Page 100 of Forbidden Empire

Zeno’s eyes roved over her face, lingering on the mottled bruises. “Would those bruises be part of your motivation?”

A ghost of a smile flickered at the corner of Esme’s mouth. “Is that a hint of concern I hear, dear brother?” She was provoking him, toying with matches in a room drenched in gasoline. Maybe she wanted to watch it all go up in flames.

He only grunted, jaw clenched so tight it might shatter.

Zeno vibrated with contained violence—a grenade with its pin half-pulled. His reputation for unpredictable brutality preceded him like a shadow.

Esme wasn’t alone in that.

“I like her,” Thal murmured, sidelong glance at me, lips curling into a smirk.

Zeno bristled, rage radiating from him in waves. At any moment, I expected him to snap, shatter the tension with an outburst. “This isn’t a fucking game.”

“It never was.”

Esme's accusation lingered in the air like gunpowder after a shot. Zeno's silence was admission enough. Four pairs of eyes locked in a Mexican standoff, muscles tensed, jaws clenched, waiting for someone to crack first.

"Enough," I growled, my palm slapping the table. "This isn't helping." The temperature in the room dropped ten degrees, but nobody moved.

"If I may," Ares leaned forward. "Our intelligence suggests a three-point strike would cripple Rhea's entire network."

My eyes met his. A nod passed between us, an unspoken understanding that the real enemy wasn't sitting at this table.

“Yeah, Ares is right,” I said. “We hit her all at once. First, the power grid. We tear it down, take the lights, kill Rhea’s eyes and ears. Then we go in, every team, everybody we’ve got, right through the perimeter. Flash bombs next. It’ll blind them, confuse the hell out of them, and we move while they’re staggering, attacking from every side all at once. Our people, her people, it’s chaos, and we want it that way. And while everything’s burning, we lay into them online. We hit the banking system, the comms, everything she needs to crawl out of there alive. Rhea’s not getting away this time.”

“Just for good measure,” Esme said. “I had her put on the no-fly terrorist watch list. She’s not going anywhere. Not by plane.”

That got my attention.

I stared at her, thrown off-balance. She hadn’t told me that part. I wasn’t sure I liked it.

I respected her for being ruthless, but did that mean she thought we’d lose?

Was she hedging her bets?

The doubt nagged at me, but I forced myself to nod, to keep moving forward. Zeno shot us a look, all suspicion and heat, but I ignored it and kept going.

“Can I say something else?” Esme asked. “It’s obvious. Rhea wants Aidon. She used me, dangled me in front of him like bait, to lure him out. She said so herself. So we need to remember that. She’ll use me however she can to get at him.” Esme’s eyes flashed, her breath catching. “I don’t know what you did to her, Aidon, but she wants you ruined. She’ll stop at nothing.”

“She can try,” I muttered.

“She’s not getting anywhere near you,” Ares cut in, his gaze flicking to Esme, all steel and resolve. He’d heard her.

Esme nodded, slow and deliberate, a shiver running through her. “Thank you. Rhea won’t hesitate to twist whatever is unresolved between us. She’ll use every crack. We can’t forget who the real enemy is.”

“Esme’s right,” I said, rising to my feet, the words slicing through the thick tension in the room. “Are we all on board here?”

Thal nodded, mouth set, eyes hooded. “I’m down.”

The finality of it was a heavy weight between us.

“Yeah, me too, I guess,” Zeno muttered, reluctance clinging to every syllable.

Ares was already pushing to his feet, energy crackling from him, turning toward me with a sly tilt of his head.

“I’ll send you all the detailed plans on an encrypted chat tonight.” There was something hungry in the way he watched me, waiting for my command. “Anything else for now, boss?”

“No, thank you, Ares.”