Page 27 of Martyr (Sterling Falls Rogues #3)

Every chair around the dining table is taken. I glance from face to face—some deeply familiar, some becoming more so—and keep my expression blank. I idly pick at my fingernail, and while we wait for this meeting to start, my mind wanders back to Kade.

How he interacts with Tem is interesting.

Revealing. He cares about her—his brows furrow a little when I make some remark toward her he doesn’t like.

He didn’t resist the rough treatment from Jace, Apollo, and Wolfe, didn’t say a single thing or make a sound when they showed him his new accommodations.

But if I scowl at Artemis? He looks at me funny.

She’s diagonal to me, her gaze fixed on Wolfe.

He’s next to her, and he has her hand in his.

Palm up. He’s tracing some line and speaking to her in a low voice.

Not sure what sort of bullshit he’s spewing—something about life lines, maybe?

Elora was big into that. She liked tarot cards and psychic readings and stars.

But, spoiler alert: none of it means shit when you’re at war.

Who would put stock in a crease in your palm? It’s dumb.

Next to Wolfe is Kora. She seems familiar, and apparently we’ve had a lot of interaction over the last two years.

I don’t have a lot of memories with her, though.

They were knocked out of my brain along with everything else.

She’s with all three of them—Apollo, Wolfe, Jace—and I think my eyes bugged out when they laid it out for me.

I mean, good for her. I couldn’t have shared Elora…

Stop thinking about her .

On Tem’s other side is Reese. Then Antonio and his wife, Vittoria. Both seem grim. Daniel sits beside me, with Apollo on my other side, and to his left is Jace at the head of the table. The girl they brought back from Emerald Cove is absent, still hiding upstairs. Kade is downstairs.

They’re the only two in the house who aren’t here.

Jace finally stands, his chair scraping the floor and effectively silencing the quiet conversations.

“We are all in agreement that Ouranos, also known as Marcus Graves, needs to be stopped. Wolfe was able to connect with some of our contacts, but not nearly enough. Our information network is severely impaired, which means we’re flying blind. ”

“What about the sheriff?” Daniel asks.

“Antonio told us that his sister, Nadine, is currently in a drug-induced coma.” Jace’s attention flicks to Artemis.

“We don’t know where he’s keeping her, but I imagine it’s somewhere close to him.

He would want Bradshaw under his thumb completely, and forcing his cooperation by continually threatening his sister is a good start. ”

Artemis drums her fingers on the table. “Another thing: Malik is missing. The Hell Hounds will be fragmented without a leader.”

All eyes turn to Wolfe. His father was the former leader of the Hell Hounds—I missed his demise, too—but when push came to shove, Wolfe wanted no part of the motorcycle gang.

Kora grips his hand tightly and gives him a small nod.

“Fine,” Wolfe mutters. “I’ll take that on. See who I can round up.”

“The clubhouse is gone,” Artemis adds. “You’ll have to do a bit of digging.”

“Okay.” Jace nods. “Wolfe will find the remaining Hell Hounds, see if we can pull a bit of manpower.”

“And where will you put them?” Antonio asks. “Surely not here.”

“No,” Wolfe answers immediately. “The new warehouse is still standing, surely?”

Daniel makes a face. He has his laptop open in front of him, and his fingers fly across the keyboard. He swivels it around for us to see an aerial view of South Falls. The building is still standing, if that’s a current picture.

“The first was blown up,” Apollo says under his breath. “About a year ago.”

I grit my teeth. My head hurts. This planning doesn’t really have anything to do with me, does it?

I don’t understand why I’m here. Same with Antonio and Vittoria.

They’re innocent. I can shoot a gun, at least, but I feel more like a soldier carrying out orders.

Being around for the discussion seems wrong.

“I need some air,” I whisper back.

I slip out of the room, my shoulders hunched. Part of me wants to go back to the basement and talk to Kade. The other wants to rush outside, to heave myself off the cliff and let the waves swallow me. It would at least put a physical feeling on this intense pressure all over my body.

Since that would probably freak people out, and I don’t want a repeat of the hypothermia experience on the island— your fault for pushing her —I find myself going upstairs. To faceplant in bed? To bash my head against the wall?

The hallway isn’t empty, and I stop in my tracks. A woman is at the far end, and she stops mid-step when she spots me. Her face is familiar.

I tilt my head, racking my brain. Why is it familiar ?

“Saint Hart?”

“Yeah—”

She comes closer, tucking loose strands of her white-blonde hair behind her ear. “Do you remember me?”

I slowly shake my head. “I’ve been having some memory issues lately, though, so it’s not just you.”

She pauses in front of me. “Elodie St. Croix. I used to fight at Olympus as?—”

“Hestia.” I nod sharply as it comes back to me. She came around with her partner when Olympus was new, a fledgling operation. Hestia and… “You were a good fighter.”

