Chapter 133

Amy's POV

I did not expect Carla to come looking for me but then again, she has access to this Pack since she was with Damien in the past. I don't know why this place is so accessible to everyone these days. I thought this was supposed to be Damien's territory?

I stared at her and just stood there for a second because of all the people I thought might be coming to see me, she was genuinely at the bottom of the list. She was standing in the corridor looking like she had made a decision she wasn't completely comfortable with and was going through with it anyway.

I did not move to let her in.

"What do you want from me now?" I demanded with no filter in my voice.

"To talk." She met my eyes. "I have information. Real information, I'm not trying to lie to you. I need five minutes."

I looked at her. I want to be honest about what I felt in that moment. I did not trust Carla. I had no reason to trust her anyway. This was the woman who had tried every possible angle to get Damien back, who had made my life difficult at every opportunity, she looked at me like I was something temporary from the moment we met. Five minutes alone with her was not something I was naturally inclined to agree to.

Why do I have to listen to her anyway? What if she's planning this just to distract me for real until the real problems arrive? But she had said real information. Even if I'm angry, I'm very good at accommodating my enemies just to know their plans. Or how much she thinks I'm stupid enough to believe in whatever she was going to say.

And I had learned recently that sometimes the people you least want information from are the ones who actually have it.

I took her to a private room where we could talk and I stepped back to let her in. I left the door open. I wasn't stupid enough to lock us up in here and then start thinking of stories that touch.

She looked around the room briefly and then looked at me. "I'll make this fast. Richard contacted me about three weeks ago."

I kept my face still. "Go on."

"He offered me Luna Queen." She said it without embarrassment, which I respected slightly even though I didn't want to. "Full title, full position, everything I'd been trying to get back on my own. All I had to do was help him get to you."

"And you said no," I said.

"I said no." She nodded. "Not because I suddenly developed a conscience. I want to be clear about that. I said no because Richard has been running this operation for so many years and he has never once shared power with anyone. The offer was real enough to get my cooperation but he was never going to follow through on it. I'd have helped him get what he wanted and then he'd have dealt with me the same way he deals with everyone who becomes inconvenient."

That was actually a reasonable assessment. I didn't say that out loud.

"What's the information?" I asked her again.

She told me.

The missing piece in our plan was the secondary incident Richard was planning to use as a distraction. We knew he was going to create one but we didn't know the specifics, where exactly, which direction, what form it would take. Without that detail we couldn't position our warriors correctly in advance because we didn't know which way to send them to make it look convincing while keeping enough people in the right places.

Carla looked like she had that detail.

Richard had told her because he wanted her help coordinating part of it. She knew the location, the method, and the timing down to the hour.

I listened to every word and I checked it mentally against everything Brian had told me and everything Damien and I had mapped out the night before. It fit. All of it fit together cleanly. This wasn't fabricated. She actually had it.

When she finished I nodded slowly. "Why are you telling me this?"

"Because I want out," she said. "I'm not actually interested in this drama. I'm not asking for protection or a reward or anything from you. I just want to not be on the losing side when this falls apart. And it is going to fall apart. Anyone paying attention can see that." She paused. "And maybe because I'm tired."

I looked at her for a moment.

I still didn't like her. I want to be clear about that. Liking her was not on the on my menu, I wouldn't start liking her just because she told me the truth. But I believed she was telling the truth and I believed her reason for telling it.

"Is that everything?" I questioned.

She should have said yes. She should have wrapped it up there and left and that would have been the end of it.

Instead she looked at me with an expression I couldn't quite read and she said, "There's one more thing. It's not part of the information. You don't have to do anything with it. I just think you should know."

I waited.

"The night you left," she said. "Before he found out about the pregnancy. When you just disappeared and nobody knew where you were."

I felt my shoulders tighten slightly. I didn't say anything.

"I was there," she said. "I came to find him because I'd heard you were gone and I thought—" She stopped. Restarted. "It doesn't matter what I thought. The point is I found him before anyone else did. He was alone in your room."

She paused.

"He was very sad," she said. "I've known Damien a long time. I had never seen that. He's always just... closed. But that night he was sitting in your room and he was so devastated and he didn't even notice I was there for a while."

I looked at the wall somewhere past her shoulder.

I didn't say anything because I didn't have anything to say. I don't know what to do with that information. I genuinely don't.

Damien sitting alone in my room the night I left. I thought about what he said to me two nights ago. I can't lose you. Maybe I just didn't get patient enough and I left out of anger. He already cared about me more than he thought before he could express himself.

I just wonder how long he had apparently been feeling that and not saying it. Not to think of the fact that I almost didn't come back.

"Okay," I said. My voice came out quieter than I intended.

Carla nodded once. She seemed like she was going to say something else and then decided against it. She moved toward the door.

"Carla." She stopped. I looked at her directly. "Thank you. For the information."

She nodded again. Then she left. I stood in the middle of the room for a moment.

I was going to need some time to process the Damien's love for me. This is what I wanted but should I be happy at this moment confirming from my rival that he actually only cares about me? I know I shouldn't be thinking about things like this now but I just can't help myself.

I was still standing there figuring out what I was going to do with the information when the alarm went off.

That definitely was not a drill. I knew the difference. The drill alarm was two short pulses. This was continuous and it was coming from the border monitoring system. The border had been hit.

I moved immediately. I grabbed the communication device from the side table and headed for the door. My heart was already going fast. Four days was what Brian told me.

But Richard didn't get so many years of this by being predictable. He was earlier than I thought. Or maybe this was a trap all along and I didn't know that. Did Brian deliberately give me that information just to get our guard down?