Chapter 58 NADIA

Chapter 58 NADIA
We spent three days building a plan.

And “we” included me, Zane, Dex, Coach Reeves, and a supernatural lawyer named Petra that Reeves had called in without asking anyone first. 

Petra was sharp, extremely well-dressed, and had the kind of confidence that looked like it came from being the smartest person in the room so many times that she'd stopped feeling the need to announce it. 

I took an immediate dislike to her. Petra took an immediate dislike to me too. It lasted for approximately four hours, right up until the point when we were both looking at the same section of the Ferguson file and arrived at the exact same conclusion through completely different paths.

After that, we got along fine.

"We go through the council," Petra said on the first morning, spreading the file out across the conference table. "Not around it or against it. Through it.

"Ferguson is on the council," Dex said.

"Ferguson is one member of nine." Petra tapped the page. "The council chair is a woman named Maria Thomas. She has been running the Crestfall Supernatural Council for sixteen years. She’s not compromised. I’m certain of this."

"How certain?" Coach Reeves asked.

"Certain enough to stake the whole plan on it," Petra said, which was either extremely reassuring or not reassuring at all depending on how you looked at it.

The plan was to bring a complete set of evidence to Maria Thomas directly and force a formal review. If it worked, the review would strip Ferguson of the legal cover he had been hiding behind. It would also remove Marcus's council-sanctioned protection, which was the thing that had been making him untouchable.

It would not put Marcus in a cell. The supernatural council did not operate through human law enforcement, and when I asked what it did operate through instead, I was told, very calmly, that I didn't need those details.

I believed them.

"So we close his doors," Zane said. "Every legal door he's been using."

"And every move he makes after that is outside the council's sanction," Petra said. "Which means the consequences are different."

I didn't ask what the consequences were. I had spent enough years watching Marcus work to understand that there were things you didn't ask about out loud.

We spent the rest of the first day going through the evidence piece by piece. Every file and every communication was thoroughly examined. I knew the material better than anyone else at the table, which was a strange thing to take in. 

I had spent two years building my own cover story, understanding how the council worked, knowing exactly what Marcus intended to destroy. I had done all of that work to help him. Now it was the exact thing that was going to be used against him.

I pushed that thought to one side and focused on the work.

It was on the second day that Petra looked at me across the table and said, "We have a problem."

"Just one?" Dex said.

Petra looked at him briefly, then looked back at me. "The review requires testimony. Personal testimony from someone with direct knowledge of the communication between Ferguson and Marcus. Someone who can speak about everything." She paused. "You understand what I'm saying."

"You need me to testify," I said.

"You were Marcus's operative," Petra said. "You have direct knowledge of how he runs his operations. You know his people, his methods, and what he was actually planning to do with the information once he had it." She folded her hands. "You are also, technically, a victim of a cover-up that started before you were born. Both of those things matter. Your testimony is the center of this case."

The room was quiet.

I looked at the table for a moment. I thought about what testifying meant. It meant standing in front of the council and saying out loud exactly who I was and exactly what I had done when I walked through the doors of Crestfall Arena. It meant no more soft versions of events. Just the clear truth of it, with people I had been working alongside for two months sitting in the same room.

It also meant Marcus would know immediately.

"If I testify, he'll know," I said.

"He already suspects," Dex said from across the table. His voice was easy, like always, but his eyes were not. "A guy like Marcus doesn't sit still. He's been monitoring the situation since the first time you didn't check in on time."

I exhaled, looking at the ceiling for a second. I thought about twenty-six years of being told exactly what I was, exactly who I was fighting for, exactly what I owed, and the feeling of realizing, slowly and then all at once, that every single part of it had been decided by someone else without my consent.

"Fine," I said. "I'll testify."

I looked at Zane. He was watching me from across the table. I'd gotten used to that look over the last few weeks. It wasn't soft and it wasn't hard. It was just there, solid, like a thing I could count on to always be there.

"I'm going to need help preparing," I said.

"I'll be there for every session," he said, leaving no room for any objections.

Petra clicked her pen, making a note. "The review date is in eight days."

Nobody said anything for a moment.

Marcus was rebuilding somewhere in this city. Ferguson still had his seat. The council was still intact and unaware. Eight days was clearly not enough time but we had to make do with what we had.

"Then we'd better not waste any more time," Coach Reeves said.

I looked back down at the files.

Eight days…