Page 27 of Ferocious Nightmare

"Hell, Aster."

"Dante," I finally decided to be serious with him, "you have to trust me at some point. That point starts now. I swear to you that I’m doing this to help Coulter. I trust you with my life," I glanced towards the door, where the threat of Nero showing up was always there. I hated living in this house, knowing what kind of man lived under the same roof. That that same man might find a way to rape or kill me one day, "I need you to trust me to take care of Coulter."

"Fine," he grunted, running his hand over his face. "What do you want to know about David?”

For the next two hours, we went over everything that Dante knew about all the guards that stayed on the grounds, plus the ones at Nero's office. We focused particularly on the ones that weren’t especially loyal, but could be swayed to stand next to Coulter when the time came. After a while, the realization of what I was doing must have dawned over Dante, because he became more open and forthcoming about the information.

After we went over everything possible he could think of, we began to make plans. While Dante generally leaned towards pain and blackmail, I leaned the other way, trying to think of ways to soften them.

I wasn't an idiot. I now lived in a world where hurting others and having hearts of stone was a way of life, but I also knew that sometimes, you could get to people by softening their hearts a little.

Most people had at least either one person in their life, or something else that they cared about.

If we could help them, they would be more likely to help us.

It took some convincing, but Dante and I finally came up with a list of things that we could do that were mostly nice things to help the guards.

Once we were done, I glanced at my watch, then leapt to my feet. “Shoot, I gotta get ready."

Dante only nodded, getting to his own feet. Coulter had helped me set up a lunch meeting, and had even arranged to have some girl named Tatiana come along.

I was finally getting some girl time, while kicking some ass at the same time.

If, I could get them to do what I wanted.

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