Page 87 of Elven Prince

Finally, the feeling and warmth seeped back into Rebecca’s body, spreading through her limbs, and she managed to turn away from Whit’s computer to look up at Maxwell standing beside her. “This changes alot.”

“With little time to improvise if we pivot accordingly,” he replied.

Rick looked back and forth between them, then scoffed. “Istill can’t get over what those douchebags said about us. They think we’re a blubbering pile of useless shit without Aldous. Can you believe that?”

“They also thinkwe’rethe ones who took out all our own contacts,” Whit added with a shrug.

“But we didn’t.”

“Obviously.”

Rick swiveled in his desk chair. “Knox?”

It broke her away from the intensity of Maxwell’s gaze—the feeling that neither of them had to say much out loud anymore to understand the knowledge passing between them in other ways.

Maybe this was as close to reading each other’s minds as it would ever get.

“I couldn’t care less what they think about us,” she replied.

“Right…” Whit leaned toward his workstation to prop an elbow on the desk before dipping his head to scratch the side of his face. “So how do we handle this?”

Her gaze drew right back toward Maxwell’s, twin pairs of magnets finding each other despite the chaos. “It has to happen sooner or later.”

He dipped his head toward her with a grunt of agreement. “Sooner would be better.”

“We have a window.”

“And very little room to pivot.”

The awkward tension in the office rose to new heights when Rick and Whit exchanged a clueless glance, still waiting for either of their superiors to make sense.

Then Rebecca turned toward them. “We can’t defend against two gangs coming for us at the same time, can we? Not when we still have this other threat picking off our operatives and murdering everyone we come into contact with.”

Rick’s eyes widened. “Well, yeah…”

“We can’t defend against Big Boss and this other guy if we stay where we are, either,” she added. “But we literally just heard the foundation of their plans against us. Plus the date and time of their meetup.”

Maxwell folded his arms. “There may still be a chance to gain the advantage. But we need a new tactic. Driving in on them at the last second is no longer sufficient. We need more.”

Whit and Rick stared blankly at both of them before the warlock stroked his hairless chin. “What are we talking, here?”

The shifter’s scowl returned. “What else do we have?”

A crucially relevant question. WhatdidShade have beyond their operatives and their recent streak of good luck that might have been coming to an end? What did they have that Big Boss and Suit didn’t?

The answer came to her in an instant, lighting up Rebecca’s mind as she processed first the potential and then the strategic elements that might just give them the edge they needed. “I have an idea.”

This time, Rick, Whit,andMaxwell turned toward her, without a word, waiting for her to speak.

Rebecca puffed out a sigh. “Today’s Tuesday.”

Whit snorted. “Please tell me that matters somehow.”

“Just that we have two days to make this happen in time. It’ll take non-stop work and hustle from all of us, but it might actually give us a shot.”

Rick clapped his hands together and grinned. “Nothing we haven’t heard before. Whatever you need, boss, just say the word, and we’re on it.”

No matter how she looked at it, this new plan of hers still came with significantly more risk than their previous operations. But it was better than nothing, and Shade still hadn’t fallen so low that nothing was all they had.

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