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Rose’s jaw set. She obviously knew that was true. She spoke as if through gritted teeth. “Youwilltell me something I can use against the Frankfords. And you’ll want to tell me quick. Because no one will be able to tell that I did this to you. Now you know what it’s been like, knowing someone hurt you and not being able to prove it. I can think of allsortsof ‘accidents’ I could make happen in an instant.”
Her arm whirled, and her hand balled into a fist. Courtland knifed over, his arm dropping to hug his belly. Rose’s hand squeezed tighter. Her knuckles whitened, and Courtland gasped.
“Rose,” I murmured again. An ache ran through me from throat to gut. I wanted to grab her, to pull her into my arms and away from here—but I was afraid to find out what she might do if I tried. Maybe she’d end up hurting him even more badly if I distracted her.
“I don’t know anything,” Courtland sputtered.
“I don’t believe you,” Rose said flatly.
I took a step forward, my heart thudding. Before I could figure out how to intervene without making this worse, Courtland shuddered, and his mouth flew open again.
“There’s one thing. Charles has gotten more paranoid. He doesn’t want to discuss anything confidential in the Assembly building since one of your boys breached it. He’s got a code, when he sets up an important meeting somewhere private. He always mentions the place where he met you last, so you know for sure it’s him. Doesn’t trust his phone and computer not to get broken into either. I only knowthatbecause your father was complaining about it.”
Rose dropped her hand. Courtland sagged against the floor with a grateful sigh. His arm was still clamped around his abdomen. A smile stretched across my consort’s face, so bright and satisfied it brought acid up my throat.
“Thank you,” she said. “That’s something.”
Oh, Lord, that was not the woman I loved. That was not the Rose I’d lived and breathed for so long as kids and so much of the last two months.
As she turned toward us, still smiling, a horrible understanding crept up through my body.I’ddone this. I’d drawn her into our group way back when, even though I’d known the lonely-looking girl sitting on the manor’s front steps was a Hallowell, even though I’d been aware even at seven that the owners of the estate didn’t get friendly with anyone not their kind.
If Rose had stayed the obedient girl her father had wanted, one who’d never mixed with unsparked guys like us, would he even have sacrificed her the way he had? Or had that first transgression made all the difference?
I couldn’t answer that. There was no way to know. The only thing I could say for sure was that I couldn’t let it go on.
Whatever it took, wherever it took me—I couldn’t let her fall any further into that darkness she’d once been so afraid of.
Chapter Fifteen
Rose
For the first few minutes after Master Courtland had talked, a victorious energy hummed through my veins. By the time the Buick’s engine rumbled to life as we set off for the estate, that exhilaration had dulled. What had we learned, really? How much could we even use it?
I snatched after that sense of accomplishment, holding onto it as tightly as I could to ward off the helpless feeling that had been gripping me for far too long.
“We can do something with that information, right, Ky?” I said. “You could figure out how to hack into Frankford’s phone, and then we can send a message pretending to be him.”
“I should be able to manage it, if I had his number for whatever phone he uses to set up the meetings,” Ky said. “But we’d have to get that first. And who would we be messaging? What would we be telling them?”
I bit my lip. “I’m not sure. We might be able to trick someone into admitting more than they should over the phone. Or… we could have people from his faction bring something incriminating to the same place as legitimate people from the Assembly and expose them like that.” Of course, we’d have to figure out what that incriminating “something” would be and which people in the Assembly were definitely legitimate.
“If we do use it, we’ll want to make sure we’ve got the best possible plan,” Seth said. “We’re probably not going to get away with that ploy more than once before Frankford realizes. It’ll be hard enough making sure he doesn’t find out about the fake meeting in the first place.”
“Yeah. And we’d need to know where he’s seen whoever we’re inviting to that meet-up most recently beforehand.” It didn’t seem likely Frankford would leave that information around where someone could find it.
“Once I’m in his phone, I’d be able to see the old messages,” Ky said. “But anything he wants to keep secret, he’ll be deleting after he sends it.”
“Oh, come on,” Damon said. “We’ve got something we can use. We’ll figure out the rest. And that Courtland guy is shitting his pants right now at the thought of getting on Rose’s bad side even more. I doubt he’ll be cozying up with her old man again any time soon.”
Gabriel hadn’t said anything. When I glanced over at him, he was watching the road, his hands tight around the wheel, his expression difficult to read. Normally he would have pitched in an idea or two of his own. Did he figure our trip out there had been a total failure?
“The witch who joined us a couple days ago,” I said, thinking out loud. “Thalia. When she’s feeling up to it, I’ll talk about the Assembly families with her. She might not be able to talk openly about what she’s been through, but she can tell me if there’s anyone not in Frankford’s files who was involved in any way. Who she’s sure wasn’t involved. If we cross-check that with what my Aunt Ginny and Naomi have found out and what I know from my dad, we’ll have a decent idea of who we could bring this to.”
“You could do that trick you did on Courtland with one of the people closer to Frankford,” Damon suggested. “Hell, even on your dad. They’d have more sensitive info they could cough up.”
I paused. I hadn’t really thought through what I’d done to Courtland. My anger and my fear for the people I needed to protect had propelled me onward. It was hard to imagineplanningto go up to someone and torment them into revealing what we needed.
“I don’t know,” I said. “I guess if we found the right person, the right time—”
