Chapter 907
But for the first time, the three of them — Skye, Alistair, and Liam — were on the same side.
And that made them very dangerous.
The scars on Alistair’s hands were still fresh — angry pink ridges of new skin that hadn’t quite healed since the ambush on the highway a month ago. Every time Skye looked at them, she could almost smell the acrid stench of burning rubber and hear the deafening crack of the RPG that had turned Felix’s lead vehicle into a twisted metal coffin. Felix had survived — barely — throwing himself clear a split second before impact, but he was currently hidden away in a subterranean medical suite at Oracle, nursing three broken ribs and a punctured lung. The shipment of raw sapphires they had been transporting was safe, locked in the deepest vault beneath the city, but the price of that safety had been astronomical.
And Liam. Liam had driven his car straight into an oil tanker to buy them time. He was alive, miraculously, but the ebony cane leaning against the marble pillar downstairs was a stark, unforgiving reminder of the damage done to his leg. They had won the battle and secured the assets. They were barely surviving the war.
The chandelier in the main hall of the Thorne estate didn’t simply sparkle — it seemed to judge. Its thousand crystal facets looked down on the sea of tuxedos and silk gowns, refracting the anxiety that hung in the air thicker than expensive perfume and aged scotch. Grandpa Thorne had insisted on this party, demanding to be brought back from the high-security nursing home to the estate for his eightieth birthday. He claimed he wanted to die in his own home, not a sterile white room. Alistair had tripled the security detail, but the shadow of the Architect’s reach hung over everything like a shroud.
Alistair Thorne stood on the mezzanine, his hands gripping the marble railing so hard his knuckles had turned the color of the stone. He wasn’t looking at the guests. He was scanning them, dissecting them, hunting for a threat that hadn’t yet revealed itself.
Skye walked up beside him, the hem of her midnight-blue gown brushing against his trousers. She didn’t touch him right away. He was wound tight, a spring on the verge of snapping.
“Breathe,” Skye whispered, sliding a glass of amber liquid into his line of sight. “It’s his eightieth birthday, Alistair. Not a funeral.”
Alistair took the glass but didn’t drink. His grey eyes flicked to her, softening only by a fraction. “Beatrice is smiling too much. And the security detail at the south gate missed a check-in by thirty seconds.”
𝘛he 𝘣𝘦𝗌𝘁 𝗿e𝘷𝗂e𝘸𝘀 𝘰𝗻 𝗀a𝗅ո𝗼𝗏𝘦𝗹𝘴.co𝘮
“You’re paranoid,” Skye said, though a cold prickle of unease danced down her own spine. “Grandpa Thorne looks happy.”
Down below, the patriarch of the Thorne family sat in his wheelchair, a tartan blanket over his knees, laughing at something a senator was whispering in his ear. He looked frail — his skin like parchment — but his eyes were sharp and alive.