Page 48 of Cast in Shadow
Then there was the Brethren. By now, every one of them would know not just that I was alive, but that I was also the director of Lexa. That meant we needed to increase security at HQ. Doubling up on agents for missions would probably be a good thing too, at least until we knew how having a traitor in the Brethren’s midst would impact our operational safety.
And, of course, there was Emerson. I couldn’t even process everything with him yet.
There was so much damage control to do, and so many questions that needed answers.
Would the Brethren still hate me as much now that they knew Phineas was lying about Theloneus? Was their animosity toward Lexa based solely on that one strike, or was there more to it?
If I was being honest, after talking with Emerson, it felt like the latter.
Also, why would Phineas turn on one of his demon brothers? They’d walked the Earth for millennia. Sometimes together, sometimes not, but after that much time in someone’s life, you’d think you could figure out how to work through any differences. Or at least walk away.
And, last but not least, there was Megan Navali—the witch whose body count was now high enough to fill a Major League roster. I needed to get eyes on her. The footage from the campsite gave me a glimpse, but I needed more information to confirm whether the idea percolating in my mind had legs.
She was dead either way. Whether by my hand or a primordial demon’s, I didn’t particularly care. Now, it was just a matter of figuring out how to take her out without unleashing whatever power she’d managed to harness.
Nguyen cleared his throat softly, and I glanced over. I’d clearly missed something. “Sorry. My mind is all over the place,” I whispered. “You can go, if you want.”
His brown eyes danced across my face. “What if I’m not ready to leave?”
“If you’re staying for her, stay as long as you like. If you’re staying in the hopes that we can continue our argument?—”
He cut me off with a resigned shake of his head. “It’s for her as much as it is for me.” A miserable look darkened his features, like he was caught between shame and regret.
“You did everything you could to protect her,” I offered, but we both knew that was a lie. He could have given Phineas what he wanted. He damned well should have.
A spark of anger flared somewhere deep inside me, and it took more effort than usual to douse it. The man was torn between doing a job he’d sworn to do—protecting me as thedirector of Lexa—and sacrificing my identity, and possibly exposing the entire syndicate, in order to save my daughter.
Would I have made that choice? In a heartbeat, but I’d been around long enough to know the only thing in life that couldn’t be fixed was death.
He slumped a little further in the chair and propped his boots up on the coffee table. On any other occasion, I would have told him to take them off. Tonight? I much preferred having him ready to move in a split second rather than scrambling for footwear.
It wasn’t that I was expecting trouble. I just understood how both he and Shay felt. They wanted to feel safe and to know those closest to them were safe.
I wanted that too.
When Nguyen’s attention shifted back to the movie, I closed my eyes and cracked open the steel door locking Emerson out of my mind.“You there?”
“For you, Sai, always.”His warm voice sent an unsettling wave of relief through me.
“We need to talk.”
There was a short pause.“Now?”
Just the thought of seeing him again so soon let loose a swarm of butterflies in my middle.“No. I’m not alone right now, and what I want to discuss should really be handled face to face.”A longer stretch of silence followed as I listened to the movie play on.“Emerson?”
“Are you with your bear?”
Was I imagining things or was there a hint of jealousy coloring his question? The thought made every independent bone in my body buck. It also made my stupid, soft heart swoon.
“I have Shayla asleep with her head in my lap, and yes, Nguyen is here too.”A flare of heat worked through our mental connectionbefore I added,“Sitting in a chair next to the couch so he can be close to her, not me.”
“You are not that foolish, Senna.”
Maybe not, but he didn’t have any right to be upset about it.“I’m telling you what he told me. He feels horrible about what Phineas did to her on his watch.”So did I. Guilt hung heavy across my shoulders and there was nothing anyone could do to lift it.
“If I’d known who she was…”
“What? You stopped him, right? The only person I can really blame for what happened to them is him.”And myself.