She fought Elora a time or two.

Her smile doesn’t reach her eyes. “Yeah, well.”

“How did you end up in Emerald Cove?”

Elodie curls her arms around her middle. She’s in a dark-red sweatshirt and black joggers, and she swims in the amount of fabric on her frame. There’s a green-and-yellow bruise under her jaw, and more little ones creating a ring around her throat.

“Long story,” she says after a moment. “Not worth walking down that path again. Just know it wasn’t a good one.”

“But you met Reese somewhere along the way…” I glance over my shoulder. No one followed me, and the stairwell is empty. “You haven’t talked to him yet?”

She frowns. “He’s here?”

“He said he won a fight and used his favor to get you out of your situation.” I shrug. “That’s secondhand information. I was there but I have amnesia.”

Her eyes widen. “Amnesia?”

“Weird, right?”

“The weirdest.” She huffs. “I kind of wish I had amnesia.”

“I’m sorry,” I tell her. “Just know that this house is full of good people. You don’t have to hide out up here. For whenever you feel like getting out of that room.”

Elodie blinks rapidly and swipes at her eye. She shifts, turning away, and nods. “Thanks, Saint. I’m…”

She retreats. I watch her go, oddly at peace with that conversation. I don’t know what happened to her, but it was obviously something bad. And now she has a safe place to take refuge.

Well, as safe as you can get in a town that’s in the middle of a hostile takeover.

“Saint.”

I jump and whirl around. Artemis stands a few steps below me, her hands on the railing. Not on her hips. No accusation in her gaze. I make myself take note of that before I snap at her, which is my first instinct. There’s something wrong about her expression that I can’t put my finger on.

“What’s wrong?” I ask.

Her shoulders hike. “Ouranos is taking everyone off the board. The Hell Hounds, the sheriff. He tried to remove my brother and his family by stopping them from returning to Sterling Falls. But…”

I squint at her. “You have an idea.”

“Well, who’s making all the moves for him? It’s not a bunch of people—it’s one person.”

“Kade?”

She shakes her head. “No. Gabriel.”

I laugh. I have yet to have the pleasure of that psycho’s company, but I’ve heard tales from Reese.

He’s been filling me in the best he can, especially over the last few days.

Sure, he wasn’t around for the first gang war in Sterling Falls, and he didn’t get a front-row seat to Jace, Wolfe, and Apollo falling in love with Kora.

But he seems to have picked up on a lot, and he’s been telling me about what’s happened since .

One thing he couldn’t stress enough was that Gabriel was a bad guy.

“So, you want to kill Gabriel?”

She rears back. “What? No!”

I pause. “Then…”

Artemis shakes her head. “Forget it. Of course you’d go straight to murder.”

She spins on her heel and trots back down the stairs. She passes the dining room, which still has some lingering folks in it, and goes right out the door.

“Artemis, wait?—”

Belatedly, I notice she’s already wearing a coat. Her boots. I snatch mine at the door and shove my feet into them, then grab a jacket and follow her. She’s making a beeline for the car parked under the trees. Because of the natural shelter, there’s only a dusting of snow on it.

I reach her just as she slides into the driver’s seat. The engine starts, and the windshield wipers turn on, clearing her view.

I stand in front of it for a second, then swear and go to the passenger-side door. I fold myself into the small frame with a grunt, staring straight ahead.

When nothing happens, I glance over.

She’s staring at me.

“What?” I growl.

Her eyebrows hike. “Just wondering what possessed you to follow me.”

“You can’t go find Gabriel on your own.” I cross my arms. “I’ve heard he’s insane. And, plus, what if he tries to drug you? All that effort on Isle of Paradise, down the drain.”

She grits her teeth. “Oh, yeah? How long have you been waiting to throw that in my face?”

Ah, hell. I blow out a breath. “That’s not what I meant.”

She twists to face me. “What do you mean?”

“Gabriel is dangerous. Addiction is no joke. I think…” I pinch the bridge of my nose.

“You’re strong enough to resist that carrot if he dangles it in front of you.

But what if he grabs you and just does it without waiting?

He’s going to be angry about Lyssa. Getting you dependent on him would be a way for him to exert control over a situation in which he currently has no control. ”

She blinks at me for a solid ten seconds, then nods briskly. “You’re right. That’s a possibility I hadn’t considered.”

Oh.

She twists the knob on the blowers, cranking the heat, and faces forward again. Her seat belt is already in place, and she puts the car in drive without another word.

“You’ll be backup,” she says. “Just don’t kill him. I worked too hard to rescue him the first time.”

“Wait—” I scoff. “No. Is this a rescue mission?”

She hits the gas. “Or an abduction. I haven’t decided yet.”