Page 92 of Sovereign Oaths

“What can I do?” He threw up one hand. “Everything is shit.”

“You rise! You clean yourself up and regroup. You call your trusted men together, and you make a plan. We did not make it this far—” He stopped, gasping. “Your father and I did not sacrifice everything for you to throw it away within a few years.”

“Huh.” I had to hand it to the guy. Even I was motivated. Too bad Dias was too far gone to do anything.

Martin stood and moved to the kitchen. “I’ll make you coffee since your staff is missing.”

“Everyone’s gone. They left.” Dias dropped his head back.

“Because they see this is a sinking ship. They jumped to save themselves.”

Another point to the old man.

“We can get them back. We can rebuild everything, but you must pull your head from your ass and get to work!” He removed the mug from under the machine and brought it to Dias. “Drink. Then shower. You cannot rest until things are right.”

“I don’t know what to do.”

Marco jerked his gaze away from the screen, eyes wide.“Damn. Did he just admit that?”

“Either he’s drunker than we thought, or he realizes he’s in too deep and needs help.”

“You listen to me.” Martin leaned over him. “I will get us through this. Trust me.”

Dias didn’t argue, and all we could do was sit back and watch.

About twenty minutes later, the door opened, and I swung in my chair to find Em coming toward me. She offered a tired smile as she climbed onto my lap and wrapped her arms around my neck.

“Hey, what are you doing up?” Marco asked.

“Javi was snoring.” She leaned her head on my shoulder.

“You can go to my bed,” I offered, but she didn’t move.

“I don’t want to be alone.”

“I’ll wake up Derek and move him to the other room.” Marco started to stand.

She stopped him. “No, let them sleep. I’m not very tired anymore.”

Marco studied her but nodded. If she was going to stay in here with us, I didn’t want her to watch the feeds. I turned her back to the monitors and rubbed my palms over the shirt she borrowed from Javi.

“How are things––”

“Did anyone ever tell you the story about the pond behind the boys’ home?” I didn’t want to talk about what was happening and how badly Dias was spiraling. I wished a different story came to mind, but it was the first one to pop up.

Marco snorted.

She smiled at him, then faced me. “No.”

“It wasn’t super clean, but being young boys, we didn’t care. It was the only way to cool off in the summer when the supervisors sent us outside so we didn’t bug them all day. There was a cracked, uneven half of a basketball court with a hoop that was missing the backboard.”

“One tree with large enough branches to climb,” Marco added.

“Yeah, and dead grass. That was it. The older boys would strip down to their boxers and swim in the pond, playing Marco Polo, chicken fighting, and racing. Derek and I begged to join, but they said we were too little and not allowed.” I shot a glare at Marco, who just laughed.

“You excluded them?” Em’s eyes were wide.

“Hey, back then it was every man for himself. Javi and I were just barely let in by the others. If we tried to get them to change their minds on Derek and Cruz, we would have lost pond privileges too.”

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