Page 50 of Property of Mako
“They knew you were coming. Before the night you showed up. They were talking about it. Said the ‘inside source’ had given them enough time to move us from the last place. They didn’t think you’d get past the veil of the one you rescued me from.”
The air in the room tightened. My gaze cut to Dexter, then Crypt Keeper.
A rat. Confirmed.
Lyra’s hand found her sister’s and squeezed it.
“That’s enough for now,” she said softly, pleading in her sad gaze.
But in my head, the map was already forming—routes in, routes out, kill zones. Thane thought he had us figured out. He thought the rat would keep us one step behind.
He was wrong.
When Lily was taken to rest, the rest of us stayed in the room. Crypt Keeper leaned forward, forearms braced on his knees. “The plantation’s wards are layered—if we hit it wrong, we won’t even get inside before they know we’re there.”
“Which is why we have the potion,” I said. “Octavia gave me exactly what we need to walk through the veil like we belong there. No alarms, no suspicion. We go in looking like buyers.”
Bugsy tapped the end of his cane on the floor. “What if the auction is canceled? And even if it’s not, that gets us inside. But the second anyone sees us, every guest in that auction will turn on us. They know us.”
“Then we make sure they don’t get the chance,” I said, voice low.
Dexter shook his head. “Mako, Octavia told you?—”
“I don’t give a damn what she told me. I’m not leaving a single girl behind for Thane to slaughter like he did my… I mean, sell like cattle. If that makes me reckless, fine. I’ll own it.”
“Mako,” Boomslang warned. Other than Crypt, he was the only one in the room who knew about my sister and from his tone, I was aware that I was letting past hurts superimpose my decisions. “You do this, and you risk not only making an enemy of Octavia, but Haidyn. You need to cool your jets and think about this long and hard. Perhaps we should consult Haidyn before you rush in trying to be the hero.”
The silence that followed was heavy.
Finally, Crypt Keeper broke it. “So we consult Haidyn? And then what?”
“We see what he has planned, then if he has things under control like he assured Mako, perhaps we get Mako his revenge on Thane,” Boomslang replied with the corner of his mouth tipping up.
“But if he isn’t going to save those girls, then we are,” I stubbornly insisted.
Boomslang cocked a brow and glanced around the room. “I’d say we need to vote on that.”
“All in favor of a rescue if Haidyn doesn’t have one planned?” Killswitch called out.
The ayes were unanimous.
Bugsy was the first to speak. “Right. If we’re doing this, we need to assume the rat’s still feeding him information. That means false trails. Dummy comms. Only the seven of us know the real plan.”
My jaw tightened. “Good. That way, when we flush the bastard out, I can deal with him myself.”
“Ha! He belongs to all of us,” Crypt Keeper chimed in.
“Fair enough,” I conceded with a reluctant grin.
Now to reach out to a demon that I was already in the shithouse with.
Chapter 23
Revelations
Lyra
Lily finally fell asleep in her bed, her breathing shallow but steady, her face relaxed for the first time since I’d gotten her back. I sat beside her for a long while, brushing her hair back from her face, memorizing every feature like I’d never seen her before. She was thinner, paler, but she was here. Alive.
