22
Mercy
When Wylder had finished fillingus in on his conversation with his father, we all sat for a moment in shocked silence. Beyond the window, evening was rapidly falling, turning the sky an ominous shade of red.
Anthea, who’d joined us on our way over to Gideon’s office, shook her head, her mouth twisting. “I’m sorry. I wish I could have helped, but I had no idea what my brother was planning.”
“It’s not your fault,” I said. “Ezra was obviously keeping the whole thing as quiet as possible.”
Wylder grimaced. “The fact is that Dad screwed us over, and he feels zero guilt about it. In fact, he’s practically gloating about his new plans.”
Kaige was scowling. “His new plans are shit. I thought the Nobles had a policy to keep a ten feet pole between us and drug dealing.”
“We did,” Wylder said. “And I’d have kept to that policy if it were up to me. But as long as he’s still around, Dad’s the one calling the shots.”
“Fuck.” Kaige slammed his fist into his other palm hard enough to leave a red mark on the skin. “This isn’t what I signed up for. I don’t want anything to do with spreading that crap around the city.”
Wylder’s voice turned deadly firm, his face hardening like I hadn’t seen it since he first came out of his father’s study. “You won’t have to. I’m not going to let it come to that. But we’ve barely got a day left in our deal with the Long Night. We can’t think about anything except tackling the Storm for the next twenty-four hours.”
Anthea touched his shoulder lightly, regret still marked on her face. Her voice came out quiet but firm. “If I don’t get another chance to say it before it matters—just know that I understand that you’ll have to do whatever you have to do.”
Wylder glanced at his aunt and nodded, a tiny bit of the tension seeping out of his stance. The coolness of her tone sent an uneasy quiver down the center of me. I didn’t want to examine what she might mean too closely.
The Noble heir was right. We had to focus on the Storm for now.
“Could Ezra’s takeover of the Glory distribution work in our favor there?” I asked. “That’s how the Storm was funding a lot of his operations, wasn’t it? Grabbing it out from under him has to be a major blow. Xavier was obviously furious about it.” The thought of his raging face sent a shiver down my spine. I’d seen him purposefully menacing and hostile, but I wasn’t sure I’d ever witnessed so much uncontrolled fury from the psycho.
“Not enough to get him to leave town,” Anthea said. “We’ve been getting reports of the Storm’s men still roaming all over. I’m not sure they’re even finished demolishing the waterfront property yet.” Her nose wrinkled as if she found all this overt aggression distasteful.
“We lost so many people out there,” Kaige said. “He’s got to know we’re having problems too, right?”
Wylder sighed. “It doesn’t really matter. Our time is up tomorrow night. We have to assume that the Long Night is prepared to rally his forces and set them on us as soon as the sun goes down. We need to move fast and figure out some final move that’ll give us the best possible chance at driving the Storm’s people out of Paradise Bend.” He turned to Gideon. “I don’t suppose there’s anything in your surveillance of the city that’s given you any brilliant brainstorms?”
Gideon rubbed his mouth, but his hand didn’t hide his frown. “I think Xavier is the key. He’s the Storm’s figurehead here, and if we took him down, then the Storm would have to step up himself—which it sounds like he doesn’t want to do—or admit defeat. The trouble is making that happen.”
Kaige smacked his hands together. “Let me at him, and I’ll take care of it.”
Gideon shot his friend a bemused look. “It’d be hard to do that when we can’t even be sure of where he is. He left the waterfront development not long after we did. The Storm’s men who didn’t stay there to work on demolishing it have scattered throughout the city and the Bend, and I’m seeing them constantly on the move. If we can’t corner him anywhere, we wouldn’t have a hope in hell.”
I worried at my lower lip. “He was really pissed off about losing the drug stash, so maybe we could use that as bait somehow? Lure him over there thinking he’ll have a chance to take it back?”
Wylder shook his head. “I wouldn’t be surprised if Dad’s given the men he’s stationed out there orders to shoot anyone who tries to interfere, even if it’s me. He thinks the Glory is his key to taking back the power he thought he already had in the world.”
Gideon leaned back in his chair, his forehead furrowing. “It’d be a long-shot, but it’s possible we could—”
A knock on the door interrupted him. Wylder sprang up as if he expected it to be his dad, arriving to announce more horrible plans, but he opened it to find one of the Noble underlings who’d stuck with us in the fray earlier today standing outside.
“Mr. Noble,” he said with a dip of his head. “That kid who came around the other day is here again—he says he needs to talk to you right away…”
I leapt to my feet too. “Beckett? Of course.”
I paused, because technically I wasn’t in any position to give orders here in the Noble mansion, but Wylder glanced at me with a small smile and nodded to the guy. “Bring him up. And… don’t let word get to my dad about this, if that’s possible.”
A shadow crossed the guy’s expression, and I wondered if he was thinking of how we’d been betrayed by the Nobles loyal to Ezra just hours ago. He inclined his head and hurried off.
Less than a minute later, he returned, ushering Beckett to the doorway. At the sight of the teenager, my heart lurched.
“Are you okay?” I asked automatically.