Page 35 of Choosing Jenny
Raised voices took my attention from my thoughts. Men, behind a closed door nearby. Following the sound, I kept my steps light and quiet. I didn’t step in front of the door—I stood next to it to keep my feet from shading the crack at the bottom.
“…has Jenny wrapped around his finger, the tailless asshole,” Deacon groused.
Jacaranda’s voice followed, uncertain. “Do you think we need to take him out?”
A beat of silence passed before Deacon replied. “Not yet. Maybe we can use him for information about Justice.”
“And if he’s not useful?”
“I don’t know, Jac. I don’t want to hurt Jenny like that. Or Tiger.”
“Tiger sounded like he was almost done with Malice, as it is,” Jacaranda said, a hopeful lilt to his voice. “Maybe he can convince Jenny to do the same.”
“I hate this,” Deacon said, his tone clearly conflicted.
“So do I. We’re not the kind of people who do…what he does,” Jacaranda replied. “We save people, we don’t hurt them. But weboth know what he is. I don’t like having him here, and I know you don’t, either. He’s not someone we can trust and he’s too close to everything we’re doing here on Halla.”
Before they said anything else incriminating, I knocked on the door, then opened it. Four eyes bulged at me as I boldly walked in and closed the door behind me. They had been discussing my assassination in a library. It was smaller than mine, but decent enough. The lights were dim—bad for reading, but good for nefarious discussions.
I had always heard Halla’s building infrastructure was a far cry from Orhon’s, and the library proved it. Wood everywhere, not like our marble finery. But it was highly polished and glowed yellow and red in the faded candlelight. As meager as it was, it had a warm charm all its own.
They sat in leather armchairs in front of an unlit fireplace, and both men tensed at the sight of me, but did not stand. A strange tactic to take with someone they wanted to murder.Perhaps their hesitation to do so is genuine.
It was a shame things were adversarial between us. In another life, one without Jenny or Tiger, I would have found them both quite attractive.
I looked from one man, to the other, making myself as unimposing as possible. “Look, I get it. If I were in your shoes, I probably wouldn’t trust me either and killing me is understandably a viable solution to you. My work aside, no one trusts the tailless. I’ve lived with that my entire life.”
I paused, and when they didn’t respond, I continued. “But what I can tell you is that my friends and I have been honest with you. About everything. I’m not here as Justice’s executioner or his eyes and ears. No one on my crew is, either. But I will be honest with you, that’s what Justice told me and Longshot to be for him. It’s why we can come here with no worry about an imperial ship following us. He wants us to spy on you, but that’snot why we’re here. We are here to help. All of us. My people have been with Jenny and Tiger through thick and thin, and that’s not going to change, even if it makes you uncomfortable. That said, I don’t want to cause Jenny any problems with her family, and I don’t want to cause Tiger any problems with his friends. So, what do I need to do to prove to you that I’m on your side and that I am here to help?”
They stared at me for a beat, before Jacaranda finally replied. “Admitting you were just spying on us does not do much to help your case, Ripper.”
“The times I was actually spying on people, I was a lot subtler about it than this, Cozz.”
Deacon’s lips pressed into a thin line. “If you want to prove yourself to us, Malice, then you will tell us what Justice is planning. All of it.”
Jacaranda said nothing. He only stared at me, his fingers flexing against the arms of his chair.
“And what I tell you, you won’t hold that against me?” I asked them.
The pair exchanged a look before Deacon spoke. “Why would we hold that against you?”
“Because you’re asking me to betray the man who raised me,” I said evenly. “A man who gave me everything and who I owe my life to. If I do this, will you just take it as proof that I’ll betray anyone, if it’s convenient?”
“In war, people are betrayed all the time,” Jacaranda pointed out.
“True, but betrayals can tell you who a man really is, and I want to know if I give you that information, will you just see that as evidence that I’m another untrustworthy, tailless asshole?”
Jacaranda laughed. “How long were you listening at the door?”
“Long enough.”
“I understand your hesitation, Malice,” Deacon said, his tone not as harsh as before, but still lined with skepticism. “The few times I went to the palace, I remember how close you two seemed. So yes, I am asking you to betray the man who gave you everything you have today, because I want to know if you can be more than what he made you. If you have it in you to choose something better.”
“And if you truly are his puppet,” Jacaranda said, cool and calm, “you’ll never see Orhon again.”
“Provided you won’t hold it against me that I’ve betrayed Justice, that you’ll see it as me proving my loyalty to you, let’s get into it.”
I sat on the sofa across from them and spilled what I knew. “A large part of what Justice is doing is waiting on you. He wants to know who’s allied with you, especially those on Orhon. That’s what he ordered me and Longshot to find out. Once he knows your allies, he’ll decide what to do about it.”
