I glanced down. Blood was seeping through my jeans from where I must have reopened the wound on my thigh. That was no surprise, considering the hell I’d just put it through.
“We need to rebandage Mercy’s leg,” Gideon insisted.
“Let’s get the fuck away from those maniacs first,” Kaige retorted. “Or we’re going to need a lot more bandages.”
I grimaced. “I’ll be all right. I’ve already survived this wound once. I just—I need to put pressure on it.”
I fumbled for something to use to staunch the bleeding, and Gideon whipped his shirt off as quickly as if he gave it up for use as a bandage every day. I offered him a grateful smile and balled it in my hand before pressing it hard against the wound.
“I don’t suppose any of you have a clue what Xavier was ranting about?” Wylder said. “What trick did he think we played? How were we being thieves?”
I bit my lip. “I mean, obviously we’ve stolen Glory and weapons from the Storm in the past. But he seemed to get upset all of a sudden, not like he was still fuming about stuff that’d happened before.”
“Maybe he was pissed off that we were… stealing his opportunity to take the waterfront property without a big mess?” Kaige said doubtfully.
Gideon shot the big guy a baleful look. “Somehow I don’t think it’s that. He soundedveryupset. I saw one of his men talking on a phone and then passing a message on to him right before he started ranting.”
He squirmed around, and I realized he’d managed to drag his tablet all the way to the car with him. It figured. “Let me see if I can find out anything,” he muttered, waking up the screen with a tap.
An uncomfortable sensation coiled around my gut. “You don’t think his outburst has anything to do with the Nobles who up and left out of the blue, do you? We don’t know what was going on with them either.”
Wylder frowned. “They’re definitely going to be taken to task for fleeing their duty, you can count on that.”
My voice hardened. “Peoplediedbecause of them.” Images of the crumpled bodies rose up in my mind, Kervos at the forefront. I swallowed hard. I’d pulled him and the other Claws into this war, and I hadn’t been able to get them through it. I hadn’t even been able to salvage his body. Guilt snaked around my lungs, making it hard to breathe.
Wylder leaned past the passenger seat. “Mercy, you can’t blame yourself. If anything, you should blame me. It was my men who screwed us over. And you’ve got to know that every man who was out there today was aware of the danger of the situation—of this whole life. They wouldn’t have been in it if they hadn’t come to terms with that.”
“Still…”
Gideon cleared his throat, his hands tightening where he was gripping the tablet. He glanced at Wylder. “It isn’t your fault either.”
Wylder’s eyebrows drew together. “What do you mean?”
“I think I know what happened. I’m seeing a new report from our typical communication channels that the Nobles captured a major storage facility in the Bend, one that belonged to the Storm—one of the places we were considering attacking earlier. It’s where they’ve been keeping their supply of Glory once it’s transported into the county.”
Kaige’s head jerked around, and he nearly drove us into a mailbox. “Saywhat?”
“I have to guess that’s where the Nobles who took off on us went,” Gideon said. “There wouldn’t have been enough men available to take down the guards protecting it otherwise.”
“Why would they up and do that of their own…” I trailed off before I finished the question, because I already knew the answer. The mission hadn’t been of their own accord. My stomach twisted.
“My dad ordered them to,” Wylder said before I had to, his gaze darkening even more than before. “That’s got to be it. They wouldn’t have listened to anyone but him after I’d already givenmyorders.Fuck.” He slammed his fist into the dashboard. “No wonder he sent all our troops to the Bend. He probably never intended to help us. He wanted us as bait against Xavier to distract him and most of the Storm’s people while he took what he wanted.”
“That’s why he told me to make sure the cameras were set up. He wanted eyes on each one of us, Xavier included, so he knew just exactly when they would have to leave.” Gideon worried at his lip ring. “Everything makes sense now.”
“But why the hell would Ezra want to take the Glory?” Kaige demanded, his voice raw. “What the fuck was he thinking?”
“It could be just to stop the Storm from continuing to use it,” I said tentatively.
Wylder met my gaze. “Do you really think he’d go to all that trouble and sacrifice the waterfront property if he didn’t believe he was getting his hands on an even bigger prize? He’s seen the power that drug has over people, how much they’re willing to do for a hit of it.”
A shiver ran through me. Yes, that did sound exactly like Ezra. For Wylder’s sake, I had to say, “We won’t know for sure until we talk to him.”
Wylder sank back into his seat. His voice came out flat. “We do know one thing: He fucked us over by not informing us about his second, secret mission. He never intended to save the waterfront property. It—we—were only a decoy. He purposefully sabotaged us and left us for dead.”