we’re up to. Even our warriors. Choose them carefully, but we’re not telling anyone where we’re going, just that we’re going. This is our shot to surprise them and find out who’s running their operations for Tezcatlipoca. We can’t risk the mole alerting them.”
Everyone at the table nodded, and Mom raised her hand. I resisted the urge to roll my eyes at her silly antics.
“Lucien will want to go, but I don’t want Cecilia to be under any added stress right now...” She bit her lip. It was too bad Aunt Nat couldn’t heal things like stress. Poor Cecilia was still on bed rest.
“Don’t worry, Mom. I was already planning on him staying,” I assured her.
“When are we going?” Uncle Theo asked.
“Monday. Let’s give them all the weekend to relax and we’ll hit them first thing in the morning,” I said.
The meeting ended on a grim note, but thankfully, I could always count on my cousins to liven things up and they reminded us that we had a cousin date on Sunday. The week passed by with very little incident and soon we were all making our way to Guardian Moon with bags of change jingling merrily at our sides.
Loteria was a family tradition. We used to play it growing up at least on the holidays. It was a good way for our parents to keep us out of trouble and in our seats. We grew older, but we didn’t outgrow the tradition. We always competed to see who ended up with the biggest pot at the end of the night.
“Evie! Woman I haven’t gotten a chance to talk to you in forever! Have you been avoiding me?” Miguel ran over and picked Evie up into a bear hug and Tenoch growled in my head. Even though I knew that Miguel was Uncle Lalo’s oldest and loved Evie like a cousin, I couldn’t stop the jealousy that shot through my body.
‘If you don’t clear that look off your face, everyone is going to know you’re jealous of Evie getting a hug from her cousin,’ Jo mind-linked.
‘I can’t help it,’ I grumbled but turned away from the giggling cousins as they talked and walked over to Areli. She drove over for this and was spending the night at Mom’s so that they could wait for news together tomorrow. Mom wanted to go, but I told her I needed her here with Cecilia. James was also pissed I was leaving him behind, but with Jo and Dad coming, I needed someone to be in charge while I was away. He only begrudgingly accepted when I told him he needed to spend the day with Zi so they could coordinate in case anything happened.
To my chagrin, Evie was coming with us. We needed at least a few people who knew what they were doing with computers. Zi needed to stay because someone needed to watch Molly, which left Adrien, Evergreen and Evie as the tech experts we trusted for this.
The few of us who knew what was about to happen tomorrow started out a bit tense, but it was impossible not to relax and enjoy the evening when you’re surrounded by your family and there’s laughter all around you.
I went to bed early that night. After talking to Bells, I showered and got in bed. I thought about all of the men we were taking with me and sent up a quick prayer up to Selene to protect them. This was the first time I was willingly taking my people into a fight, and the burden of their lives was weighing heavily on me.
‘Cory? Are you awake?’ Evie’s mind-link came through.
‘I am. You should be sleeping. I need you at your best in the morning.’
‘I’m nervous,’ she admitted.
‘Me too, but I’ll deny it if you tell anyone,’ I said and got the laugh I was hoping for.
‘Your secret is safe with me,’ she answered.
‘What secret? I said nothing?’ She laughed in my head again, but after a few seconds, she went quiet again.
‘I hope I was right about everything. If I’m wrong, that’s a lot of blood on my hands,’ she said.
‘I’m the one that planned this and the one that asked them to risk their lives, Evie. None of this is on you.’
‘Based on my information,’ she said stubbornly.
‘Based on information from the phones. Their information,’ I reminded her. ‘Trust yourself. You’re the best at what you do, and if you don’t believe me, look at the pride that fills your father every time you present in front of everyone.’
‘Dad fills up with pride and joy when I manage not to burn water, Cory,’ she laughed.
‘Then look at my face,’ I said before I could stop myself. ‘I fill with pride at everything you’ve done with your life and all the work you do for the pack.’
‘You really believe that?’ she asked, a timidness in her voice I hadn’t heard in over a decade.
‘I don’t have to believe it, Evie. You show it every day. Get some sleep. Don’t let tomorrow worry you. Trust in the pack.’
‘I trust you. Good night, Cory,’ she said, before ending the mind-link.
I woke up at three in the morning and couldn’t go back to sleep, so I went downstairs and turned on the ovens. We were leaving at five in the morning from here, grabbing the Blue Moon Convoy on the way and heading to the airport. If I couldn’t sleep, I may as well be useful and make breakfast for the twenty of us.
