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“We were trying to work that out,” she admitted. “The plan, that is.” She glared a little at the table full of vampires, and Nick got the impression her anger was aimed mostly at Brick. “We’re having some difference of opinion on strategy. Mostly, some of us are completelyanti-strategy and just want to storm the place, guns blazing, and risk getting us all killed.”

Nick winced a little, then glanced at Brick, who was clearly listening.

He turned back to face his wife.

“It might be our best chance,” he said apologetically.

Brick laughed.

Nick could have hit him. Brick being a smug, know-it-all asshole wouldn’t help Nick make the argument with his mate.

“You see, little hybrid?” the elder vampire quipped. “Perhaps you should run along to your school, and make up lesson plans for the children? Let the adults in the room make the plans for war?”

Nick glared at the other vampire for real.

“She’s smarter than you’ll ever be,” he spat in a low snarl. “And normally, I’d agree with her that we need more strategy than fuckingnone.”

He looked away from the smirking and triumphant Brick, and back to his wife.

“Inthisparticular case, however,” he added, lower, and more apologetic. “I think our only chance might be to go quickly, and hit them hard enough, and fast enough, to catch them by surprise. Time isn’t on our side right now, if what Brick is saying is true.”

He studied Wynter’s face. Her jaw tightened as he watched.

“St. Maarten is smarter than all of us,” she said pointedly, folding her arms.

She looked angry, but Nick got the sense she was listening to him.

He also got the sense her anger was mostly aimed at Brick, not at him.

A willing ear was all Nick really needed, or could ask for.

“She probablyissmarter than us,” Nick conceded about the Archangel C.E.O. “But Lara has her own blind spots,” he added. “She would never, ever take such a risky approach herself. Nor would she assume anyone else would be foolhardy enough to do it, particularly not someone like Brick, who’s known for being fuckingmethodicalin his planning…”

Nick heard Brick give an approving grunt.

He didn’t glance over at him.

His eyes remained solely on his mate.

“…Which means her security systems won’t be designed to defend against anything that aggressive,” Nick continued. “Especially not anything that potentially chaotic.”

He studied his wife’s face, watching her think.

“She’d assume we’d try something sneaky,” he went on. “Something from the tech angle, using you and Kit and Morley’s contacts in the I.S.F. and N.Y.P.D. It’s whatshewould do, particularly with such a small group at her disposal. For the same reason, it’s likely she’d leak information meant to provide a false opening, and hope we took the bait. Possibly about moving Jordan…” He glanced at Charlie. “…Or maybe about some kind of backdoor way into the Archangel security system,” he added, glancing at Kit.

There was a silence after he spoke.

Nick’s eyes returned to Wynter.

“We’ll never get around her that way,” he said, frankly. “She’ll be miles ahead of us, even if she didn’t start the leaks herself, which she very likely did. We couldn’t trust anything that comes out of the facility, directly or indirectly, even if we absolutely trust the source––”

“Exactly,” Brick muttered.

“She willexpectus to wait for an opening,” Nick went on, ignoring his sire. “So she’ll try to give us one, Wynter. Preferably one that takes place nowhere near the facility where they actually have Jordan in hand. She’d let it trickle through as a rumor, like what Charlie just said about Damon being moved. She wouldn’t want it to be obvious, so we don’t smell a trap. So she might lay a few false trails, including something that would appeal to Kit.”

Thinking about that, Nick clicked under his breath, seer-style.

“The truth is, anything they might have done to move him would have happened already,” he continued, still thinking. “But my guess is, theyhaven’tmoved him. Lara already had him in a high-security Archangel facility. Why would she want to move him somewhere else? Particularly somewhere controlled primarily by the Racial Authority?”