Page 85 of Elven Lies

The tingling heat made her breath catch as Maxwell stopped in front of her closed office door and knocked.

“Come in,” she called, though she already knew it was him. Her body’s reaction to him never predicted anyone else.

She wasn’t wrong.

Her office door swung open, then Maxwell appeared, poking his head through as if he wasn’t sure he should be here. “You wanted to see me?”

“Yep. Come on in and close the door.”

He expertly covered up his momentary surprise before doing just that, though Rebecca still caught the widening of his eyes before his twitching frown of uncertainty and curiosity covered it up. “Did you find the key-maker?”

He thought she’d bitten off more than she could chew going out with Rowan alone, and he’d probably been right. But at the moment, Rebecca was more concerned with the good news.

“It was more or less a success,” she said, gauging his reaction. “I found a lot more than just the key-maker.”

The door clicked shut, and Maxwell approached her desk with slow, calculated steps, his hands clasped behind his back and his chin lifted. Ever the obedient soldier ready for his next order.

“Should we be worried?” he asked.

When he stopped in front of her desk without any other sign that he was glad to see her back or that he’d felt her return just asacutely as she’d felt his, she figured it was best to just dive right in.

“I don’t think so. But that’s what I wanted to talk to you about.” Rebecca pulled the vault key from her pocket and set it on the desk. “This opens a private storage vault in Nexus’s Chicago branch right downtown. Turns out Aldous was even busier than we thought.”

The shifter cocked his head but remained silent. How could he not be interested in what came next?

“He’s been holding out on Shade for a long time,” she added. “If I had to guess, based on everything locked up in there, I’d say he was keeping the majority of acquired goods and contract payments in there for at least as long as his reign of terror, if not longer. And I wanted to get your opinion on the best way to handle Shade’s newfound treasure before I called another council meeting about it.”

He stared blankly at her for a moment, then a corner of his mouth twitched. “I missed the part where that was made anofficialcouncil.”

Full of jokes, was he? At least she’d caught him in a good mood.

“I’m still making this up as I go, Max,” she replied and sat back in her office chair. “So bear with me.”

He snorted, which, coming from Maxwell, could have been interpreted as any number of things. But it made her smile all the same.

“I do have an opinion, as it turns out,” he said.

“I figured you would.” She nodded. “Let’s hear it.”

“In terms of Aldous’s…belongings, I’d say, technically, we deal with it the way we’ve dealt with everything else here that once belonged to him. It goes directly to his successor.”

Rebecca grimaced before realizing that was the expression she felt on her own face. “I don’t want Aldous’s stuff.”

“At that point,” he continued, as if she hadn’t added any commentary, “it would then be for the Roth-Da’al to do with as she sees fit.”

“Well that’s a very blanket answer.” Wrinkling her nose, she leaned farther back into her chair and swiveled side to side.

She’d hoped her Head of Security had something more concrete to offer, but his answer didn’t surprise her.

He watched her diligently, the office filling with the rhythmic squeak of her chair as she swiveled back and forth and the thoughtful, pattering tap of her fingers on the plastic armrests. Then he sighed and gave her more.

“But personally, I would devise a system for reallocating those resources. Say half remains in a pool for Shade to budget upgrades, necessary mission resources, maintenance and repairs, restocking supplies. You get the idea. Then I’d come up with a way to disperse the other half so everyone gets a piece.”

“Equals slices of one big old pie, huh?”

“Or half of it, anyway.”

She stopped swiveling and looked up at him in time to catch another twitch at the corner of his mouth while his silver eyes focused on the surface of her desk.

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