Chapter 77 NADIA

Chapter 77 NADIA
Her real name was Rachel Nolan. She was Dane Ferguson's estranged sister.

Dex laid it out piece by piece, like he was aware that one wrong step could send the whole thing sideways. Rachel Nolan, formerly Rachel Ferguson, had split from her brother publicly fourteen years ago after a family dispute. It was so bad that the court records had been sealed to hide it. 

She'd gotten married, changed her name, and built a network of informants that worked both in the supernatural world and human politics. Most people didn't even know it existed.

She'd been running a double game for over a decade. She went after operations that threatened the supernatural community, yes. But she also traded in information. And her most consistent client over the last three years had been her brother, the man she publicly refused to speak to.

I read the file twice all the way through before I said anything.
"She didn't give us Elena," I said. "Elena was already in place. Carter took over Elena's network when Elena got too exposed, and then she positioned herself as our ally at exactly the moment when we were most vulnerable and we needed one."

"She didn't lie to you," Dex said. "Everything she gave you checks out."

"That's the point," I said. "She doesn't need to lie. She just has to make sure we only ever see what she wants us to see."

Zane had been quiet since Dex said the name Nolan. His voice, when he finally spoke, was flat like he was trying to keep himself under control.

"What did she give us that actually changes our position?"

I thought through it. The list of eight names. The confirmation about my mother. The photograph. The details about Marcus's media strategy.

"The list," I said slowly. "If the list is real and the coordinated collapse is real, then we need to move on it regardless of who Carter is. But if she's controlling what we know, she controls how we respond." I paused. "And if she's feeding the same information to Ferguson at the same time—"

"Then the council hearing is already compromised," Zane said.

Everywhere went quiet immediately.

Coach Reeves, who had said almost nothing since he sat down, looked up. "So the question is whether we still go to the hearing."

"We have to," I said. "If we pull back, Marcus gets to control the city council session and the public narrative, with no opposition whatsoever. We’ll lose the support of the people in the room before we even walk in." I looked around the table. "We need to go. But we have to assume someone on that council already knows what we're bringing in. So we’ll go in expecting that."

Zane looked at me for a long moment. I could see him working through it carefully, the same way he worked through every problem.

"Change the details of the evidence," he said. "Give me something we haven't shown to anyone. Something Carter couldn't have seen." He stood up. "If she's feeding Ferguson information, then she's only feeding him what she's already had access to. Give her something she hasn't."

I stared at him.

It was a clean but simple move, and it didn't require anything elaborate, just one piece of information that hadn't passed through anyone else's hands. One piece Carter couldn't have known about and therefore couldn't have passed along.

A small smile got to my face before I could stop it. It was a real one, and it reached my eyes before I could even understand what had happened. 

Zane caught it, and his expression revealed something for just a second before he shut it down.

I reached for my bag. "I have something," I said. "I've been waiting to reveal it because I wasn't sure the timing was right." I pulled out a small USB drive and placed it on the table. "This is the audio from the staging ground. The night I went in, I recorded the two men on the floor above me before I exited. Neither of them is Marcus."

Everyone was already looking at the drive.

"One of them says a name," I said. "I've listened to it six times to make sure I heard it correctly." I looked at Zane. "He says Avery's name. And then he says the mayor's."

The silence that followed lasted for a while as everyone processed what I just laid out before them. 

Dex leaned back slowly in his chair. Coach Reeves set down the pen he'd been holding. Zane didn't move at all.

The mayor…

This wasn't a problem that had to do with just the council anymore. It wasn't even contained to just the city's supernatural politics. If the mayor was connected to whatever Marcus was doing, then all of this was way bigger than what we’d actually prepared for.

Zane picked up the USB drive and looked at it for a second.
Then his eyes came up to mine and he said, very quietly, "Play it."