Chapter 72 The Weak Link

Chapter 72 The Weak Link

RISSA'S POV

"Who took this photo?" I ask, before the call even finishes ringing through.

"One of the scouts we have watching the university district." Marques's voice is low, careful, the way it always gets when he knows I'm not in a mood for softness. "We weren't even looking for the sister. She showed up on a routine sweep."

"Doing what?"

"Having coffee, laughing and being a normal girl on a normal Tuesday."

"Elena James doesn't get normal Tuesdays. Last I checked, she has a job and is preparing for college," I say. "Who is he?"

"Working on it. Give me an hour."

"You have twenty minutes."

I hang up before he can argue, and I sit with the photograph a moment longer than I mean to. Elena, dark hair loose around her face, head tipped back mid-laugh. It's such an ordinary picture. That's what makes it useful.

Dahlia knocks once and lets herself in without waiting for an answer, which she only does when it's important.

"You wanted eyes on the sublevel," she says. "It's fed. It's ready whenever you are."

"Show me."

We take the private elevator down, past the floors nobody on my campaign staff will ever see, into the cold concrete throat of the building where the air smells like copper and old rain. The creature is in the last cell on the left, and even after everything I've seen in this house, it still makes something in my stomach turn.

It's small, hunched, wings folded wrong against its back like they were built by someone who'd only heard a bat described secondhand. Its face is closer to something ancient than animal — sunken, gray, wrong in a way that's hard to name.

"It fed on the last two shifters we pulled," Dahlia says. "It's strong. Strong enough."

"Strong enough for what, exactly?"

"To find her. To hurt her, if that's the order. Or just to scare her badly enough that her guard drops for a moment. Your call."

I press my hand flat against the glass. The creature's head turns toward me, slow, deliberate, like it knows exactly who's standing there.

"I don't want her dead," I say. "Dead is useless to me. Dead doesn't tell my sons anything except that their mother is a monster, and I'd rather they learn that lesson more gently."

"So what do you want?"

"I want her afraid. I want the triplets to see how fragile she is. I want them to remember that a mate they can't protect is a liability, not a treasure." I step back from the glass. "This is the fallback. Not the plan. Understood?"

"Understood."

My phone buzzes again as we're riding back up. Marquez, on time for once.

"Talk to me," I say.

"His name is Theo Marsh. Twenty-four. Grad student, environmental science, no supernatural affiliation that we can find — he's human, or human enough to pass every test we ran."

"Human." I almost laugh. "Elena James is dating a human."

"There's more. He's drowning in student debt. Sixty-two thousand and climbing. His mother's in a care facility he can't afford. He's applied for four different research grants this year and gotten rejected from all four."

"So he's desperate."

"He's desperate," Marquez confirms.

"Desperate men are so easy to love," I say. "And so easy to buy."

"You want me to approach him?"

"I want you to become the answer to his prayers, Marquez. A grant, anonymous and generous. Enough to clear the debt, move his mother somewhere decent, buy him some room to breathe. No strings, at first. Let him feel what it's like to have someone finally take care of him."

"And then the strings?"

"Then the strings," I agree. "Small ones first. A question here. A detail there — where Elena's been, who she talks to, whether her sister's mentioned anything unusual. He won't even feel it happening. That's the beauty of a man who's spent his whole life feeling unseen. You don't have to force him to talk. You just have to be the first person who's ever really listened."

"And if he balks? If he figures out what we're doing?"

"Then we remind him what it costs to walk away from people who've already paid his mother's bills," I say. "Gently, at first. Less gently, if necessary."

Marquez is quiet for a second. "You're building two doors into that family. The sister's boyfriend, and whatever's in the sublevel."

"I don't like relying on one door," I say. "Doors close. I need options."

"And if the human route gives us Elena instead of Desiree?"

I think about that for a moment, turning it over the way I'd turn over a stone to see what's living underneath.

"Elena is a werewolf. We don't know what kind of wolf she is but we know she is strong and eventually, she will live long enough," I say. "That's not nothing. But it's Desiree I want unsettled. Desiree is the one holding my sons together right now, and I need her to understand, deep in that soft elf heart of hers, that nothing is as safe as she thinks it is. Not her sister. Not her family. Not even the ground she's standing on."

"Understood. I'll have Marquez in front of Theo Marsh by end of week."

"Good." I look back toward the sublevel, toward the thing behind the glass that hasn't stopped watching me since I walked away from it.

"And the thing...." I stare at the hideous creature. "Have it ready to move to the hostel this evening. I want both doors open at once, not one after the other. Redundancy, Dahlia. That's how you win anything — the campaign, the shipments, this family. You never leave yourself only one way in. I want to attack from all sides."

"I'll draft the timeline tonight."

"Do that." I start toward the elevator, already composing the next hour of my life in my head — the breakfast, the smiling coalition members, the speech about vulnerable populations I still need to practice.

I smile to the side. My hideoa plan is coming to fruition.