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Which four?
A few awkward throat clears later, the room cleared out except for Carter, Oliver, Jesse, and myself. Oliver had yet to grant me his eyes, but Jesse folded his arms, standing alongside Carter to confront me.
“We’ve been trying to map out a guaranteed plan to ensure my offer to Nicholas Barbier for the hotel is accepted,” Carter began, his deep voice carrying through the room. “Oliver’s idea is a good one. Given what I know about Nicholas, and what we know about Hugo Soren’s love of both fighting and betting, this idea makes the most sense to try.”
I quickly rushed out my own counterattack. “Why can’t you be sure to outbid the Sorens, then we bait them away from here? It doesn’t need to be on that island. We have something huge hanging over their heads now that we’ve figured out their place with The Collective. We can threaten them with that. Draw them out pretty much anywhere.”
I’d spent a good part of the flight mulling over ideas of how to prevent Oliver from ever stepping inside a ring with Soren. I was ready to go, I just thought I’d have a minute to get settled in before laying out my points.
“The Sorens have more money than I do,” Carter admitted. There wasn’t much bitterness to his tone about that fact, though. More of an It is, what it is kind of thing. “I can’t outbid them if they drive the price too high. But I do know money isn’t everything to the owner. He cares about the reputation of the new owner as much as he cares about his own. He’ll want to sell it to someone he feels is deserving. If we offer him a fight like this, he’ll bite, I’m sure of it.”
Why I was looking to Jesse for help was beyond me. He was clearly in the room to help convince me of the same idea, but I did anyway. “Please, say something,” I pleaded to him since Oliver wouldn’t look at me. “Why are you letting Oliver fight? That’s your area of expertise.” I gestured between Jesse and Carter. “You two have the highest kill count on the team, and when it comes to hand-to-hand combat, you’re?—”
“The Sorens know who we all are now. They’ll know what I did for a living before Falcon. And Carter’s reputation is . . . well, Carter is Carter.” Jesse nodded as if that cleared things up, but then hit me with information I hadn’t considered. “Hugo’s father won’t put him in the ring with us, but he’ll put him in the ring with the man he blames for their plan falling apart.”
“Me.” Oliver slowly lowered his hands to his sides and faced us. “Hugo started this with me, and it’ll end with me.”
“We offer Nicholas this fight, and the loser has to back out from the bid. Not that the fight really matters, we’re just using it to bait the Sorens to that island. Setting them up for the final war,” Jesse added. “And we’re telling them that upfront.”
I blinked, because surely I’d misheard him. “You’re telling the Sorens you plan to challenge them all after the matchup between Hugo and Oliver, regardless of who wins the match?”
“You said we had to stop hiding and face them head-on, to do something different, didn’t you?”
Way to use my words against me, Oliver. “That isn’t what I meant, and you know it. Plus, don’t we lose the advantage of surprise by telling our enemy what we’re going to do?”
Oliver stared at me for a few quiet moments as if waiting for me to . . .
Ohhh. I wasn’t usually the one who had to play catch-up when it came to reading between the lines, but it took me a few moments to understand why the Sorens would walk into a trap knowing full well it was one. Once we told them what we knew about them, their options would be limited. They’d have a choice to make, but would they make the one we hoped for? Sophie’s-Freaking-Choice all over again.
This plan still meant Oliver would need to step into a ring with Mr. Bloodsport, though, and that part of the plan terrified me.
“Why not use that leverage we have against the Sorens in a different way?” I had to try one more time to prevent this fight from happening. “Skip buying the hotel altogether and force the Sorens to meet us somewhere else?”
“We could try that, but I think we run a greater risk of the Sorens not taking the bait.” Carter crossed the room, standing closer to me. “If I can convince the hotel owner to be a mediator of sorts between us and the Sorens for our showdown, there’s a better chance of the Sorens actually showing up instead of cutting and running after we confront them. We’re offering them a level playing field so they think they have a shot at survival.”
“If the Sorens go into hiding after what we tell them we know, our lead is fucked.” Jesse chose to take the state-the-obvious lead that time, something I appreciated and knew too well, since that tact was normally my go-to.
“And the Sorens going off-the-grid is definitely a possibility once we play the hand we have with them at the party.” I understood, but regardless, I hated the plan. “But we have no choice but to play it, so . . .”
“We’re giving them a choice,” Oliver murmured, locking eyes with me. “And as far as I’m concerned, it’s a much better one than they gave us in Thailand, and they’ll see that.” He nodded. “They’ll choose what feels like the impossible, because it’s the only way.”
My shoulders fell. Just like you did.
36
OLIVER
Mya shut the bedroom door and remained a statue in front of it, barring the only exit from the room as if worried I might try and escape.
She’d yet to fully come on board with the plan because of my matchup with Hugo, so she’d stolen me away from Carter’s suite to lay into me privately.
“Does the team know about your shoulder? Or your knee? How about your back you keep holding when no one is looking?”
“I guess someone was looking after all.” Not the best comeback, but she wasn’t entirely wrong. “I haven’t been in this kind of shape since my Army days.” I was a hell of a lot older now, with quite a few more injuries, though.
My shoulder dislocating during a match with Hugo could end things for me right there. I couldn’t think about that, though. There wasn’t a chance I’d let anyone else on Falcon step in for me, so I’d have to suck it up and handle it.
She pushed away from the door, her mouth drawn tight while shaking her head in frustration. “This fight . . . it feels like you’re sacrificing yourself all over again. You don’t owe the world anything.”
